By successfully working with Los Angeles-based location scouts and HBO to score one of the more buzzed-about cable series of 2017, the Monterey County Film Commission picked quite a way to celebrate three decades.
The nonprofit commission has enjoyed a decorated run in pursuing its stated mission, per its website, to promote “our area’s locations, crew and businesses to the film industry, making it easy for filmmakers to take their projects from start to finish here.”
It started with simple recognition that a commission could help attract and facilitate big-money productions like Basic Instinct and Turner and Hooch and, in 2014,Mad Men.
“It’s television! It’s movies!” MCFC spokesperson Karen Nordstrand says. “You gotta set things up!”
The bread and butter, though, is commercials.
“Those are plastered all over the world,” says commission president Alan Vasquez. “People see the Pebble Beach cypress and Bixby Bridge and Laguna Seca and subliminally want to come here.”
The big screen, meanwhile, helps rekindle a local legacy.
“It used to be Hollywood’s backyard,” Vasquez says. “Think of the old Del Monte Hotel. These productions reconnect us.”
A new commission website soft-launches as Big Little Lies appears on HBO and will deliver a boatload more photos and local advertising opportunities. A season finale party to pack in people who couldn’t attend the Feb. 19 launch party in Carmel is also in planning stages, with an eye toward venues that can host even more people. It’s safe to say things are going to be big.
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