find out what people are saying about Kansas City film

Testimonials from Netflix’s “Queer Eye – Season 3” filmed in Kansas City in 2018

 

KC Testimonials  – “Queer Eye – Season 3”

 

Dave Collins (Executive Producer, Creator): We had been deciding where we were gonna bring Queer Eye and fell crazy in love with Kansas City. The film commission, they did everything they could to make sure that our crew and team and talent and cast were gonna be happy while they were here.

 

Jennifer Lane (Executive Producer, Showrunner): The Kansas City Film commission has been nothing but open to us since they day we made the first phone call. They’ve helped us source locations, housing, and not only that they have been treating us with generosity and taking us to cool restaurants and making it sort of their mission to help us learn Kansas City.

 

Rob Eric (Executive Producer): Everything we need, it’s a phone call away. And that to me is what you need when you’re doing a production as touch as this production.

 

Rachelle Mendez (Co-Executive Producer): On Queer Eye, we make probably five mini reality shows every single week. From looking for a restaurant, a salon, an amazing cultural activity. Kansas City has an endless supply of locations for us and the owners of these businesses, many of them who are entrepreneurs, have welcomed us into their city in a way that I’ve never experienced before.

 

Jennifer Lane (Executive Producer, Showrunner): Kansas City not only has like these great industrial areas, it also has farmlands, it just has an amazing variety of buildings and architecture and history. Doing a series, we need a community that’s not only rich and mainstream but also has rural areas and Kansas City is perfect for that.

 

Dave Collins (Executive Producer, Creator): This restaurant, this availability, meet these people, come over here say hi to this gang. That’s what works, that’s how you make production work.

 

Rob Eric (Executive Producer): I was in Kansas City for I think maybe eight hours, and I felt like I had come home. It’s a wonderful-wonderful place to come and shoot because it just gets our crew and our cast so involved in the city itself because they feel like their part of it. And that to me when you are dealing with where you’re gonna do a location for a movie or a television show is ninety percent of it.

 

Jennifer Lane (Executive Producer, Showrunner): I’m extremely proud to say that two thirds of our crew is from Kansas City.

 

Dave Collins (Executive Producer, Creator): We’re so fortunate that that’s able to happen, that we don’t have to bring everyone in from LA but instead our teams can be made of locals who know what they’re doing here, who bring top notch expertise in all the – all the departments, and allow us to be able to make this show on time and on budget here in Kansas City.

 

Rachelle Mendez (Co-Executive Producer): I can’t understate the help that the Kansas City Film commission has given us in terms of support, resources, and even friendship. I constantly text and email the Kansas City Film Commission Office and they never tire of giving me a connection, a resource.

 

Jennifer Lane (Executive Producer, Showrunner): I couldn’t recommend another city in the United States more highly than Kansas City Missouri.

 

Rob Eric (Executive Producer): I may move here and live here forever.

 

Dave Collins (Executive Producer, Creator): Kansas City Missouri thank you, thank you so much for having us here.

 

Transcriber: Hannah Fussner

Testimonials from NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior – Season 9” filmed in Kansas City in 2017 (and 2015)

 

KC Testimonials  – “American Ninja Warrior – Season 9”

 

Adam Biggs (Lighting Designer/DP):

What’s not to love, you know? I mean you’ve got great BBQ, great jazz, we went to the Green Lady Lounge, perfect, awesome. Everyone’s friendly! Even the taxi ride to the shopping center, they were all trying to be helpful and explain where everything is. It’s awesome!

 

Kristen Stabile (Co-Executive Producer/VP of Production):

It’s very important for us that we get a true representation of what America is. We always get: West Coast city, East Coast city, Couthern city, and a Mid-west city. And Kansas [City] now we’ve been to twice!

 

Adam Biggs (Lighting Designer/DP):

When we go scouting locations one of the big things we look for is really something amazingly cool/different architecturally, and this has got it all, it’s great, so lots of places to put lights, lots of places to design lighting on.

 

Kristen Stabile (Co-Executive Producer/VP of Production):

We need to have locations that, quite honestly, have direct flights to Los Angeles. Most of us are from Los Angeles. I traveled 125 people, and we’re in the cities for 10 days at a time, so it’s gotta be comfortable, it’s gotta have great entertainment for the crew, I mean the crew they work 12 hours a day, but there’s 12 hours a day they’re not working. I traveled with 125, but the best way to say how many people actually work on my show is how many people I feed per day, and I feed 250 people. So, it’s kind of a 50/50 situation.

 

Adam Biggs (Lighting Designer/DP):

Without those guys we can’t do the show. We have to have strong local presence. That’s one of the big things we look for when we go out to all these different cities and scout, is to make sure we have excellent support, and Kansas City has been amazing.

 

Kristen Stabile (Co-Executive Producer/VP of Production):

The [KC] Film Office is instrumental in clearing the permits, the road closures, helping us facilitate things with Union Station, with the Mayor’s office, it’s just a great … enthusiastic, is all I can say about the [KC Film] Office.

 

Adam Biggs (Lighting Designer/DP):

*regarding KC Film Office* As far as getting the locals, the crew, equipment, vendors, and without that … it’s not just about the end result, it’s about the process [when] we go to each of these cities, because if we don’t have a good process it makes it hard to have a great end product, so it’s been fantastic since day one.

 

Transcriber:  Ted Miller

Testimonials from film production “All Creatures Here Below” filmed in Kansas City in 2016

 

KC Testimonials  – “All Creatures Here Below”

 

David Dastmalchian (Writer/Actor):

Working in Kansas City is one of the best places I ever shot, working in film. What makes Kansas City so unique and special when you are trying to make a movie is that not only do you have an awesome support system from the talent, the local talent, crew talent – the textures and looks of the city are like no other place I have ever been.

 

Amy Greene (Producer):

The Kansas City Film office was probably the best city film office I ever worked with.  The incentive program was super clear and clean and easy to use, I think we had a really great experience.  Steph Scupham is one of the best advocates for film that I have ever met in my life and we had a really, really incredible time in Kansas City.

 

Nacho Arenas (Producer):

For me it was very important reading the script that basically is a road trip back from Los Angeles to Kansas City.  And the writer being from Kansas City, it was instrumental for us to return to Kansas City.  And to have the community embrace us and the film office embrace us the way they did, especially for a story that was so close to the writer’s heart.

 

Collin Schiffli (Director):

We work with Heather Laird casting and it was fantastic. It was one of the first things we did when we got there.  So right off the bat you’re kind of wondering you know who we gonna be meeting and what are the people gonna be like, people that we’ll be working with.  Heather was amazing, her team was amazing, they were on it and they just brought their A-game.

 

David Dastmalchian (Writer/Actor):

We loved working with the local cast in Kansas City.  It was such a joy to find a lot of actors who have all this talent, and who are really experienced and passionate, but haven’t been seen in a lot of work before.  So that’s always exciting when you get to discover new faces, new voices, new talents and Kansas City is just chalk full of that.

 

Transcriber:  Sara Thaemlitz

Testimonials from BicMedia corporate project filmed in KC in 2017

 

KC Testimonials  – BicMedia corporate project

 

Austin Bicford (Co-Founder/Managing Partner):

We moved BicMedia to Kansas City’s Crossroads to be part of the creative community, and we’re really excited that this film tax credit is up and running, it allows us to execute more of our productions here in the city, and also incentivizes out-of-town production companies to bring their projects here.

 

Corwin Carroll (Executive Producer):

Having run studios in both New York and LA, I can say that Kansas City is an absolute dream to work in. There is a great variety of back drops, great local talent, strong crew. You can really accomplish anything you’d set out to do in New York or LA right here in Kansas City, and the tax credit makes it all that much easier.

 

Valerie Anderson (Head of Production):

I’ve been working in Kansas City as a producer for a couple of decades now, and it’s been so wonderful to see the city grow and flourish as well as the production community. Whatever you need; we’re very warm and welcoming. I always hear great reviews.

 

Corwin Carroll (Executive Producer):

The Film Office is an absolute pleasure to work with. Steph [Scupham] makes everything easy.

 

Valerie Anderson (Head of Production):

She’s helped us find locations or crew members. She’s great for local production companies, as well as films that are coming to town.

 

Austin Bicford (Co-Founder/Managing Partner):

We’d love to see the tax credit [incentive] go state wide, throughout Missouri, to utilize all of the resources and diverse locations and assets that the state has to offer.

 

Transcriber:  Ted Miller

Testimonials from television show “New Girls on the Block” filmed in Kansas City in 2015

 

Eric Streit (Executive Producer)

Anytime you go to a location and you have to shoot everything local with local crews, for an executive producer or director or show runner, it’s the most nerve racking, frightening thing that keeps you up at night.  Twenty-five years of working in television, I’ve shot in every state in the United States and almost twenty countries, and I have never had such a trouble-free production in my life.  I would love to bring more shows here.  I wanna come here often.  I want to take my Kansas City crew to other locations to shoot other shows.  This is . . . shooting in Kansas City has been a turning point in my career.

 

Kansas City has been the most welcoming city I have ever worked in – from the production community, the business community, just local people wanting to help and be involved.  I’ve never had such a positive experience.  I hope I can shoot here all the time.

 

The crews here are absolutely phenomenal.  They’re ready to work.  Their rates are reasonable and the depth of skill and knowledge they have far exceeds the capacity of any other local crew I have ever worked with.
I was originally going to bring a lot more people from Los Angeles when I came until I met with the local crew and I said I can do almost a hundred percent of our crew from right here in Kansas City.  And the savings because of that has been astronomical.  All the money we’re not spending on hotels, and rental cars, and per diem, is now going into the production of the show.  And that has made our series so much better.

 

So many moves from location to location usually eat up one to two hours a day anywhere else I have ever been.  Here in Kansas City, you can get anywhere in ten to fifteen minutes.  Everyday, we’re getting two to three more setups than I expected.  On one day alone, we were able to go to eight different locations and shoot fourteen different scenes.  This would be impossible in Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, New York, anywhere else I have ever worked.  There’s no traffic, but it’s still a large metropolitan city with two million people.  It’s unbelievable how easy it is to get from place to place.

 

Kansas City is full of amazing, beautiful locations that you would expect to find in New York, in Paris, in capital cities of the world.  They’re pristine.  They’re Art Deco.  They’re ultra-modern.  They really have every era of architecture available and reasonably priced.  Sometimes that price is free because Kansas City’s film office, and the mayor’s office, and the tourism office, are working very hard to bring film and television here.  So, just based on locations alone and the access of locations.

 

Mona Vasiloiu (Line Producer)

When I first got the call about the Kansas City shoot, my first thought was permits.  So, I called the film commissioner and I was shocked when I found out there are no permits in Kansas City.  Unless of course, you shut down a whole street.  So that, combined with the quality of local labor and a variety of locations, really makes this place unique and very film friendly.  It’s also easy to fly in and fly out.  It’s probably three and a half hours a direct flight to LA and two hour flight direct to New York.  It has a lot of potential.

 

As far as locations, Kansas City, it’s very different than a lot of cities I’ve seen before.  There’s a little bit of everything here.  It could play as New York.  It could play as . . . obviously Midwest, Chicago.  I’ve seen a couple of buildings yesterday around the World War I Museum that can totally play as Eastern Central Europe back in the ’30s.  I was absolutely blown away.  And again, people’s attitude is very important because they want us to shoot here.  They want to open the doors and show their locations to the world and the filmmaking.  There’s a lot of potential here.  And also the fact that the city is very compact, you can get from one location to another within ten minutes.  I mean our show shoots in four or five different locations a day.  And our company moves are smooth which is incredible.  Parking is not a problem.  I haven’t seen traffic since I’ve been here.  You could probably walk from one location to another if you stay downtown.  It’s very easy to film here, as well as, a lot of diversity in the types of locations.