Amy Lemisch, who’s served as executive director of the California Film Commission for 15 years, is leaving that post. Her last day at the state film commission will be May 10.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who took office in January, is expected to name her successor next week. Lemisch was appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to head the California Film Commission back in May 2004, and was re-appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Among Lemisch’s many accomplishments during her CFC tenure was championing and implementing California’s anti-runaway production Film & TV Tax Credit Program which has proven instrumental in keeping and attracting feature and TV projects. In 2014, the legislature passed a bill that more than tripled the size of California’s film and television production incentive, from $100 million to $330 million annually. Aimed at retaining and attracting production jobs and economic activity across the state, the California Film and TV Tax Credit Program 2.0 also extended eligibility to include a range of project types (big-budget feature films, TV pilots and one-hour TV series for any distribution outlet) that were excluded from the state’s first-generation tax credit program. Other key changes included replacing the prior lottery system with a “jobs ratio” ranking system that selects projects based on wages paid to below-the-line workers, qualified spending (for vendors, equipment, etc.) and other criteria. Program 2.0 also offers an additional five percent tax credit for non-independent projects that shoot outside the Los Angeles 30-mile zone or have qualified expenditures for visual effects or music scoring/track recording.
Prior to serving at the California Film Commission, Lemisch was a producer for Penny Marshall’s Parkway Productions.
