As the flight of entertainment production work from California accelerates, Los Angeles’ film permitting process has come under fire from local advocates as overly onerous and expensive, adding to the cocktail of reasons why productions might leave the state for their shoots.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a measure that aims to change that. The motion, introduced by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, calls for various city departments to research new fee structures, potential discounts or fee waivers for public property shoots, different ways to use public safety officers, streamlined film permitting and stage certification procedures and solutions to alleged price-gouging for crew parking and base camp locations.
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It calls for the city’s chief legislative analyst and departments including L.A.’s film office, FilmLA, to report back in 30 days with their findings. “We must do our part at the local level to keep production in Los Angeles,” Nazarian wrote in his motion.
Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez, Nithya Raman, Traci Park, Monica Rodriguez and Imelda Padilla spoke out in support of the measure at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. Park, who said one in five people in her district works in the entertainment industry, called the motion “incredibly urgent.” She added, “I couldn’t be more concerned about the mass jobs that we are losing out of the city of Los Angeles.”
As the motion passed the Council on Tuesday, applause broke out in City Hall from attendees who came to support the bill.
A number of industry workers spoke up about the challenges that productions face in the city during the public comment period at Tuesday’s meeting. ”We need to re-address what we’re doing. I think this is a great, major step forward,” Directors Guild of America member Greg Zekowski said. Added the president of IATSE Local 728, Martin Weeks, “Any headwinds for production is causing production to leave Los Angeles and it’s causing our members to lose their jobs and have a lack of work, so I urge the council to vote in support.”
In a statement to THR, FilmLA president Paul Audley said the City Council vote was a “welcome move.” He added, “As we’ve discussed with Councilmember Nazarian and other City representatives, the City’s FilmLA-assisted process for permit coordination is already quite fast. There remains considerable opportunity for improved access to City personnel for permit activity review, as well as making sure City departments are aligned in their support for film production as a matter of economic necessity.”
During a brief speech before the vote on Tuesday, Nazarian stated that in the mid-1980s, Los Angeles regularly hosted shoots for major tentpole productions; by 2013 no tentpole films were shooting in California. “We’ve been regressing and losing so much ground,” he stated. “Now we’re losing commercials and platforms and miniseries. We can’t have this happen.”
Policymakers have been racing to address the decline in production work following a series of major disruptions: the COVID-19 pandemic, the dual 2023 strikes in entertainment and the larger contraction in the industry.
At the state level, Gov. Gavin Newsom has attempted to tackle the issue of runaway production from California with a proposal to increase the cap on the state’s film and television tax credit program to $750 million from $330 million. Various state senators and State Assembly representatives, meanwhile, have backed two bills that aim to expand the kinds of projects that are eligible and to raise the state’s subsidy for productions to 35 percent.
In 2024, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass created an advisory group of industry leaders and issued an executive directive that called for city departments to meet quarterly with industry stakeholders and review and make recommendations for reforming their processes for permitting.
Nazarian’s contention is that the city needs to do more on its end to help its industry workforce and preserve an iconic L.A. business. “Sacramento’s got to do what it’s got to do, but we can do what we can do here to make sure that we’re protecting the very industry that put Los Angeles on the map,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting.
April 30, 8:55 a.m. Updated with FilmLA statement.
