As the flight of entertainment production work from California accelerates, Los Angeles’ film permitting process has come under fire from local advocates as overly onerous and expensive, adding to the cocktail of reasons why productions might leave the state for their shoots.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a measure that aims to change that. The motion, introduced by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, calls for various city departments to research new fee structures, potential discounts or fee waivers for public property shoots, different ways to use public safety officers, streamlined film permitting and stage certification procedures and solutions to alleged price-gouging for crew parking and base camp locations.
The measure calls for city departments including L.A.’s film office, FilmLA, to report back in 30 days with their findings. “We must do our part at the local level to keep production in Los Angeles,” Nazarian wrote in his motion.
Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez, Nithya Raman, Traci Park, Monica Rodriguez and Imelda Padilla additionally spoke out in support of the measure. Park, who said one in five people in her district work in the entertainment industry, called the motion “incredibly urgent” and said, “I couldn’t be more concerned about the mass jobs that we are losing out of the city of Los Angeles.”
As the motion passed the Council on Tuesday, applause broke out in City Hall from attendees who came to support the bill.
“We need to re-address what we’re doing. I think this is a great, major step forward,” Directors Guild of America member Greg Zekowski said during the public comment period at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
Added the president of IATSE Local 728, Martin Weeks, “Any headwinds for production is causing production to leave Los Angeles and it’s causing our members to lose their jobs and have a lack of work, so I urge the council to vote in support.”
At the state level, Gov. Gavin Newsom has attempted to tackle the issue of runaway production from California with a proposal to increase the cap on the state’s film and television tax credit program to $750 million from $330 million. Various state senators and State Assembly representatives, meanwhile, have backed two bills that aim to expand the kinds of projects that are eligible and to raise the state’s subsidy for productions to 35 percent.
More to come.
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