Written by Kianna Best on Oct 23, 2024. Posted in General Interest

California takes a production plunge

FilmLA has reported a filming drop in their third quarter report for 2024. According to their findings, production in Greater Los Angeles has fallen by five percent coming in at the weakest of the year. Residual strike impact and increasing presence of incentives across the country pose significant impact on production in the infamous filmmaking city.

“Only a few months ago, the industry hoped we’d see an overall on-paper gain in the third quarter, due to the strike effect,” commented FilmLA president Paul Adley. “Instead, we saw a pullback and loss of forward momentum, heading into the fall season that will make or break the year.”

LA fiver percent drop in production saw 5,048 shoot days. 758 shoot days took place last quarter across TV drama, comedy and pilot categories with feature film production rising by 26.6 percent to 476 shoot days, some of which took place during the strike action. Despite this glint of productivity, industry output and employment continues to fall in comparison to the post-COVID “streaming bubble era”.

"California's film incentive is a proven jobs creator that studies show provides a net positive return on every allocated dollar. What the program lacks is funding and eligibility criteria that reflect the outputs of the industry in 2024. The program's structure and management through the California Film Commission — these are excellent. But just as our competitors continue to innovate, California must do the same."

The increase in the number of competitive state based incentives in New Mexico, Arizona and may others, as well as other countries stepping in to double the sunshine state at a cheaper price point, are among some of the factors that have seen a departure from the conventional Californian landscapes. The California Film & Television Tax Credit Programme continues its effort to boost production,  with the Greater LA area welcoming projects such as Forever, High Potential, Matlock, and Orphan, joining long time productions like Paradise City, S.W.A.T and The Rookie, but FilmLA is amongst the many vying for an expansion of the programme.

Whilst unscripted production in LA has been on the decline , with TV reality production dropping by 56.3 percent to 946 shoot days, the production of television and web-based commercials has seen a rise by 7.4 percent to 814 shoot days with projects from brands such as Adobe, AMEX, Amazon, Google, L’Oreal, Microsoft, Sketchers, Starbucks, Subway and The Farmer’s Dog.

Image courtesy of Disney/Raymond Liu