Jon Crowley, executive director of the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission, uses the analogy of a family expecting a baby to describe the process of a film production taking place in a local town through the Film Ready New Jersey Program.
“It’s a five-step certification program that we run through the film commission, and there are breakout pods for police, fire, how to write a film ordinance, and a code of conduct,” Crowley explains. “It’s a lot of trying to set and manage expectations for the municipality that’s thinking about, ‘Hey, we’d really like to advertise ourselves as a community with open arms for production.’”
According to Crowley, a three- to four-hour workshop is included in the five-step process. To be certified as film-ready, photos of eight locations in a town must be uploaded into the commission’s Reel-Scout database.
Currently, there are about 90,000 photos in the database, providing location scouts the opportunity to search for everything from small, Midwestern-looking towns to Victorian-style homes. After typing a description into the search parameters, the database displays state photos that match the criteria.
“It’s a great way to get your town discovered by location scouts at the same time,” he said. “There’s also a database where you have to enter at least five businesses in your town that would be adjacent to the industry. So it could be a hotel, restaurants, a gas station, a hardware store, or dry cleaners—any sort of business that would be useful in helping stand up a production that was coming to film in your town.”
In addition to providing a photo location library, the commission offers free script evaluation and a location packet listing all locations in the state that might meet a film production company’s needs. The commission’s NJ 411 Production Services Directory also helps film production companies find crew members, suppliers, and vendors at no cost. Individuals can be listed as crew members for free, and soon, actors will be featured as well.
Last year, for about five months, the commission worked alongside the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General to help develop what Crowley hopes will become a standard film ordinance that towns can pass and implement within their municipalities.
Crowley said film production companies initially didn’t want to come to New Jersey because the state is difficult to navigate, with 564 municipalities, each having its own standards, film permits, fees, and turnaround times. He believes that working with the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General will create consistency in film permitting across the state.
“If you go to a film-ready town, it’s four days to get your permit turned around, and you know exactly what the film permit fee is going to be because it’s preset,” Crowley said. “So when you come into a film-ready community, it’s about consistency throughout the state, which is a huge drawing card for production—more jobs in the state, and larger qualified spend, which is the money that productions spend while they’re here on things like hotel rooms, dry cleaning, hardware, and everything they need for production.”
According to Sean Sepsey, director of economic development in Salem County, Salem County is officially certified in the Film Ready New Jersey Program.
“It started with my predecessor, and then we finished,” Sepsey said. “We were officially certified last year. So everything’s done, and we’re excited to be certified by the film commission.”
He added, “Being film-ready helps provide a short-term economic boost with short-term disruption and little long-term change in the county.”
The inaugural Salem County Film and Arts Festival is slated for April 25, 2026, in downtown Woodstown, New Jersey.
For more information, visit ChooseSalem.com/Film. To learn more about the Film Ready New Jersey Program, visit https://www.nj.gov/njfilm/filmready-nj.shtml.
This story is produced as part of the South Jersey Emerging Journalists Project fellowship, in partnership with Temple University’s Center for Community-Engaged Media and is supported by funding from the People’s Media Fund and the NJ Civic Information Consortium.
Original article by Monique Howard, South Jersey Emerging Journalists Project
ScoopnewsUSA.com