Hooray for Hollywood 2.0
The California movie industry in Hollywood, Los Angeles and surrounding Orange and Ventura counties was barely on life support after out-of-state money hit Hollywood like a destructive bolt of lightning.
The century-old movie industry peaked in the 1970s according to veteran industry worker Dusty Saunders of Teamsters Union Local 399 that provides drivers and transportation workers for Hollywood movie and television production.
Blockbuster movies like 1986’s “Top Gun” filmed on Hollywood sound stages and on location in San Diego County town Oceanside, Miramar Naval Air Station and “sleazy” downtown San Diego bar employed hundreds of Southern Californians, hundred. When production went elsewhere so did the jobs.
Example: When Saunders entered the business in 1975, he says that, “Universal Studios alone employed 800 union drivers full time on any given day.”
The decline was quantifiable. Fewer Californians working on movies and television meant smaller payrolls resulting in fewer taxes paid. The decline in California film/television production and the resultant job loss wasn’t caused by automation or technology, or a climate change, or change of scenery, it was caused by money. Cities and states like New York, Georgia, Louisiana and British Columbia, have spent lavishly to entice producers to leave California.
Watchers of movies and television programs that watch credits note that more often than not, states and local film commissions are thanked by producers for support.
Out-of-state cash inducements mean less work for Californians.
Saunders says, “Teamsters Local 399 had 50 members working sporadically part-time at the lowest point of the Hollywood depression.” Recall that in 1975 Universal Studios employed “800 drivers on any given day.” The bottom was hit during the 2008 Recession. Then came 2014 when Governor Jerry Brown signed the legislature-passed expanded “Film and Tax Television Tax Program 2.0.” It has performed miracles for the film and television industry. The right time, right place.
The Los Angeles Business Journal reported in September 2017 that California’s Film Commission declared that: “In two years of operating the expanded program, California has gained 38 feature film projects along with 50 television projects comprised of eight pilots, two movies of the week, 27 television series, one mini-series and 12 relocating television series…in addition, tax credit projects are on track to spend $28 million across 10 counties outside Los Angeles County.
The words “outside of Los Angeles County” are critical to the political success the extension is seeing in the Legislature, as legislators from throughout California are supporting the program. Program bonuses for production outside Los Angeles specifically in the ten other Southland counties are sweetening the deal, the program is not exclusive to Los Angeles.
A specific look at the program’s effect is in the “HBO” production “Ballers” that left Miami, Fla., after its first two years in Miami, for Southern California.
The 2014 legislation “more than tripled the size of California’s film and television production incentives from $100 million to $330 million annually through fiscal year 2019-2020…The incentive also extended eligibility to types of production that were excluded before, including big-budget features films costing $75 million or more, Tv-pilots and one hour-series for any distribution outlet.”
A 12 percent increase in jobs and wages is attributed to the state program. It has “attracted or retained 100 film and television projects generating an estimated $3.7 billion in direct in-state spending, including $1.4 billion in below-the-line wages.”
The program is up for renewal, for a five-year extension. Committees in the Assembly and Senate have approved the extension, now it goes to the full legislature.
This coincides with new production companies and money entering production with billions of dollars to spend; Amazon, Netflix and Hulu come to mind.
Question: Can anyone doubt the efficacy of Direct employment the “Film and Television Tax Credit Program 2.0” for Californians?
When the program started in 2014 “Direct employment in California’s creative industries (694,900) was more than two-and-a-half times the number of workers that employed by the computer and electronic manufacturing sector (262,900)…”
Film and television production are “creative industries.”
Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon is from Los Angeles; the Senate’s President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins is from San Diego, the program extension will pass if they support it. Why wouldn’t they?