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Surfacing from the ashes of Los Angeles\u2019 raging wildfires<\/a>\u00a0is a plea from local entertainment industry folk gutted by the blazes: Bring production back to the region.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the biggest things you can do to help our city is to shoot here,\u201d wrote prominent cinematographer and director Rachel Morrison (The Morning Show<\/em>,\u00a0The Mandalorian<\/em>,\u00a0The Fire Inside<\/em>) in an Instagram post making the rounds among behind-the-scenes film and TV workers. \u201cWe have some of the best crews in the world who need work now more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Morrison\u2019s message speaks to an unprecedented slump in local production. The pandemic came first. Then the strikes. And when it appeared as if filming in Los Angeles had bottomed out and would soon be on the upswing amid an escalating tit-for-tat battle among filming hotspots vying for Hollywood dollars, wildfires fueled by hurricane-force winds battered L.A. The city has seen its share of devastation in earthquakes, fires and civil unrest, but nothing like this in recent memory. Apocalyptic flames fortified by 100 mile per hour gusts destroyed upwards of 12,000 structures built over the course of more than a century in days, ushering in a cloud of uncertainty to a gloomy production landscape yet to recover from back-to-back crises that transformed the economics of Hollywood.<\/p>\n Now, L.A faces a new set of challenges brought by the historic blazes that, if left unabated, may further chip away at its share of filming. Near the top of that list: the possibility that the blazes accelerate a mini migration of the entertainment industry\u2019s workforce away from California.<\/p>\n The degree to which production will be impacted by the number of filmmakers and crewmembers who have been displaced from their homes is unknown. The wildfires ravaged tens of thousands of acres in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, two areas with tight-knit film and TV communities. And while the names of celebrities who have lost residences garnered the most headlines \u2014 Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton, Milo Ventimiglia, Jeff Bridges and Billy Crystal to name a few \u2014 lesser known are the losses suffered by members of local film and TV crews. Below-the-line union IATSE has estimated that at least 8,000 members have been evacuated or had their homes destroyed; Lindsay Dougherty, Local 399\u2019s top staffer, says her organization\u2019s initial outreach found that at least 25 members saw their homes devoured. An Excel document that has been circulating and lists the GoFundMes of affected crewmembers is now at more than 200 entries.<\/p>\n As crewmembers scatter to relatives\u2019 homes, shelters, rentals, hotels and Airbnbs, production could suffer, at least in the days and months to come. \u201cThe fires really did go through a lot of communities that are so central to housing film workers,\u201d says Jason Lester, a music video and commercial director who has worked with Hozier, Phoebe Bridgers and Sabrina Carpenter and works primarily in L.A. \u201cThat can\u2019t help but have an effect on the industry, especially in the short term.\u201d<\/p>\n FilmLA president Paul Audley stressed that many workers in Hollywood, as well as ancillary industries, have been \u201cdirectly affected by this tragedy\u201d and that \u201cmany places beloved by nationwide audiences may never return to the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n There are murmurs of a larger exodus. Entertainment workers were already leaving L.A. in response to a slowdown in work over the past few years amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2023 strikes and a larger contraction in the industry. Dutch Merrick, a seasoned armorer and prop master who lost his Altadena home in the Eaton Fire, worries that \u201cmany will take flight now, even more so than before the disaster.\u201d While he has not heard of anyone with firm plans to depart the area yet, the ex-president of IATSE Local 44 writes in a text, \u201cPerhaps insurance money will empower otherwise broke film crew to jettison L.A. for cheaper pastures.\u201d<\/p>\n This could be an inflection point, with the fires potentially accelerating the flight of talent and film crew away from L.A. and to other production hubs. After all, why live in L.A., where the median rent is 70\u202fpercent higher than the national average, when Georgia has voluminous levels of production and a cheaper cost of living?<\/p>\n Those who stay face a housing market flooded by prospective renters displaced by the fires who are driving up bids. Steven Moritz, a real estate agent in Los Angeles, says he has 50 clients who lost their homes, adding that a house brought on for lease at $7,500 before the fire received multiple offers for double that amount last week (the lease was signed for $8,100 per month). Exacerbating L.A.\u2019s housing crunch are the homeowners in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, some of whom are getting checks from their insurers for temporary housing at the value of their former properties.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s survival of the fittest, pretty much,\u201d Moritz says. \u201cThe problem is that there\u2019s such a lack of product. By the time you get there to look, they\u2019re already\u00a0leased.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the issue of production insurance. Wildfire season in Southern California has typically been June to October. That\u2019s changed, and along with it the risk profile for shooting in certain regions of the state, particularly those buffeted by the Santa Ana winds.<\/p>\n The tail end of 2024 and start of 2025 is an atypical timeframe for major wildfires in Southern California. Wildfire season may simply be year-round now. Expect an increase in insurance premiums and higher deductibles.<\/p>\n \u201cThe risk doesn\u2019t have the same temporal limitations anymore,\u201d says Kirk Pasich, an insurance lawyer at McGuireWoods. \u201cSo if there\u2019s a production in January or February in an area susceptible to winds, the price will go up.\u201d<\/p>\n Productions that aren\u2019t backed by major studios will be hit the hardest. Studios typically procure insurance on a slate of titles, which equates to lower prices because insurers can spread out their risk across multiple projects in several locations over different times of the year. Independent productions, which spend around 2 percent of their budgets on insurance, do not have that luxury and will likely have to pay more for coverage. And in a filming landscape where every penny is taken into account, the increased cost may mean the difference in getting enough financing.<\/p>\n \u201cI doubt it\u2019s going to be tough to get a policy, but there are going to be higher premiums than you saw before,\u201d says Bryan Sullivan, an entertainment lawyer who handles a variety of business affairs for production companies. \u201cAnd when you actually make a claim, there may be more pushback on certain obligations you have to take. You may have to find a similar location if there is an\u00a0evacuation.\u201d<\/p>\n Insurance policies will cover tabs for shutdowns caused by wildfires, but there\u2019s a limit. That\u2019s why banks and financiers that lend money for film and TV projects insist on a completion bond, which effectively acts like another layer of insurance to ensure that productions are able to cross the finish line in case there\u2019s a shortfall. The completion bond industry \u2014 already in distress with last year\u2019s bankruptcy of Film Finances, a global leader in film completion guarantees \u2014 may collectively decide that certain productions in wildfire-prone areas during high-risk times of the year are no longer bondable.<\/p>\n Also at play: how well-to-do individuals who put millions of dollars into productions a year, mostly into the independent film space, and lost their homes or were otherwise financially impacted by the fires respond to\u00a0the crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of high-net-worth film financiers who were definitely impacted,\u201d says Elsa Ramo, a lawyer who handles production and distribution for companies such as Fox and Skydance. \u201cWill they leave the L.A. dream or double down?\u201d<\/p>\n Some board members of the Producers Guild of America lost their homes in the fires, according to a person familiar with the\u00a0situation.<\/p>\n In the wake of the blazes, a brighter spotlight has been put on Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s plan to rescue production in L.A. by more than doubling the amount in tax credits given to film and TV productions from $330 million to $750 million per year. Whether productions now opt to shoot in the city at historically comparable levels will largely swing on other changes to the program. Some revisions industry folk have been calling for include broadening the types of expenditures and categories of production that qualify for tax credits, like reality TV, and upping the maximum amount a single title can receive in subsidies. One idiosyncrasy to California\u2019s film and TV tax credit program in particular has been leveraged by competing jurisdictions to coax productions into leaving: It\u2019s the only major film hub to bar any portion of above-the-line costs \u2014 like salaries for actors, directors and producers \u2014 from qualifying for tax relief.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about getting the bottom line to a point that\u2019s competitive with other jurisdictions,\u201d says PGA CEO Susan Sprung. \u201cWhat L.A. has that some of those other places don\u2019t is the best crews and best producers in the world. We have all the infrastructure, so you just have to get budgets close enough to make the argument for why to shoot here.\u201d<\/p>\n Ramo echoes that the overhaul to the tax incentive program must be the “anchor of relief.” She adds, “Unless there’s government support for why people should shoot here, what’s the point of rebuilding in Altadena if production is already on its way out?”<\/p>\n Still, Hollywood has long abided by the maxim requiring that the show must go on, so any doomsaying may be premature. One bright spot has been that the major soundstages that host the majority of TV and movie shoots in LA remain unscathed. Already, several productions that briefly paused due to the wildfires \u2014 Max\u2019s\u00a0Hacks<\/em>\u00a0and CBS\u2019\u00a0NCIS<\/em>\u00a0and NBC\u2019s\u00a0Suits LA<\/em>\u00a0among them \u2014 have\u00a0roared back to life<\/a>. From Dougherty\u2019s point of view, her members don\u2019t seem to be fleeing any time soon. Responding to a question about whether crew members may leave L.A., she says, \u201cI would say quite the contrary, specifically from the members that have lost their homes in Altadena\u2026 I think they’re going to want to rebuild their community.\u201d<\/p>\n View this article at The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Surfacing from the ashes of Los Angeles\u2019 raging wildfires\u00a0is a plea from local entertainment industry folk gutted by the blazes: Bring production back to the region. \u201cOne of the biggest things you can do to help our city is to shoot here,\u201d wrote prominent cinematographer and director Rachel Morrison (The Morning Show,\u00a0The Mandalorian,\u00a0The Fire Inside)
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