Editor’s Note: The harsh decline of film & TV production in Los Angeles the past few years has become a central issue in both the City of Angels’ mayoral race & California’s gubernatorial campaign. Even with the Golden State’s program now at $750 million annually, jobs are still scant movies & shows are far & few between, soundstages sit empty & vendors are shuttering all over the county. The crisis has reached some drastic proportions. There has even been bipartisan rumblings of the need for a significant federal incentive being created to keep the home of Hollywood competitive with the likes of the UK, Canada and several former Soviet countries. The Pitt‘s Noah Wyle is big supporter of the programs that are already in place, the incentives that could come down the line, & Hollywood itself. To that, the Emmy winner & ER vet has a unique point of view on filming in L.A. & what can truly flip the script.
I have an irrational nostalgic sentimentality for Hollywood and its history that borders on obsession; a passion I share with millions of people all over the world.
As an Angelino, my biased advocacy for Los Angeles-based film and tv production is rooted equally in prayer for its ongoing legacy and concern for the livelihood of the creative community that built it. The Pitt’s phenomenal success has marked it both an artistic achievement and potentially viable production model and I’ve been asked to explain how we do it.
I’ll preface by saying I have more theories than answers, as this is literally a work in progress. (And you should have probably asked John Wells, he knows more than I ever will about all of this.) But this was our thinking…
Much has been written and stated about the obvious advantages to shooting in L.A.
Yes, there’s the 35% tax incentive, the crew and talent depth, unrivaled infrastructure, access to specialized vendors, ridiculously hospitable climate, dedicated permitting office, local access to major financing — to name but six.
Yet, we’ve seen 42,000 jobs disappear from this city in the last few years.
Yes, it’s true that each of the four major unions (SAG/AFTRA, WGA, DGA, and IATSE) offer contracts at tiered rates that scale with production budgets as low as $20,000.
Yet, it’s estimated location film and tv production has plummeted between 30% and 50% in the last five years. Soundstage occupancy has dropped from 90% in 2022 to 62% last year.
Yes, the multiplier effect, measuring the economic impact (direct, indirect and induced) of every dollar spent by production, typically yields a multiplier of between 1.5 and 2.5 in supply chain spending and worker wages. Yet, last year saw 80 family-owned production businesses, including prop houses and equipment rental companies, close their doors.
Even after doubling the funding cap in the incentive program from $330 million to $750 million, hundreds of articles appeared last year on the “Hollywood Exodus” and the “Death of our Industry”.
If … I weren’t surrounded by hundreds of brilliant, creative, and grateful, artists and artisans starting back to work last week on Season 3 of The Pitt.
The Pitt is an HBO Max drama, set in an emergency department in Pittsburgh, PA — filmed almost entirely in soundstages on the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank, CA.
It’s 15 episodes a season and, with a nearly 8-month production schedule, that makes it a veritable production Unicorn in this town. That’s a stark contrast to just a few years ago when the 22-episode network drama was both the industry standard and backbone of Los Angeles production.
The obvious next question was, “How can we afford it?” It started there. I think that’s worthy of mentioning because so many projects try to fit the mold of a budget. We backed into a budget from a different intention.
Shooting in L.A. necessitates keeping costs low, but certain price tags are worth it.
Our set for example, designed by Nina Ruscio, cost $4 million to construct. But given that our narrative never leaves that environment, that cost is amortized over the life of the show.
Similarly, by designing our entire lighting package to be embedded within the practical fixtures in our set’s ceiling, The Pitt’s DP, Joanna Cohelo, saves hours of production time, maximizing our shooting day.
Additionally, by limiting the storytelling to the parameters of our set we reduce transportation costs, location fees, security expenses, catering, parking permitting and a host of other expenditures associated with location filming.
We take full advantage of the CA tax incentive. Our show received just under $25 million in incentives for Seasons 1&2, reducing our gross pattern per episode budget of $6.6 million by $760,000. Over each 15-episode season we saved a little over $11 million, the cost of two full episodes. In turn, The Pitt had a direct economic impact of $125 million on the CA GDP, employed over 1000 people, and supported 200 local businesses.
It should be stated that it isn’t easy to pull this show off.
Doing this show in L.A. requires the discipline to continually face production obstacles and make them features instead of bugs; to turn the limitation into a frame. Basically, let necessity be the Mother of invention.
It’s hard not to have faith when you’ve seen proof of concept made manifest. The reported recent uptick in L.A. production is also encouraging.
The point being The Pitt enjoys advantages available to everyone to film in L.A.
There’s tax incentives, top of the line infrastructure, local access to specialized vendors from SPX make-up prosthetics to digital graphics, the deepest cast and crew talent pool available in the world… and you just can’t beat the weather.
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