San Diego downtown provides a rich environment for filming. With diverse, colorful locations varying from historic to modern and restaurants to entice any working crew, downtown is thriving with print shoots, television commercials, music videos, documentaries, reality shows, TV movies and series, as well as features. There are three things that drive a decision as to where to film. First and most important is the budget. Each project has a budget and the producer is checking our competitors to see who comes in with less fees and location costs. Location is the second major consideration and even with story boards and art directors determining the “look,” locations must stay on budget. Finally, the infrastructure is a factor and that includes qualified crews, talent and film-related services and hotels. Last month was busy downtown. The popular reality show “What Not to Wear” was downtown filming on the Embarcadero and Marina Park. Reality shows typically have smaller crews and less in their budget to spend. The impact to the community is less, too, and they tend to move around at a faster pace. About a year ago, Stephen Scott (who is one of the team at the Film Commission) pitched “Antique Road Show” for San Diego and now the popular PBS show is here filming three episodes of their six-episode tour. There are more than 10 million viewers for “Antique Road Show” each week and it remains the most popular show for PBS. People come from all over the country to participate, and the taping is done at the convention center, thereby attracting people to our wonderful downtown area. Wrap-arounds were filmed of popular icon locations for use between commercial breaks, which brings lots of positive exposure to San Diego. It will air next season. You may have seen our new Twentieth Century Fox television series called “Terriers,” starring Donal Logue filming downtown. They have recently wrapped their 12 episodes and are ready for the fall line-up on the FX Channel. The show is an updated “Simon & Simon” meets “Rockford Files.” The location of the story reads Ocean Beach, however, they have filmed all over San Diego. The show hired more than 100 local crew people and used hundreds of local people as extras. They also used hundreds of local hotel rooms and services. Millions of dollars were spent in San Diego, which gives our economy a boost. Now, let’s hope the ratings are good in the fall so we can have them back again to film another season! Surveying each project after they film here determined that $50 million was spent in San Diego this year by the film industry. Not bad! — Cathy Anderson is the president and CEO of the San Diego Film Commission, and Film Commissioner of San Diego. Anderson has earned a national reputation for developing programs to foster the growth of the production industry in the region, and for making America’s Finest City “Hollywood South” for more than 23 years.