Written by on Sep 20, 2012. Posted in On Location

Report reveals long-term filming wages loss as productions leave California

A new report has revealed the scale of California’s filming production wage loss in recent years. Between 2004 and 2011 the state lost USD3 billion in wages due to a steady exodus of filming projects to other US states and the international market.

The study comes from Entertainment Partners, which issues advice on how companies can take advantage of filming tax credits both in the US and internationally. California lost 90,000 jobs and saw a dramatic decline in its share of US production wages over the seven years covered by the study, the LA Times reports.

Markham Goldstein is Chief Executive Officer at Entertainment Partners and spoke to the outlet: “When we’re talking to our clients and consulting with them, they are making decisions not to shoot in California because of the incentives offered elsewhere. People’s decision-making today is very different than it was seven or eight years ago.”

Figures from the study suggest that the launch of California’s filming incentive programme slowed the exodus from 2009, which will fuel calls for the tax credit to be extended. The problem is that California is debt-ridden and conflicting reports in recent months have been questioning the effectiveness of the programme.