These past few years have been huge for the film industry within Fort Worth, as the city continues to become an increasingly popular filming location for movies and television.
In the past few years alone, '12 Mighty Orphans' (starring Luke Wilson, Vinessa Shaw and Martin Sheen), 'The Senior' (starring Michael Chiklis and Rob Corddry), the Paramount+ series 'Y:1883' (starring Sam Elliott, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw), and more have all been shot in Fort Worth.
"The community has really embraced film projects," Fort Worth Film Commissioner Jessica Christopherson told KRLD. "We have so many film-friendly locations."..."The community, the neighborhoods, the districts, personal business owners, homeowners have really opened their doors to these film-friendly locations"..."We also have a really good crew base in our area, so I think projects from out of town recognize that."
Locations such as the stockyards, Farrington Field, and the city's southside can all be seen in recent productions, but the Film Commission's long-term goal would see a large studio calling Fort Worth home.
"The long-term goal is to attract some type of larger studio space where projects could be housed in Fort Worth more long term like television shows, larger productions," Christopherson said.
One of the many advantages to filming within the city and looking to increase the popularity of Fort Worth as a location for media productions is of course employment.
"Ultimately the goal is to develop talent in the city and have them stay here so that they don't have to move off to Los Angeles or New York or elsewhere to find work," Christopherson said. "So the more that we can attract projects to the city and create jobs for people who are based here, people who are getting out of college who are majoring in film and television production then that will continue to provide those opportunities."
"We have so many great universities in our area, and we've definitely worked closely with TCU and actually UTA and TCC in the past as well to try to develop that relationship to showcase the opportunities that are here in Fort Worth," Christopherson said. "We host quarterly mixers through the Film Commission where we make them open to the public, so anyone whos interested in learning more about film and the film industry here, just as an opportunity to network and that's definitely something that we'd like to continue to engage more college students in as well."
And it isn't just the city's college students who can benefit from this growth, the Lone Star Film Festival also ran a summer film camp in 2021 for youngsters to learn some of the ins and outs of filmmaking through a hands-on approach.
The festival, which took place in November, also works closely with the Film Commission to highlight local talent such as writer/director Channing Godfrey-Peoples, whose award-winning 2020 feature 'Miss Juneteenth' was shot and filmed in her native Fort Worth.
"I think it's huge that we have people who grew up in Fort Worth, based in Fort Worth, and bring the projects back home to the city," Christopherson said. "We've had two films that are Fort Worth stories with Channing Godfrey-Peoples' 'Miss Juneteenth,' and then '12 Mighty Orphans.' So, I think the film festival plays a huge role in that, we want to have a strong film festival so we can continue to have a strong film and creative community in Fort Worth, I think the two go hand in hand."
Looking ahead and the Commission has no intentions of slowing down, with Christopherson saying that while she cannot say exactly what film and television projects may have been looking into Fort Worth, "hopefully we'll have some announcements soon after the first of the year."
"The momentum is going strong, people are seeing the great high-level work that's coming out of our city, people are noticing the talent that's in our city, so I think that the future really looks bright for film," Christopherson said. "We have a mayor and city councilors that are supportive so we're looking forward to bringing more projects here, providing more jobs, more opportunity, and ultimately just another way to showcase our city and our creative community."
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