The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously voted in favor of a motion containing several proposals to ease the approval process for local film and television production. This includes calls for county agencies to find ways to streamline permitting processes and to develop a fund for film technology startups.
Many of the measures included in a motion, submitted by Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Lindsey Horvath, echo those being done on the city level by the Los Angeles City Council, which approved a similar motion submitted by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian this past April. Mayor Karen Bass has also assembled a task force to look into ways to make Los Angeles a less costly and more convenient place to film compared to other cities like New York, Chicago and Atlanta.
Among the other proposals in the motion are a review of film permitting processes, an effort to shorten the time it takes to approve L.A. Sheriff’s deputies for productions, and a call to clarify when film productions need to include fire safety advisors.
In addition, the motion calls for the county’s Center for Strategic Partnerships and the Department of Arts and Culture to seek out possible public and private partners in order to create an “evergreen fund” worth between $80 and $100 million that would support “new industry technology startups.”
The Board also called for the Arts and Culture department’s real estate branch to consult with film schools and industry leaders to develop a “new technology-based production facility” for both commercial production and industry job training for new workers.
The vote is part of a larger local and statewide effort to boost film and television production on the entertainment industry’s home turf. That crucial local economic and cultural pillar has been undermined in recent years as productions move to other cities and countries with tax incentives or simply lower upfront costs (such as cost of living).
As part of that, in June, California legislators approved an expansion of eligibility rules and benefits for California’s Film and TV Tax Credit Program, which was quickly signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The new program also increases the base rate for the tax credit from 20% to 35% with a raised per-production cap of $120 million. Credits allocated for independent productions have also nearly tripled from $26 million to $75 million.
