🎬 Exclusive: Inside LA’s plan to keep crews working…

The Dailies

How LA is fighting to reclaim its title as the film capital of the world.

In 1990, almost every major blockbuster was filmed in Los Angeles. By 2003, only two-thirds. By 2014, the top summer blockbusters vanished from LA altogether. Today, a measly 20% of North American film and TV productions choose California at all.

Hollywood is leaving Hollywood. And the economic bleeding is severe: when productions flee, they take with them $670,000 in daily spending, gradually eroding local small businesses and hollowing out neighborhoods built on the entertainment industry.

Now LA is launching a counter-offensive…

Yesterday, Mayor Karen Bass signed an executive directive aimed at cutting the red tape driving productions away:

• Making iconic locations like Griffith Observatory easier to film at
• Requiring only ONE city staff member on set instead of multiple officials
• Fighting "price gouging" from parking lot owners near film sets
• Streamlining permitting across city departments

This effort builds on Council member Adrin Nazarian's unanimous "Keep Hollywood Home" motion, which requires city departments to report back by May 29th with ways to make LA more film-friendly. At the same time, LA’s supporting state bills to increase California's film tax credit to $750M despite the state's $38B deficit.

The Dailies caught up with Council member Nazarian in an exclusive interview about LA's fight to win back its signature industry and the one asset California has that money can't buy.

Read the full report here:

https://newsletter.readthedailies.com/p/keeping-hollywood-home-la-film-plan

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Cody Petrowsky

My question is how can the state afford $750mm in tax credits with a $38bn deficit? Are they banking on that to be offset by production spend in the state?