The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday voted to greenlight proposals to improve filming conditions in the city as a room packed with Hollywood workers and union representatives erupted in applause.
All eligible councilmembers voted to approve colleague Adrin Nazarian’s seven initial motions to “keep Hollywood home.” Those include measures to speed up soundstage certification and to require city departments to report compliance with the mayor’s executive order on filming. They also comprise measures to launch an independent audit of L.A.’s permitting system and to usher in free “microshoots” (involving 10 or fewer people).
Additional motions from Nazarian that were passed on Wednesday will facilitate an agreement with L.A. counties and local cities to coordinate their permit regulations, will require the tourism department to present a “Made in L.A.” branding campaign idea to the Council and will work to unify filming conditions across the city.
In remarks before the vote, Nazarian called the vote “not another policy discussion” but instead an “inflection point for Los Angeles.”
“History alone will not protect us,” he added. “Production is mobile, capital is mobile, talent is mobile, and jurisdictions across this country are competing aggressively for what we once assumed would always stay here.”
The councilmember’s office has stated that these motions are the result of more than three dozen meetings with studios, unions, indie filmmakers and related businesses.
During the public comment period, members of the industry cited their recent experiences to call for councilmembers to pass the measures. The voice of one self-proclaimed member of IATSE cracked as she said, “I’ve worked in entertainment for the last 25 years, I don’t have any other skills … and I don’t want any other skills.” She said she needed work, and “we all need work.”
Carlo Perez, the business manager for Local 755 of the plasterers, sculptors and shop hands union, recalled shooting a Fast and Furious movie in Georgia and swapping the cars’ Georgia plates for California plates. “We need to stop this, we need to cut it off while there’s still something to save,” he said.
And Nazarian isn’t done yet. The councilmember introduced proposals earlier this month aimed at incentivizing local postproduction vendors and other businesses auxiliary to the entertainment industry, instituting a fund to boost small and midsized productions and creating production and postproduction retention programs .
Also, he launched proposals calling for amendments to the city’s contract with FilmLA to introduce new transparency and accountability measures and a pilot program to waive fees for small productions with 50 or fewer personnel.
