The production boom brings Hollywood to Cowtown
Fort Worth welcomes the film industry
The cameras are rolling in Fort Worth.
Nearly 10 years in, the Fort Worth Film Commission has met its goal of making Cowtown a destination for filmmakers.
“When we started out, we had a mission that we wanted [the Film Commission] to be a beacon for the creative class in Fort Worth,” said Red Sanders, owner of Red Productions and a member of the Commission’s executive committee.
The Film Commission set a 10-year goal to attract “a major TV show or film that shot in Fort Worth and went on to win industry top honors,” Sanders said.
Enter Taylor Sheridan.
Sheridan, a Paschal alumnus, followed the light back to Fort Worth and brought an entire industry with him.
As the creator of hit-shows such as “Yellowstone” and “1923,” Sheridan brought “not just one hit show, but multiple,” Sanders said.
Starting with the filming of “1883” back in 2021 followed by “Lawmen: Bass Reeves” in 2022, Sheridan has settled into Fort Worth and recently wrapped filming for his third Fort Worth-based project, “Landman,” for Paramount+, with more already in the works, Sanders said.
“The fact that we now have a major director-showrunner-hitmaker here who is very passionate about growing the workforce in Fort Worth is really cool to see,” Sanders said.
On top of shattering the Film Commission’s 10-year goal, the return of Sheridan to Fort Worth with 101 Studios in tow to produce his projects also solidified a new avenue for investment into the city.
“Sheridan’s investment in Fort Worth has created hundreds of jobs and has had a huge economic impact on Fort Worth,” said Taylor Hardy, Fort Worth’s Associate Film Commissioner. “The 101 Studios productions have also helped to raise awareness of Fort Worth while increasing tourism from fans who want to see locations featured in their favorite shows.”
Film crews appear in the Stockyards every few weeks, allowing Fort Worth residents to try their hand at background acting and the city plenty of time to shine on the silver screen.
With cast and crew boarding up in hotels, production crews hiring restaurants for catering services and costume designers purchasing pieces from retailers, the new buzz of film production supports local Fort Worth businesses, Hardy said.
“Since 2015, the Film Commission has tracked $655 million in economic impact from productions filming in Fort Worth,” Hardy said.
In 2015, the Fort Worth Film Commission was established to “to proactively pitch the city as a film destination while also serving as a local resource to projects filming in the city,” Hardy said.
The Film Commission provides “support for location scouting, the permitting process, assistance with production rates at local hotels, sourcing local cast and crews and promotion of projects filmed in Fort Worth,” Hardy said.
With the launch of the Film Commission, Hardy said, the majority of requests were initially for smaller projects and single locations.
Now, there is an opportunity to reimagine Fort Worth as a genuine industry for film production, a luxury previously unavailable to aspiring filmmakers.
When Sanders graduated from TCU 19 years ago, the pool of Fort Worth production companies capped at two.
“It was like the Wild West,” Gabriel Gutierrez, who graduated from TCU in 2017 with a degree in film, television and digital media, said of his challenges to find post-graduation production work in Fort Worth. “There was no specific place you could turn to.”
By the time Gutierrez graduated, he said Sanders’ Red Productions was one of the major players in Fort Worth production, but large-scale productions were still few and far between.
Gutierrez, who just graduated from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles with an MFA in producing, recognized the new appeal of Fort Worth’s Cowtown reputation, “Since I left Fort Worth, this cowboy culture has become more mainstream.”
This “cowboy culture” changed the game for local Fort Worth crews.
“Fort Worth is known for having a highly skilled crew base,” Hardy said. “However, we have had challenges keeping up with the demand for trained crew members on set.”
With the expectation of a continued increase in local productions, the Film Commission partnered with Tarrant County College and 101 Studios to launch the Fort Worth Film Collaborative fast-track certificate program in August 2023.
The program “was designed to address specific skill sets for in-demand roles such as grip, construction and hair and makeup,” Hardy said.
When a large production rolls into town, around 500-1000 crew members must be hired, and many of the trade roles that are needed do not require a four-year university degree to learn the skill, Sanders said.
“Sometimes you’re better off getting a certificate from TCC [Tarrant County College],” Sanders said. “You can stack those on top of each other.”
Sanders said he knows multiple colleagues that have been in the film industry for several years that went through the TCC program to brush up on basic production skills.
Red Productions announced in March their production of “Fruitcake,” a film based on true events about a $17 million fruitcake fraud in Corsicana, Texas starring Jennifer Garner.
Sanders said Red Productions is looking to hire out of the TCC fast-track program graduates to crew those specific department roles.
For TCU graduates, the production boom means that there is a larger demand for talent coming out of college, and the need to move to Los Angeles or New York to live in a production hub no longer exists.
“We need people to stay here in order to meet the demand of the work that’s coming here,” Sanders said.
Gabriel Gutierrez shakes hands with his discipline head Lianne Halfon, the producer of “Juno” and “Perks of Being a Wallflower,” at his graduation from the American Film Institute. (Photo courtesy of Gabriel Gutierrez)
Gabriel Gutierrez shakes hands with his discipline head Lianne Halfon, the producer of “Juno” and “Perks of Being a Wallflower,” at his graduation from the American Film Institute. (Photo courtesy of Gabriel Gutierrez)
Graduates could “do better [in Fort Worth] in terms of getting hands-on work and being able to grow more rapidly in a career,” Sanders said.
Gutierrez said he is “grateful to see the city [he] grew up in bloom” with regards to the film industry.
As a filmmaker, Gutierrez wants to bring a project of his own back to Fort Worth and play his own part in the evolution of his city’s production boom.
The Film Commission “hopes to see the film industry continue to grow in the next 10 years with a steady stream of productions and more infrastructure to sustain jobs and support local business,” Hardy said.
The Film Commission smashed their previous 10-year goal, and the production boom is just getting started.
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