Written by on Dec 3, 2014. Posted in On Location

Los Angeles extends filming fee waivers ahead of California incentive boost

Authorities in Los Angeles have extended filming fee waivers by five years and will also streamline the permitting process. The moves are designed to help ease production ahead of California’s filming incentive boost next year.

Fees will continue to be waived through to 2019 for productions filming on municipal property in Los Angeles, including parks, airports and police stations. The city will lose at least USD 350,000 a year in fees as a result, but this should be recouped if production increases from 2015.

“Film and TV production is essential to our city’s economy and to our cultural history,” said Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chairman of LA City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Film and TV Production Jobs.

“It creates tens of thousands of jobs, generates millions in economic activity and keeps LA on the map as the entertainment capital of the world. These measures that the City Council is taking up will simplify the film-permitting process, incentivise filming at city-owned properties, and show that Los Angeles is ready to improve the way it does business with the film industry.”

From 2015, California will more than triple the size of its annual film fund to USD 330 million and for the first time in years will expand its incentive support to big-budget features and high-end TV dramas.

Film and TV production is essential to our city’s economy and to our cultural history.

Paul Krekorian, LA City Council

In recent months, local authorities in Los Angeles have been re-assessing their organisational procedures ahead of an expected surge in location filming in the city.

Star Trek Into Darkness and Captain America: The Winter Soldier are among the only big-budget movies to have shot mainly in California in recent years. The state wants to tackle this with the filming incentive change, but now faces stiff competition from established production hubs across North America.

For more industry views on the future of California's production industry read our interviews with Captain America Location Manager James Lin and Interstellar Location Manager Mandi Dillin.