Written by Kianna Best on Jul 27, 2022. Posted in Production News

Local Los Angeles productions stabilise above pre-pandemic figures

FilmLA announced their production report for the second quarter of the year on 20 July 2022. The partner film office for the city and county of Los Angeles recorded 9220 shoot days (SD) for the quarterly period of the year. These figures suggest the city’s return to its pre-pandemic strength and promise to continue growth.

Image courtesy of Chris Murray

Paul Adley, FilmLA president stated: “Resilient in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, and with industry leaders taking steps to protect both worker and community safety, we have confidence in the film industry’s ability to sustain local production at or above its historic levels.”

Image courtesy of FilmLA

Figures for production were posted comparing the first and second quarters of 2021 with those of this year. Although dropping 5.8% in comparison to quarter two of the previous year, feature film and television production activity saw growth. Increasing by 9%, feature films generated 898 SD, influenced by the California film and television tax credit program from the California Film Commission. Large scale productions that took place during this quarter were Barbie (Warner Bros.), Being Mortal (Searchlight Pictures) an Untitled Jonah Hill Project (Netflix), and the remake of White Men Can’t Jump (20^th Century Studios).

Image courtesy of FilmLA

“We expected we would see production return to pre-pandemic levels sometime within the year, and now here we are,” added Adley.

Whilst general television figures fell by 15.8% in comparison to quarter two of 2021, the TV reality category increased by 6.7%, despite not being eligible for the state’s tax credit. TV comedy statistics were also up by 61.8%. With 20.7% of shoot days in the television categories being incentivised projects, 206 of those days were for episodic dramas. For the first quarter these included Netflix’s Dead to Me, HBO’s award-winning series Euphoria and FX’s Snowfall.

Image courtesy of FilmLA

The non-incentivised commercial category also showed a decline, falling 28.1% from quarter two of 2021, generating 1110 SD. This drop also adds to the 21.4% lower figure than the five-year category average for quarter two.