US West Coast California: Shooting in the State
Worldoflocations looks at the Home of Hollywood & why everyone is drawn to the Golden State, taken from shots #167.
You might think everyone wants to shoot in the state that’s home to Hollywood, but other locations have been drawing productions away lately. Now California is fighting back, reports worldoflocations.com, adding tempting financial incentives to its many other charms: fantastic infrastructure, huge talent pool and 315 days of sun a year.
As the historical home of the US entertainment industry, California has always had plenty of attractions for producers, among them a vast production infrastructure, thousands of famous locations and year-round shoot-friendly weather. But it took the introduction of an incentive programme in 2009 to start stemming the tide of projects that were leaving to shoot in other US states.
Production levels have risen steadily since then, and over the past couple of years the Golden State has hosted features including Hail, Caesar!, The Conjuring 2, CHiPs, Blackhat, Nocturnal Animals, Steve Jobs and Straight Outta Compton and TV series such as Aquarius, Bosch, Veep, American Horror Story and Code Black.
The effects of competition from other states are still being felt: for the first three quarters of 2015, location shooting in Los Angeles was 0.4 per cent down on 2014, with a TV increase of 5.6 per cent and a commercials bump of 2.9 per cent making up for an 8.5 per cent drop in feature film shooting.
But production levels in California are likely to buck this dip in coming years, thanks to the launch of a new incentive programme that triples the amount of credits available and eliminates budget caps. The programme, which began taking applications in May 2015, replaces the old programme’s lottery format with a selection procedure based on a ‘jobs ratio’ formula and establishes separate funding pots for different kinds of projects.
In the last year of the old incentive programme, $100m in credits went to 11 features and 16 TV projects. In the new programme’s first year $230m in credits have been assigned to 24 feature films (18 from studios and six from independent producers) and 31 TV projects (six having agreed to relocate from other states). And next year, the incentive programme pot expands to $330m.
Need to know
DO remember that Los Angeles is a company town. Take the opportunity to play the field of talent agencies, studios and production companies and schmooze at industry hangouts such as The Ivy, The Polo Lounge and Ammo.
DO study the state film commission’s ‘jobs ratio calculator’, which is used to pre-select projects for tax credits.
DO book studio space early. A recent upswing in TV and video-streaming production has increased demand and available sound stages can be hard to find.
DON’T forget that while California has 315 sunny days a year, the ‘June Gloom’ weather pattern can result in overcast morning skies in Los Angeles from May to as late as August.
DON’T overlook locations outside the big cities – along the state’s 800-mile Pacific coastline, for example, and in natural beauty spots such as Yosemite, Death Valley and the Mojave Desert.
The lowdown
Financial incentives
A 25 per cent transferable tax credit for independent features (with the credit applying only to the first $10m in qualified spend) and relocating TV series and a base 20 per cent non-transferable tax credit for non-indie features (with the credit applying only to the first $100m in qualified spend), TV pilots, movies and miniseries and new TV series. Projects getting the 20 per cent credit can claim an extra five per cent for shooting outside Los Angeles and for music and VFX work. The minimum budget is $1m for features, TV series and pilots, $500,000 for TV movies and mini-series.
Full details on financial incentives in California can be found at film.ca.gov
Infrastructure and crews
Los Angeles has hundreds of equipment rental houses, production and post facilities, five million square feet of soundstage and studio space and a huge crew base. In Northern California, San Francisco and Silicon Valley are home to Pixar, Dolby, ILM and hundreds of other animation and film tech companies.
Size matters
From Los Angeles in the south to San Francisco in the north is about 90 minutes by air or a seven-hour drive. Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport are the major hubs, but there are about a dozen large commercial airports in the state.
An incentive to stay home
Rob Cowan, producer, The Conjuring 2
“The movie takes place almost entirely in London, and we looked to see if we could make it work here in the [US]. In conjunction with the studio we applied for the California tax credit and were able to get it, which made it work to shoot in Los Angeles. The amount of people on set saying, ‘Thank God I get to work at home,’ was nice, but it is driven by the incentives.”
First person to call
Amy Lemisch, California Film Commission: alemisch@film.ca.gov
Membership
