Runaway Production

I never cease to be astonished by the cavalier and indifferent attitude that Hollywood and Los Angeles project toward the movie industry. Amid all the publicity and self-congratulatory hoopla over Disney's new theme park and production facility in Orlando, Fla., did no one realize that what we have here is the most aggressive display of runaway production yet? Of course, Hollywood studios have always been notorious for their lack of community involvement, but to see the unions, craft people and guilds yawn blithely while the industry drifts out of the city and the state is shocking.

Los Angeles lost more TV shoots last year to New York, but movie production and commercials more than made up the difference, helping to give the L.A. area a 4% increase in overall on-location filming for 2011. The data -- released Tuesday by FilmL.A. Inc., which handles permits for the Los Angeles region -- are an important barometer of the area's economic activity. At least 100,000 people are employed in film and TV production, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

After a decade of rapid expansion, the Southland's globally dominant cultural-industrial complex appears to be retrenching. Propelled in part by a glut in feature films and a decline in network ratings, film and television production, up nearly 80% since 1993, appears to have reached a plateau. Job growth, which had been averaging more than 10,000 annually, has stopped and even begun to contract.

In a coup for local film production, ABC is moving its high-rated TV drama "Body of Proof" to Los Angeles from Rhode Island. The new crime drama set in Philadelphia, which premiered in March and stars Dana Delany and Jeri Ryan, filmed its first season in Providence, R.I., but uncertainty surrounding the small state's film tax credit program put California in play. Gov. Lincoln Chafee has recommended dismantling Rhode Island's film tax credit program to balance the state budget. ABC received approval for a $7-million tax credit for "Body of Proof" in March, said Amy Lemisch, director of the California Film Commission.

California's film and television economy faces a potential Hollywood-style cliffhanger from such myriad problems as runaway production, slackening growth in DVD sales and union restlessness, according to an industry report to be released today. The survey by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. depicts an industry under siege and whose outlook is murky. The entertainment industry employs nearly 250,000 people in the county, according to the report.

Mention "Southern California" and "industry" in the same sentence and any listener will supply the third part: "Hollywood." For most of this century, film and television production have been a staple of our area's economy and cultural life--and one could say our identity.

The Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday that it would build a 56-acre production facility in northern Los Angeles County, casting a ray of light on an otherwise gloomy film economy that has hemorrhaged thousands of jobs in the last decade. The Burbank company said the proposed Disney/ABC Studios at the Ranch would occupy a corner of the Golden Oak Ranch, a sprawling 890-acre parcel off California 14 that has been the setting of such classic films as "Old Yeller." Plans call for 12 soundstages, production offices, a commissary and other facilities that could be used for film, television, commercial and new media projects.

Asserting that runaway production is not just a Hollywood problem but a national one, six congressmen vowed Wednesday to support legislation to encourage filmmakers to stay in the United States instead of leaving for cheaper locales such as Canada and Mexico. Representatives, led by Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), chairman of the Republican Caucus' Entertainment Industry Task Force, held a forum at a Burbank hotel to discuss potential measures ranging from tax incentives to trade tariffs.

For Pasadena, a Rose City by any other name not only doesn't smell as sweet, it stinks. That's the growing reaction to a cost-saving decision by producers of the new prime-time soap opera "Pasadena" to substitute Canada's Vancouver as a stand-in when production starts Monday on the Fox network show. "It's very ironic and unfortunate," said Ariel Penn, Pasadena's filming and special events chief.

It may have been a blockbuster year at the box office, but 2009 was a dud for local film and TV production. On-location filming in Los Angeles sank 19% last year compared with 2008, the steepest year-over-year decline since tracking began in 1993, according to FilmL.A. Inc., the nonprofit group that handles film permits for the city and parts of the county. The production sector -- a major employer and key component of L.A.'s local economy -- was buffeted on several fronts. These included the recession, which led to a decline in film, TV and commercial shoots; the ongoing exodus of production from the region; and the long-term effects of a contract dispute with actors, which caused financing for independent features to dwindle.

Each year, hundreds of film commissioners from Serbia, South Africa, Michigan and elsewhere around the world descend on Santa Monica, pitching their locales with tax breaks and other incentives designed to entice filmmakers. This year, however, the Assn. of Film Commissioners International will for the first time join with the Producers Guild of America in holding one major event at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank in recognition of the increasingly global nature of the movie business.

Call it the Happy Cow bill. The California Legislature is chewing over a measure that would require commercials promoting state products, and that are financed with public funds, to be produced in California. The California Assembly voted to approve the bill last month and this week it will be taken up by the Senate Appropriations Committee, with a vote by the full Senate expected in August. Assemblyman Ted W. Lieu (D-Torrance) introduced the bill in response to the outcry over a decision by the California Milk Advisory board last year to shoot part of its new series of 10 California "Happy Cows" TV commercials in Auckland, New Zealand, to take advantage of that country's low production costs.

In a North Hollywood studio, actor Jack McGee is stripped down to his boxers, his legs duct-taped to a chair in a room draped in plastic sheets. He's not playing his best-known role of Chief Jerry Reilly in the TV series "Rescue Me" but the unlucky owner of a nightclub, sweating profusely as a mobster and his goons threaten to cut off his legs with a chain saw. His crime: luring the mobster's younger brother to perform in drag because the kid...

Nancy D. Sidhu is chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., a private research and business development group that prepares economic forecasts of national, regional and local business trends. A former economics professor and corporate planner with Inland Steel Industries in Chicago, Sidhu moved to California in 1987 from the Midwest, first to work at Toyota Motor Sales before joining Bank of America as a senior economist. Sidhu joined the LAEDC in 2000 and eight years later succeeded longtime forecaster Jack Kyser, now the group's founding economist.

It may have been a blockbuster year at the box office, but 2009 was a dud for local film and TV production. On-location filming in Los Angeles sank 19% last year compared with 2008, the steepest year-over-year decline since tracking began in 1993, according to FilmL.A. Inc., the nonprofit group that handles film permits for the city and parts of the county. The production sector -- a major employer and key component of L.A.'s local economy -- was buffeted on several fronts. These included the recession, which led to a decline in film, TV and commercial shoots; the ongoing exodus of production from the region; and the long-term effects of a contract dispute with actors, which caused financing for independent features to dwindle.

In acquiring legendary Universal Pictures, Comcast Corp. would make its Hollywood debut during a particularly turbulent time for the movie business. Not only are all studios grappling with declining DVD sales and shifting consumer habits in entertainment, but Universal is also struggling to correct course from a prolonged box-office slump, runaway production costs and turmoil in the executive suites. Comcast wouldn't be able to exert much influence over the operations of Universal until well into next year after its merger with NBC Universal is finalized.

In an industrial yard behind Burbank's Bob Hope Airport, dozens of orange forklifts and 135-foot-high booms stand idle, gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. As recently as two years ago, the yard was largely empty because the equipment was busy being used to hoist cameras, rig lights and build sets for "Iron Man," "Get Smart," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and other movies shooting throughout Southern California.

The Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday that it would build a 56-acre production facility in northern Los Angeles County, casting a ray of light on an otherwise gloomy film economy that has hemorrhaged thousands of jobs in the last decade. The Burbank company said the proposed Disney/ABC Studios at the Ranch would occupy a corner of the Golden Oak Ranch, a sprawling 890-acre parcel off California 14 that has been the setting of such classic films as "Old Yeller." Plans call for 12 soundstages, production offices, a commissary and other facilities that could be used for film, television, commercial and new media projects.

In an industrial yard behind Burbank's Bob Hope Airport, dozens of orange forklifts and 135-foot-high booms stand idle, gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. As recently as two years ago, the yard was largely empty because the equipment was busy being used to hoist cameras, rig lights and build sets for "Iron Man," "Get Smart," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and other movies shooting throughout Southern California.