Washington looks great . . . or does it?
Five TV series with 32 primetime Emmy nominations between them have two things in common — they are all set in Washington, buy they’re not made there.
For all the real-life political drama in the nation’s capital, hit shows such as Homeland and House of Cards are filmed somewhere else, much to the frustration of Washingtonians who would like a bigger slice of the Hollywood action.
‘‘It’s a real challenge,’’ admits Crystal Palmer, head of the city’s Office of Motion Picture and Television Development.
‘‘People tend to think [Washington-themed series] originated here, when in actuality they did not.’’
House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey as a congressman with a Machiavellian streak, is up for nine Emmys — but it’s filmed up the road in Baltimore, Maryland.
Homeland casts Claire Danes as a bipolar CIA agent tracking down terrorists. It received 11 nods — but it’s 600km away in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The comedy Veep and the mini-series Political Animals, with five nominations apiece, were made in Baltimore and Philadelphia, respectively.
And political thriller Scandal is produced on the other side of the country in Los Angeles. It has two nominations, including a best drama actress nod for the aptly-named Kerry Washington.
It’s a state of affairs that the capital has endured since the 1930s, when Jimmy Stewart got off the train at Union Station in Mr Smith Goes to Washington and came face-to-face with the dark side of US politics.
That film’s director, Frank Capra, shot a few scene-setting landmark shots in Washington, and then recreated Capitol interiors back in Hollywood — a formula used by countless movie-makers and TV shows ever since.
One reason is that Washington is pretty much a company town — the company being the federal government — and that throws up a lot of logistical hurdles, from traffic congestion to security clearances to filming in public venues.
Getting prime exterior footage of the Capitol requires a permit from its security detail, for instance. Doing the same at the White House means calling the Secret Service.
But Ms Palmer says a bigger factor is money — and on that score, Washington is hard-pressed to compete when it comes to wooing Hollywood with generous tax breaks.
‘‘The incentive programmes really cut into our business,’’ Ms Palmer said.
In 2011, 37 states had a film incentive programme, offering a total of US$1.3 billion (40.4 billion baht), according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington think- tank that questions the effectiveness of such policies.
Maryland used its $7.5-million taxcredit envelope to lure House of Cards after a spirited competition with Washington to woo the Netflix series.
In return, during the making of season one, the show’s producers hired 2,200 Marylanders — from day extras to experienced technical crew — and bought goods and services from 1,800 businesses.
‘‘We’ve doubled for DC, I think you can say, for decades,’’ Maryland Film Office director Jack Gerbes says. ‘‘It’s a strong alternative to actually shooting in the nation’s capital.’’
Baltimore played its gritty postindustrial self in the acclaimed TV drama The Wire. Its varied neighbourhoods give location scouts plenty of scope for recreating Washington sites.
In North Carolina, the Charlotte Regional Film Commission estimates Homeland generated $45 million of local spending during its first season in production. Season three premieres in the US next Sunday.
That compares to the $60 million spent by the makers of The Hunger Games, which used Charlotte as their production base.
Much of the action in Homeland unfolds in suburban Washington, and ‘‘suburban is suburban anywhere’’, said Mark Washburn, the TV writer for the Charlotte Observer newspaper who grew up in Washington’s outskirts.
North Carolina has some of the most competitive tax breaks in the US for the film and TV industry, offering a 25% tax rebate on salaries and money spent on taxable items, according to Washburn.
But with its thicket of modern skyscrapers, Charlotte — the financial hub of the US South — falters as a stand-in for the grandeur of low-rise Washington.
When that happens, Palmer said, what viewers get to see is ‘‘a facsimile at best’’.