Almost everyone in Hollywood wants to get back to work. What’s taking so long?
Jobs, Labor & Workplace,For L.A. Times Subscribers
Christi Carras Marisa Gerber March 21, 2024
After working nonstop on TV sets for almost all of 2022, unit production manager
Matt Baker
decided to take the rest of the year off. He looked forward to relaxing, playing golf and spending quality time with his wife and daughter. He expected to return to work after the holidays.
Things did not go as planned. Baker has not been employed on a film or TV set since October 2022.
“I was … pretty keenly aware that we were going through a change in the industry, and there was going to be some
some
consolidation, and I think the strikes had a lot of effect on how the studios were going to move forward,” said Baker, who has worked on TV series such as
Hulu’s “Tiny Beautiful Things”
and
ABC’s “Modern Family.”
“It wasn’t going to be like gangbusters like it was in 21 and 22,” he added. “But I never in a million years thought that it would be this slow.”
The
Lake Balboa
resident is far from the only entertainment professional in Los Angeles who has struggled to find work in the months prior to, during and following last year’s writers’ and actors’ strikes.
By the end of 2022, filming activity
on-location production
in the Greater Los Angeles area had already been on the decline, according to FilmLA, a nonprofit organization that tracks on-location shoot days and filming permits in the region. This downward trend was compounded by the overlapping work stoppages
walkouts
, which effectively shut down filming across the United States for six months.
Additionally, in the aftermath of the streaming wars which saw several companies greenlight an excess of content in an effort to compete with Netflix the studios have been tightening their belts, slashing their staffs, restructuring their businesses and slimming down their production budgets and slates.
The resulting
production
lag poses a significant threat to California, where TV, film and commercial shoots are a sizable
massive
driver of employment supporting not just bigwig directors, producers and movie stars but also all the below-the-line laborers, craftspeople and myriad ancillary businesses that keep the industry moving.
“L.A. is very much tied to the entertainment industry in terms of its identity,” said Kevin Klowden, executive director of MI finance at the Milken Institute. ” AndWhen there is a strike when there’s a disruption it affects a whole bunch of different areas that aren’t just simply Hollywood, ranging from tourism to food services to everything else,” said Kevin Klowden, executive director of MI finance at the Milken Institute. “Given that 40% of production employment is based in Southern California for the country … that makes L.A. significantly more important and significantly more impacted when the entertainment industry has a problem.” L.A. film shoots dive 20% in final quarter of 2022 as production returns to 2019 levelsThe main reason Worsening matters
, California is finding it particularly hard to bounce back from the walkouts
work stoppages is
because it’s more expensive to shoot here, multiple production executives told The Times. That makes Los Angeles less attractive to studios looking to cut costs
in the wake ofa
after major industry disruption.
“California while it has its advantages sits in the wrong place for a moment like this,” said one Hollywood producer who was not authorized to comment.
Once the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists resolved their labor disputes
last year
with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, entertainment companies and workers alike seemed eager to turn the lights back on.
The major studios were desperate to salvage what they could of their 2024 film schedules, while creatives, performers and crew members couldn’t wait to get back on set and start making money again.
But filming did not rebound as quickly as many had hoped at least, not in California.
Los Angeles filming activity still remarkably low in immediate wake of strikesDuring the first month of 2024
In January, the number of on-location shoot days
and filming permits granted
in the Los Angeles area was
were
down
26%and 25.3% respectively
from the same month in 2023. Meanwhile,
while
the
number
of cast and crew members listed on permits during that time was down even more
about 30%
, according to
per
FilmLA.
January chart here”For the first time since we’ve been providing and sharing data … our permit numbers didn’t actually track employment situations,” said Paul Audley, president of FilmLA. “They were out of skew with each other.”Ryan: not sure we need this quote? After some digging, the FilmLA team discovered that
FilmLA
discovered
that the unusual disconnect between permit numbers and employment
occurred
because most of those filming permits had been granted to smaller, independent projects, which tend to employ
less
fewer cast and crew members than major studio and streaming productions.
In short,
The top entertainment companies were not showing up to film in Los Angeles.
Reporting by the Times supports this conclusion.
For example, of the
11
Universal Pictures films that have gone into production or preproduction since the strikes settled,
none
were shot or are set to shoot in California. Similarly, only one Warner Bros. feature a new movie from
“Licorice Pizza”
writer-director
Paul Thomas Anderson
out of
seven
has been filming in the Golden State. Nearly the same ratio applies to Sony, which has kick-started production on
six
movies,
one
of which is slated to shoot in California;
while Disney has 22 live-action films in various stages of production, roughly three of which are based in California. Here’s how many jobs L.A. lost during the Hollywood strikes
The decreasing volume of major motion pictures shooting in California
continues a long-term patternGolden State is nothing new
. Industry experts and insiders blamed the ongoing exodus on California’s tax credit system, which they said often struggles to compete with
fails to offset the costs of big-budget movies as much as
the programs of other popular filming locales, such as Georgia, New Mexico, New York,
Louisiana
and the United Kingdom.
The California Film Commission has been making efforts to prevent productions from fleeing to other parts of the country and overseas by offering film tax incentives.
to companies that shoot projects here.
The state awards about
$330 million
annually to dozens of companies that shoot in state, but the tax incentives aren’t as generous as other destinations that vie
compete
for the same business.
, have credits that exceed their tax bills and adhere to certain safety and diversity requirementsryan please let me know if this all checks out to you… i found the tax credit stuff a little confusing to parse through tbh. I reworded above RV THANK YOU!!
In February, the state agency announced that it would bestow tax breaks on
15
upcoming local film productions.
Five
of those features were backed by major studio players, including Disney and Lucasfilm’s “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” which was awarded $21.8 million to film in California.
Newsom and lawmakers cut a grand deal for Hollywood: Refundable tax credit and new set safety rules
As other production hubs “continue to develop around the world, we have to find ways to be more competitive,” said
FilmLA President Paul Audley
. “Certainly, we aren’t being helped right now with a limited tax credit versus what others are doing around the world. And I frankly don’t anticipate that changing given what we’re hearing out of Sacramento at this point.”
first 10 weeks chart
The outlook for Los Angeles is better on the TV side
, with the number of on-location shoot days
during the first week of March compared to 2023, according to FilmLARyan: This certainly seems true but one week of data isn’t super persuasive
. One of the industry’s most prolific TV studios, Warner Bros., has initiated production on about
20
shows since the strikes concluded, including
10
filming in California.
About 20 scripted series from Sony have started entered production or pre-production since in the wake of the strikes, with a few shooting in California; while Universal has logged a total of 35 scripted shows, 11 of which have been filmed or are currently filming in the state California.
That’s a decent level of output stacked against 2023,
but
overall industry numbers palepales
in comparison
it’s nothing compared
to the great TV boom of 2021 and 2022. TV production activity in Los Angeles was still down
during the first week of March
by roughly
32%
from two years ago, FilmLA found.
The strikes are over, but Hollywood’s lost year is a tipping point for the industry
Many industry insiders
pin
the tepid recovery on an increasingly
cautious outlook careful strategy
on the studios’ part. One veteran TV executive, who was not authorized to comment, observed that traditional buyers are ordering fewer scripted shows, while studios and networks will ask for scripts and a TV show “bible” to evaluate the viability and story arc of a project before giving it the green light.
Another studio source
who was not authorized to comment
noted a dearth of TV pilots circulating which they said could be due to a backup of content caused by the production pause and a scarcity of scripts penned during the writers’ strike.
“I do not think the world of television certainly original, scripted television in our country will ever return to what it was in 22,” said
Travis Knox, an associate professor of producing at Chapman University
. “It was 599 original scripted shows that year. We cannot sustain that. Eyeballs get spread way too thin, and you’re just not getting people tuning in because it’s too much content and not enough return.”
Peak TV brings production jobs back to Los Angeles, with a boost from streaming series
Several Los Angeles entertainment workers have said they began to register a noticeable drop in filming activity and employment opportunities around the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023.
“Leading up to the strikes … a lot of us were already seeing those work opportunities disappear,” said
Olivia Cain
, a set medic based in
North Hollywood
who has worked on a number of films and TV series. “I was really holding my breath.”
In addition to feeling the economic ramifications of the Peak TV era, the studios were operating conservatively then under the looming threat of a writers’ strike, which came to pass in May, followed by the actors’ strike in July.
False starts, secret talks: Insiders tell how the writers’ strike ended with ‘Lets make a deal
Knox suspects a similar situation might be unfolding now in anticipation of a potential strike by the Hollywood crew members union,
the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees,
whose contract with the AMPTP expires
July 31
.
Although folks in Hollywood aren’t nearly as certain of a n IATSE walkout as they were with the writers
, Knox said
musedthat
entertainment companies may be playing it “overly cautious.”
to avoid the financial and logistical headache of having to walk away from a project that was already in motion.
A production executive at a major distributor who was not authorized to comment countered that there is still ample time to get a movie made between now and August, and it’s more likely that studios will take
are taking
advantage of this window to get as many films in the can as possible
(albeit not so many in California)
before another potential work stoppage ensues.
Other studio insiders sources agreed that overall, production has been booming around the world with IATSE negotiations underway. “I don’t know if the … fear is the same,” Knox said.
“At this point last year, everybody was really, really nervous because they could see it coming,”
Knox said.
“Right now we’re still far enough away, and I think people are hoping that it’s gonna work out.”
Labor unrest defined Hollywood in 2023. Here’s what we learned from the twin strikes
The sluggish rebound in the Southland has impacted affected local prop houses, florists, marketing agencies, drivers, dry cleaners and the many other small businesses that rely on the buzz of steady Hollywood productions to pay their bills.
Its been sloooooooow, said
Mimi Clarke, vice president of Front Row Media
, an entertainment marketing agency that represents brands doing product placement in movies. January was a blip, February a bit more, March a bit more, but its not where it should be.
These days, Clarke said, the agency whose repertoire includes representing AOL in Youve Got Mail is getting about half as many inquiries per week as it got in late 2022. And a lot of the new outreach, she said, is for productions happening in other filming hot spots, such as Atlanta,
Ga.
Albuquerque
, New Mexico
and Croatia.
L.A. is even quieter, she said. Not even half of what it should be.
L.A. prop houses prepare for the return of production after dual Hollywood strikes
Clarke, whose job entails spending time on the phone with people across the industry, said that in recent weeks she has heard a common thread: Producers are leery of launching projects that wont wrap by the summer, when contracts representing more than 66,000 unionized Hollywood crew members are set to expire.
The people who are striking are striking for good reason, but its hard, she said. Its like Groundhog Day. Here we are again.
Frank Uchalik
, owner of laboratory and medical prop house
Heritage Props LA
, said that his business has been “actually very busy” in the wake of the writers’ and actors’ walkouts which decimated his staff and prompted him to construct a hospital set he rented to nonunion productions in order to stay solvent.
Heritage now is bringing in around $150,000 a month, Uchalik said, and has built back to a staff of four. If the prop house stays this active,
Uchalik expects to pay off the debt he incurred during the strikes within a couple of months.
Its just fortunate that a lot of the shows that did return ‘The Rookie,’ ‘Station 19,’ ‘Greys Anatomy,’ ‘NCIS’ they all happen to have a need for our product,” Uchalik said.
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The prop house’s comeback offers a sliver of hope in an otherwise bleak moment for the hundreds of thousands of vendors, crew members, craftspeople and artists striving to make a living
in the town that gave Hollywood its name
.
“Before the strikes, you really felt the production beating through the city,” Cain said. “The production trucks, the location signs, the massive pop-up tents, the camera equipment on the sidewalk it was always all around you. … And now, you don’t even want to ask your friends how they’re doing because you know exactly what the answer is. No one’s working. No one’s received a call.”
Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.
