Saturday, 28 December 2024
Saturday, 28 December 2024
The struggles have become a painful, recurring storyline in Hollywood.
A script supervisor visiting a food bank every other week. The cinematographer who moved to Georgia for better filming opportunities. An art department coordinator applying for administrative jobs to cover rent.
The economic outlook of the Los Angeles area, with a population larger than most states, has been clouded in recent years by events that have upended the entertainment industry. Market saturation led to a shakeout among direct-to-streaming providers. Then the COVID-19 pandemic shut down production. And strikes by writers and actors last year went on for months, giving studios time to explore filming elsewhere, in regions that offer hefty tax incentives.
When the strikes ended, workers in Hollywood hoped their schedules would finally fill up again. But for many people, things only got worse.
In the third quarter of 2024, film production levels declined 5% from the same stretch in 2023, based on a report from FilmLA, the official film office of the City and County of Los Angeles.
Paul Audley, the organization’s president, said in the report that even a few months ago, many had thought they would see gains — hoping for a rebound from what he called “the strike effect.”
“Instead, we saw a pullback and loss of forward momentum heading into the fall season that will make or break the year,” Audley said.
Since May 2023, when the Writers Guild of America strike began, motion picture and sound recording jobs in the Los Angeles area have declined 15%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For Deborah Huss Humphries, the past few months have been particularly challenging.
A makeup artist who built a career working on movie and commercial sets around Los Angeles, Huss Humphries remembers when she had to turn down gigs because of a packed schedule. But she has watched the industry evolve over three decades, with productions initially leaving the city, then the state, and even going overseas.
Through lean years, she found a way to make ends meet. Now that has become difficult, she said, and over the past three years, she has started dipping into her savings to cover her monthly expenses.
“What I’ve kept telling myself is, ‘OK, there has to be some relief on the way,’” she said.
These days, she’s not so sure.
Patrick Adler, co-founder of Westwood Economics and Planning Associates, a firm that has studied trends in Hollywood, said he saw the strikes as an inflection point.
He noted that strike settlements usually made productions more expensive. And the work stoppages, Adler said, prompted studio executives to reevaluate their costs and test filming in other locations, such as New Mexico and Georgia.
“Cost of living has grown in LA relative to other possible destinations, leading to ever-larger cost differentials between LA and other possible locations,” said Adler, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong.
A recent report from Westwood and the Otis College of Art and Design found that in 2013, the film and TV industries made up 64% of Los Angeles County’s broader entertainment industry. That portion has fallen to 52%. (The entertainment fields that are gaining employment, the report found, include video gamers and spectator sports.)
In October, to blunt this movement, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles announced a proposal to more than double the state’s film tax incentive program to $750 million annually. The plan, if approved by state lawmakers, could take effect in July.
In an emailed statement, Bass said, “The entertainment industry is the cornerstone of our city, and we will continue to do everything we can to support the many Angelenos that make it go.”
Over the summer, Bass established a council of entertainment industry leaders to work on finding ways to keep more productions local and signed a directive focused on, among other things, streamlining the permit processes necessary to film in the city. In the directive, she noted data from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. showing that the entertainment industry contributes more than $115 billion annually to the regional economy, accounting for 681,000 jobs.
Some of those jobs come from a wider ecosystem of workers — caterers, dry cleaners and florists, to name a few. Those jobs rely heavily on filming in Los Angeles, many local officials say.
But other places are working hard to lure productions away.
Georgia has an uncapped tax incentive program that has given billions of dollars to Hollywood studios. Officials from New Mexico have successfully enticed executives with tax incentives as well as reminders of the state’s natural beauty and proximity to California.
Netflix, for example, has invested $575 million in productions in New Mexico since 2019, including scenes of “Stranger Things.” And last summer, the company unveiled a significant expansion of its Albuquerque studios that includes, among other projects, four new soundstages.
At least 38 states offer some form of tax incentive, according to a survey by The New York Times.
Even if the proposed tax credits come to fruition in California, some in the industry fear that too much damage has already been done.
Vince Gervasi, president of Triscenic Production Services, a company that provides storage services for major studios and owns several soundstages, said relief should have come much sooner.
“People have been decimated financially,” said Gervasi, whose company, in a suburb north of Los Angeles, typically brings in $25 million a year. That total decreased by $9 million last year.
Gervasi said a few competitors had left the industry or moved out of California.
“They’ve had no other choice,” he said.
For now, some workers in Southern California, including Huss Humphries, are beginning to accept a new reality.
A member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees union, she has in recent months started a biweekly food bank to support struggling Hollywood workers. These are not just new and young workers, she said, but a group of all ages and experience who gather at a union hall to commiserate and offer one another support.
She recently found work on the set of a television show that is filming segments in Palm Springs, roughly 100 miles east of Los Angeles.
“It’s truly disheartening to witness the decline of Hollywood productions,” she said on a recent morning before boarding a shuttle bus to return to Los Angeles.
She would prepare the next food bank.
The New York Times News Service
