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ACCORDING TO LIZ - In a surprising turnaround, the little guys who rallied in April under the Stay in LA banner to “Make Hollywood Hollywood again!” appear to have ignited a fuse and won a decisive battle.
As reported, film and TV industry professionals banded together to publicize how the cumulative impact of Covid cutbacks, the prolonged WGA and SAG strikes, the recent devastating fires, and studios lured by lower costs and generous incentives in other jurisdictions have gutted quintessential jobs and laid waste to the small businesses that support production.
Councilwoman Nithya Raman, one of four of the City Councilmembers attending the rally pointed out that moviemaking isn’t all moguls and stars, “It’s a middle-class industry of costumers, set decorators, drivers, camera operators, hairdressers and caterers. It’s all of us, and to think this is a hand-out for rich people is patently false. We’re not asking for a hand-out. We are asking for the chance to work. We want to work in L.A., we want to live in L.A., we want to raise our families in L.A.”
A few days later by a unanimous vote, the City Council approved a motion by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian for the City to report back on ways to keep film, television and commercial production in Los Angeles, by providing easier access to City-owned properties, preventing the price gouging that drives up everyday production costs, and reducing permitting fees, fire and safety officials’ fees, multiple fees for road closures.
His stated goal to “…cut the red tape and roll out the red carpet for our film crews” and that “More production means more jobs for LA families, and the communities where they live and shop. Keep Hollywood home!”
A City desperately short of cash can offer only limited carrots to protect its iconic industry. but the Mayor heard Angelenos pleas and on Tuesday issued Executive Order No. 11 Reel Change: Supporting Local Film and Television Production to expedite making the City more film friendly and removing roadblocks to production.
However, with its currently curtailed fiscal resources, the City must join the architects of the Stay in LA movement and lean on its many connections in the California legislature to expedite passing Governor Newsom’s proposed increase of California's film and television production incentive to $750 million annually.
An investment more than double the $330 million that has proven ineffective at deterring runaway production.
Furthermore, the City must also unite with the state to push production companies and the studios whose wealth was derived from the local infrastructure to fall into line and pledge, as the Stay In LA coalition advocates, at least 10% more production in our city over the next three years.
In addition, it should seriously contemplate changes that would encourage even more Los Angeles-based entertainment industry investment.
The coalition’s call was for the City and County governments to spur reconstruction after the wildfires and the industry for which it is so famous by ensuring the future viability of Los Angeles as a place where craftspeople, film workers, and businesses thrive.
Just because Hollywood studios are now owned and operated by Wall Street multinationals does not mean they should betray their heritage. With perhaps a modicum of arm-twisting from their political connections, executives on both coasts could demonstrate their dedication to long-term investment in the Los Angeles workforce, infrastructure, and subsidiary industries that benefit from robust local production.
Not only film folks, but every Angeleno profits from the proven trickle-down benefits to businesses. In addition to the individual spending boost from crewmembers’ take-home pay, productions spends millions on purchases and outside services.
When productions stay in Los Angeles, every sector benefits: restaurants, retail, salons, hospitality, and beyond. The City’s budgeting team would be wise to factor in that, as well as the tourist trade drawn by the creative industry, by providing Angelenos working in film and television a fighting chance to continue working in SoCal. Not to mention retaining their myriad suppliers and service providers.
Both Los Angeles and California must acknowledge that the loss of this iconic industry will also mean the loss of a significant tax base on top of the visitor dollar attracting mystique of Hollywood.
If the City and the State want to retain film and television production and all its ancillary industries, they are going to have to fight for it. Producers should not need whole departments to jump through hoops for incentive.
California must look to competing jurisdictions to determine how to reform its clumsy and arcane program to make it filmmaker-friendly, slashing bureaucracy instead of adding more paperwork headaches such as State Senate Bill 756 and Assembly Bill 1377. Perhaps well-intentioned but both build on an already bureaucratic morass that contributes to cost and frustration, harming those it intends to help by driving production away.
Instead of studying the issue, the City must expedite affirmative actions that make the changes discussed a reality, and move forward to address other issues that imperil choosing Los Angeles for location shooting. From how to cover the green-painted bike lanes to effectively channeling all the non-City entity demands so producers don’t feel they are fending off a horde of gnats every day they go out to shoot.
This will be hard, very hard, in a culture that has come to expect to be paid off and where everyone has their hand out.
But if the Mayor and City Council expect to retain the economic base provided by our mature entertainment industry and its ancillary businesses, and ones that have developed because the industry’s core needs provide cost-effective opportunities for others, they must initiate immediate “Action!”
However, those who attended the rally also bear a heavy obligation to urge their unions to simplify the process of filming at home.Having 30 separate rate sheets on one show with a complexity of occupational codes just to allow accountants to pay the crew is just not tenable.
Accounting departments have burgeoned from a handful of people to a dozen or more in just a few decades to address the complexities of incentives and union minutiae, and the competition for competency has driven rates through the roof.
And Hollywood’s unions, instead of making a show of fighting the big bad producers need to join together and fight with them to ensure future employment for their membership.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno who now resides in Vermont and is a regular contributor to CityWatch on issues that she is passionate about. She can be reached at [email protected].)
