Uproar over fees to film in U.S. parks

Photograhers would be charged $150 per day

Jennifer Byrd, Associated Press

Saturday, April 29, 2006

CHEYENNE - Wildlife photographers and documentary filmmakers say a new fee schedule for commercial filming in Yellowstone and other national parks could put them out of business.

"It won't just be the filmmakers and photographers affected by this, it'll be the whole country," said Jeff Hogan, a documentary filmmaker in Jackson, Wyo., who has shot wildlife programs for National Geographic and the BBC.

"People will have less exposure to these beautiful places and exciting animal behaviors," he said. "There will be less opportunity for people to learn about wildlife."

The interim fees, scheduled to go into effect May 15, would charge filmmakers at least $150 per day for filming in the park.

They now pay just $200 per year, plus fees for any park services or assistance they require.

Bob Landis, an Emmy-winning filmmaker for his 2004 documentary Wolf Pack, said the National Park Service probably needs to charge filmmakers more for filming than it currently does, but not as much as the new fee structure.

Under the new schedule, Landis - who said he shoots at least 300 days a year in Yellowstone - would have to pay at least $45,000 a year.

"It'll put me out of the stock footage business," Landis said, who often sells wildlife footage to broadcasters who don't want to spend time waiting for an animal to behave in a certain way.

The problem, Landis said, is that the Park Service is treating large production companies that come into parks to film commercials or movies the same way it treats small, independent wildlife documentary filmmakers.

"The philosophy seems to be one size fits all," Landis said.

"If they can come up with a category that fits us - documentary and education filmmakers - then I think they'll benefit all the way around." That's one possibility the Park Service is looking into, said Lee Dickinson, the agency's special parks uses program manager.

A law passed by Congress in 2000 requires the Department of the Interior to charge location fees for filming on any of the department's federal lands. It has spent six years developing a fee structure, Dickinson said, which should be released to the public in a couple months. Dickinson declined to reveal any specifics about that fee structure.

But the process of putting those regulations into effect could take another year and a half. In the meantime, Dickinson said, the Park Service has temporarily adopted an interim fee structure developed by the Bureau of Land Management.

The law requiring the location fees was sponsored by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., who said Friday that the provision was meant for larger-scale Hollywood movie productions, not small-scale nature films.

"A not-for-profit company filming birds was never intended to be charged under my legislation," Thomas said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

But nature photographer Dan Hartman is worried about what could happen in the future if the government starts charging more for commercial filming and photography at national parks.

"Look at our country today. Nature is the last thing on anyone's minds," Hartman said. "To take away this type of wildlife programming would be devastating. I'm hoping this is all just a mistake."