While Mainland productions often hire local crews for below-the-line jobs, they almost always bring in their own producers, directors and writers. For Hawai'i film professionals, the consequences of ceding that kind of creative control affects more than individual careers.

"If we are not the ones to tell our story, someone who isn't from Hawai'i will," Lee said. "We're still making our way through these 'paradise under the palms' images, 20, 30 years later. We're capable of communicating a much deeper cultural understanding and appreciation, but our IP, our intellectual property, belongs to someone else.

"Can you imagine running a corporation and not having control of your own marketing and public relations?" she said. "We've watched the film office and tourism give it away."

It doesn't have to be that way, Lee said. "When a show is being enticed to come here by the environment, the location, the accommodations and the luxuries, it would be good to make them aware that there is also local talent that can serve as a writer or director, even if it's just for one episode," Lee said. "That kind of opportunity can open a lot of doors.

"If 'Hawaii Five-0' had had a Hawai'i-born writer, even for one episode, that writer could have taken that credit to further his career," she said. "That person could later have brought his own production back to Hawai'i, and that would have benefited everybody."

Lee sees constant reminders about the lack of opportunity. Her production company, one of a handful in the Islands that has been consistently successful in producing and marketing its work to a large audience, receives at least three resumés a week from former Hawai'i residents who left to find work in the film industry elsewhere.

With or without government support, Lee said Hawai'i's independent scene has the potential to break out.

In her view, the state has more to work with than current production hot spots such as Toronto, Vancouver, British Columbia, or Wilmington, N.C. did when they began to blossom.

All it takes, she suggests, is a little attitude change.

"These places weren't huge industries until the local industry became not just a service industry but actually started co-producing and producing," Lee said. "That was something we could have done, like, yesterday."