As on-location production in Los Angeles continues to sink, the Los Angeles City Council passed two motions on Tuesday aimed at making it cheaper to film in the city, particularly for productions with minimal crew sizes.
The motions, authored by North Hollywood councilmember Adrin Nazarian and passed through a recently established committee created to address local production flight, will offer free permits to productions with crew sizes of no more than 10 people.
This is aimed at reducing costs for student film projects, documentaries, and certain low-budget microdramas that do not qualify for California’s recently expanded job incentive program but whose decline in Los Angeles has contributed to the city’s ongoing drop in on-location shoot days, which fell 4.8% year-over-year this past quarter to 4,171 shoot days.
This is in spite of the fact that 40% of the shoot days logged this past quarter came from films and TV shows that received tax breaks from the state incentive program, demonstrating the importance of addressing other issues in terms of permitting and affordability that have eroded the number of non-eligible projects, which also include commercials and music videos, that also employ the crew workers and performers who have found it harder to find work since the COVID pandemic and 2023 industry strikes.
The city council also approved a motion that would make city-owned parking lots, civic structures, yards and staging areas available to rent for just $1. This will reduce costs for crew parking and base camp areas that are key for on-location shooting.
“Today marks a major milestone for the Keep Hollywood Home campaign,” Nazarian said in a statement. “With these latest actions, all Phase 1 motions have now been approved by the City. This progress demonstrates the impact of the Ad Hoc Committee and our commitment to keep up the pressure for real reforms.”
Other motions still being weighed by the city council include one that would reduce the cost of certain permitting and safety inspection fees, which in Los Angeles often greatly exceed those of other cities like New York, Chicago and San Diego. Permitting office FilmLA has also rolled out a pilot program aimed at expediting the permit process for shoots that do not require major fire, police or road safety inspections.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who faces a tight re-election campaign against councilmember Nithya Raman next week, has called on state lawmakers to uncap California’s $750 million incentive program when they return to session next year and for Congress to pass the Motion Picture, Television and Entertainment Revitalization Act, which would offer a 20% tax credit on all labor spending for productions shot in the United States.
That federal tax credit would also include a 5% uplift for productions that are shot in federally-designated disaster areas, which includes Los Angeles County until 2030 due to the Altadena and Palisades wildfires.
