Michelle Basch, wtop.com
WASHINGTON — The Nation’s capital is a popular setting for TV shows and movies, and D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray is in New York today in hopes of making the city an even bigger star.
The point is to try to convince cable channels like the Food Network, Comedy Central and HBO to produce more shows in the city, and not just in the obvious places like near the monuments or the Capitol Building.
“We have neighborhoods like Adams Morgan and Anacostia that really … say ‘D.C.’, but a lot of people don’t know that,” says Leslie Green with the D.C. Office of Motion Picture and Television Development. “So we’re really committed to showing that to the cable network executives.”
Green says another goal of the trip to the Big Apple is to bring more attention to the city’s longtime fight for statehood.
“In particular, they are meeting with the executives from the HBO documentary division, and they’re going to talk to them about perhaps producing a documentary about the whole issue of taxation without representation,” Green says.
It’s “a remarkable story that needs to be told,” says Gray.
When movie and TV crews come to town, they also help boost the city’s economy.
“We saw last year alone, fiscal year 2011, that the revenue generated just from television production totaled $12 million,” Green says. “That’s an increase over the previous year. Those TV productions also provided 2,300 jobs.”
The meetings in New York follow meetings Gray held in July with movie and network executives in Los Angeles.
Productions that have filmed in the District in recent months include the fourth movie in the Bourne franchise, NBC’s new drama series “The Firm,” and a movie called “Argo,” directed by and starring Ben Affleck.
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