Kristine Fergusson is fondling a red silk, floor-length strapless gown with a paralyzingly sexy beaded ruffle across the bust. She made this marvelous mantrap with her own two hands.

“Honestly, how many opportunities are you going to have to wear something like this around here?” she says, casting her gaze across the well-manicured lawns of suburban Detroit. A profoundly talented, self-taught couture and costume designer, Fergusson knew when she began fabricating her wondrous creations, nine years ago, that venues were limited. “It’s Michigan, what can you do?” she says. “I have my kids (four of them), so I can’t just pick up and move to New York or LA.”

Little did she know that LA was coming to her.

This summer, Michigan legislators passed a series of bills that, among other things, promise filmmakers who bring their productions to the state a 40% refundable tax credit. That break gets boosted to 42% if the film is shot in core cities. To qualify, they must be willing to spend a minimum of $50,000. But there is no project cap, no annual cap and no “sunset” (meaning that the terms cannot be altered without going through the full process of the law). There are other incentives as well, designed to employ Michigan residents and create a skilled film industry workforce in the state.

Fergusson, 33, who’d stuck her toe in the pool by doing freebies for low-budget projects like Bite Me: the Movie, has seen an exponential leap in the opportunities to work. She says that, since the tax bill passed, her phone has been ringing nonstop.

“It’s allowed people like me to do this – to really do it, instead of just pulling the ‘weekend warrior’ thing and trying to work your day job,” she says. “Every day you hear about something else shooting here.”

Fergusson is currently working (for pay this time) on two projects shooting in the Detroit area and says there are more on the way.

“Everybody’s really happy and excited,” she says. “We realize that this is not going to become Hollywood. Everybody’s going to come here for the tax breaks, make their films, and leave. But as we get bigger projects (Clint Eastwood is rumored to be eyeing Detroit for his next film) and they make it to the screen, hopefully that will change.”

States that have passed similar bills, along with low-interest and no-interest loans for filmmakers, have seen prodigious results. Connecticut saw an astonishing leap in filmmaking revenues (from $1 million to $300 million) a scant six months after passing a 30% tax credit in 2006.

And in these days of bloodthirsty paparazzi, there are other attractive elements to filming outside of Tinseltown.

“The movie stars like that they are made to feel very welcome here and get left alone,” director of film at Louisiana Economic Development, Chris Stelly, told The Detroit News earlier this year. His was a flagship state, launching a 25% tax credit for filmmakers in 2002. “Brad Pitt can walk down the French Quarter and, while folks wave at him, he doesn’t get mobbed.”

For Fergusson, an artist struggling to maintain her integrity in Michigan’s devastated economy, the benefits are obvious.

“I love getting to make things and then seeing what I come up with on screen,” she says, “and I can finally get paid to do it. That’s a really big thing.

“I have a need to create – and this allows me to do it.”

Wendy Case is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Arts & Entertainment.