Fighting the Flight of Film Production

Los Angeles - Rather than just complain about the high cost of filming in Los Angeles, one location manager took his fight to City Hall. He says there's no time like the present to stop the flight of film production with just a bit of common sense.

Mike Fantasia (speaking at City Hall)
"One of the probs that we have when filming in commerical districts, downtown especially, residents, business owners, are sometimes upset with our parking, and they're are many times that the won't sign off on the approvals that we need to sign off on our permit unless we give them a large some of money."

Producer (speaking to Mike after meeting)
"How important is it for your community to be here in these meetings?

Mike Fantasia
"Very important we've had a number of issues over the last few years where we've had literally a 100 location managers down here. They've really seen the last few years the negative impact of the flight of filming.

Filming is very expensive here. Everybody has their hand out. We've been filming here for a 100 years. people have gotten used to us.... and over the course of time, people have found that if they hold a production up, they can make some money.

"We wanna pay our freight, we wanna be reasonable. It's gone too far in the wrong direction, where people want thousands and thousands of dollars just to park a truck on a street.

"Be reasonable, if everyone is just reasonable on their expectations, both on the production and the side of the public is we'd all benefit."

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The good news is that filming is up 15.4 percent in Los Angeles, which is credited to the California Film & Television tax credit, according to Film L.A., Inc., which coordinates production permitting for Los Angeles and unincorported parts of the county.

We've also seen a small increase in television production... 5.8 percent in the third quarter, driven by reality TV shows.

The bad news is that, from 2003-2009, studio film production dropped about 50 percent in California as other states started to poach the industry, according to Milken Institute.

Some states offer a 40 percent incentive. That means that for every dollar you spend, you'll get 40 percent back in cash and tax breaks. Lousiana and New York, for example, are very effective. Michigan and New Mexico were killing us... until recently when they had political change.

California is trying to do that with a 20 to 25 percent tax credit, but the supply of money is limited and there are too many people in line.