As city and state officials scramble to slow down film and TV productions’ flight out of Hollywood, the L.A. City Council passed two measures last week aimed at making local shoots more attractive.
The measures, both part of City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian’s “Keep Hollywood Home” package, create a free “micro-shoot” permit for productions with 10 or fewer staff filming in public spaces. They also bring down the cost of parking at city-owned lots, yards, staging areas and civic properties to $1 a day for most productions, with some exceptions.
Nazarian said the changes, the final two approved in the first phase of his plan to revive L.A.’s film industry, will lower bureaucratic and cost barriers for local filmmakers.
“The goal to achieve with ‘Keep Hollywood Home’ is to make sure we make filming easy in Los Angeles,” Nazarian said. “How do you make something easy? You simplify it. You cut the red tape. You lower the cost. You also shorten timelines and the bureaucracy.”
Total shoot days across the city have continued to drop, coming in at 4,171 from July to September, down 4.8% from the same period last year, according to FilmLA.
Activity has struggled to rebound after the COVID-19 pandemic, industry workers’ strikes and streaming pressures despite recent efforts to shore it back – including the state’s expanded film and TV tax credit program that accounted for 40% of scripted on-location filming in greater L.A. in this year’s third quarter, per FilmLA.
Nazarian’s legislative effort is grounded in the belief that L.A.’s permitting and other regulations are part of what’s driving film crews away and toward lower-cost, high-incentive production hubs like New York, Atlanta, Texas and Illinois. James Babbin, a producer at Barnegat Light Productions who spoke in support of the “Keep Hollywood Home” measures at a Feb. 17 City Council meeting, agreed.
“When permitting and cost are unpredictable or misaligned with real-world impact, what happens is just plain and simple: productions go elsewhere,” Babbin said. “And when work leaves, the small businesses and the arts workers feel it immediately.”
Initial changes pass, more to come
The measures that passed at last Tuesday’s City Council meeting were two of nine under Keep Hollywood Home’s first phase, which Nazarian said tackled the “lowest hanging fruit.”
Cutting parking costs for productions shooting on city property to a symbolic $1 daily fee will help eliminate surprises, the councilmember said, and make filming more accessible for smaller, younger crews. Before the measure passed, the city charged $450 a day for park base camp parking and $100 to $300 a day for crew parking, according to FilmLA.
Free “micro-shoot” permits have a similar aim, Nazarian said, of streamlining the production process for up-and-coming filmmakers.
“The goal of this is instead of navigating an expensive and complicated permitting process, filmmakers will just be able to complete a short one-page application,” Nazarian said. “It also helps the city better track the filming activity that might otherwise go unreported.”
While encouraging permitting could help create a fuller record of local shoots, the councilmember conceded that many small productions don’t bother getting permits anyway. USC film students told the university-run student media outlet, Annenberg Media, that they don’t expect the change to “actually impact us.”
“We definitely view the permitting process as a formality,” Gabrielle Grimm, a student at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, told Annenberg Media.
The eight motions in Keep Hollywood Home’s second and third phases could pack a bigger punch, but will be “more technical and challenging,” Nazarian said. These include a measure to fast-track the conversion of industrial spaces into post-production facilities and another to waive certain city fees for productions with 50 or fewer on-set staff.
Nazarian said he believes the next set of proposals, if passed, would make L.A. more hospitable for all productions, especially independent and small projects.
“Los Angeles is at a crossroads,” he said. “Either we don’t support the smaller productions, and then we watch the union members dwindle and the creative ecosystem crumble, or we take action now to support young filmmakers … to allow them to break into the industry, secure good-paying jobs, union jobs, and build a life and home in Los Angeles.”
