GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: Why Los Angeles Is Becoming a Production Graveyard.
The production downturn has forced some industry insiders to reconcile with the impact of the most recent WGA and SAG-AFTRA deals, which structure yearly minimum raises to match inflation.
Preston Garrett, managing director of production company Rakish, is advocating for a moratorium on increases to crews and the temporary lowering of minimums until more work returns. “What matters more, keeping pace with what’s deemed to be fair inflation or sustainable crew rates that keep people working?” Garrett asks. “If we make the market more competitive, more work will come.”
On Monday, Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra warned that the deals made with major labor unions are suppressing domestic production. “The contract terms are forcing productions out of the U.S. now,” he said at MIPCOM in Cannes.
“There’s a very significant difference in California, which has been the hardest hit [and] just hasn’t responded to what’s going on in the world of incentives,” Vinciquerra noted. “The cost of doing business in California is so high that it’s very difficult to price out a film.”
In a statement, SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said Vinciquerra is peddling a “false narrative.” He added, “Threatening the offshoring of American jobs is a cynical attempt to manipulate workers while masking the industry’s own business failures.”
Other Hollywood vets lament that L.A. is simply no longer a film-friendly hub. It’s not any one thing, it’s death by a thousand cuts. Another example: The rising cost of shooting permits. Last year, FilmLA rolled out rate hikes on a slew of fees. While some of the increases were tied to inflation, others represented markups of roughly 8 to 17 percent. Among the service pricing changes were additional limitations imposed by the guidelines that have aggravated location budgets. A permit that used to accommodate up to 10 locations over 14 consecutive days now allows for only five locations over seven days.
Jason McCauley, a location manager for Joker: Folie à Deux, which was partially filmed in L.A., says he’s seen permitting fees double in some cases. “It’s not the deciding factor, but those costs on top of what it otherwise costs to film here become expensive,” he adds. “It’s not just the permits; it’s labor, fuel, parking.”
As P.J. O’Rourke famously wrote, “You can’t get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That’s all you need to know about communism.” And you can’t make movies and TV shows in 2024 Los Angeles, which is all you need to know about the state’s continuing descent into socialism.
Incidentally, note how libertarian all of the Kamala voters in Hollywood sound when it’s time to jumpstart their industry. But then as Conquest’s First Law of Politics states, “Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.”