The falling dollar has proven a boon to the region’s efforts to stem runaway production, but industry officials cautioned that the pendulum could swing at any time and that programs are still needed to keep location shooting local.

Overall, motion picture and television location filming in Los Angeles was up 19.2 percent in 2004 over the year earlier, according to the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., and Steve MacDonald, its president, estimated that the declining dollar caused production days in Canada to fall by 30 percent to 40 percent last year.

The dollar has been on a yearlong decline and hit its low point against the Canadian currency in November, reaching 1.18 Canadian dollars. The Canadian government responded by boosting its tax incentives to lure American production back over the border.

With runaway production dwindling, the provinces have gotten into their own bidding war, offering ever-higher subsidies on top of a federal subsidy to attract production.

In late December, Ontario’s provincial government announced it would boost its tax credit to foreign productions shot there from 11 percent to 18 percent of on-site production costs. A week later, Quebec announced that its tax credit would go from 11 percent to 20 percent.

All of which prompted MacDonald to call for both the state and federal governments to increase their incentives.

*A full version of this story is available in the Feb. 14 edition of the Los Angeles Business Journal.