Despite the aid of California’s expanded production incentive program, the number of on-location shoot days recorded by FilmLA in its latest quarterly report declined yet again to just 4,171 days, down 4.8% year-over-year and nearly 29% below the five-year average.
This is despite incentivized productions taking up 40% of all on-location shooting for scripted content, double the share recorded a year before. That helped keep shoot days for film and television relatively even compared to the third quarter of 2025, with TV comedies seeing the biggest jump as shows like Apple TV’s “Shrinking” and HBO’s “I Love LA” helped bump shoot days in that category from 79 a year ago to 193 in 2026.
But that scripted bump could not make up for a 16% decline in shoot days for commercials, which cannot qualify for state tax credits and fell to 562 shoot days this past quarter, down 41% from the five-year average.
“Where the tax credit applies, it’s working to bring productions back to Los Angeles and put local crews to work,” said FilmLA CEO Denise Gutches. “Still, overall production remains far below where Los Angeles needs it to be, and crews and businesses across the region are feeling it.”
There are still more incentivized productions to come. Earlier this month, California announced incentive approvals for 35 films that are expected to bring a combined 1,049 shoot days statewide. Those that film within Los Angeles County will affect the data of FilmLA’s next two quarterly reports, as productions have 180 days to begin shooting upon getting approved for production.
The state tax incentive is also affecting production in other ways that aren’t recorded by FilmLA’s study, which doesn’t account for qualified films and shows shot exclusively on soundstages in Los Angeles or animated productions like DreamWorks Animation’s “Donkey.”
But one year after the expansion of California’s incentive program from a $330 million cap to $700 million, the program seems to be only slowing the decline of on-location shooting in Hollywood’s backyard that began with the 2023 industry strikes rather than reverse it.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who is in the midst of a tight re-election campaign against City Councilmember Nithya Raman, has called upon California lawmakers to uncap the state’s incentive program in the 2027 legislative session and has expressed her support for the Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act, a bipartisan bill introduced in Congress last month that would establish a federal production tax credit.
“My administration will continue cutting red tape, lowering filming costs, and fighting to bring back productions that create good-paying union jobs for Angelenos, and support the thousands of small businesses that power our local entertainment industry,” Bass said in a statement.
