Crystal Palmer

As director of the DC Office of Motion Picture and Television Development, with oversight responsibility for every film and television show shot in the District of Columbia, Crystal Palmer offers a wealth of experience resolving the special needs required for filming in the nation’s capital. She also has extensive experience producing short films, infomercials, and promotional spots.

The sole government liaison with the film and television industry, Ms. Palmer negotiated agreements between production companies and virtually every federal government entity, including the White House. Knowing how to cut red tape and open doors, she helped production companies meet their schedules and budgets while ensuring that government operations were not impeded and that the city was enhanced, both economically and onscreen.

After Ms. Palmer became Film Commissioner she began by streamlining the city’s permit process; creating an official guidebook of policies and procedures for filming in Washington, expanding it, by request, to include the federal government; and creating a database of local resources and services available to visiting film companies. More recently, she pioneered nationwide the groundbreaking use of cutting-edge technology to attract film companies, including the e-clip videos and e-photo galleries now employed by other cities to save time and money.

These and other promotional and administrative innovations led the Washington area to now rank as the nation’s largest production region for film and television outside of Los Angeles and New York. In 2006, she convinced the DC Council to allocate millions of dollars for a film incentives package to attract even more productions to the District.

Ms. Palmer, who earned her bachelor’s degree in television and film production as well as her MBA in finance and marketing from American University, began her career as a WJLA-TV copywriter and, later, an account executive at The Wayne Smith Company, a major public relations firm, where she assisted in representing a diverse clientele including prominent politicians, entertainers, lawyers and sports celebrities. A native of Washington, DC, Ms. Palmer resides on Capitol Hill with her husband and two children.