The headline in the Feb. 11 business section of Southern California’s Daily News read: "L.A. a commercial mecca." The accompanying story was about the detailed survey of production companies commissioned by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) and independently conducted and analyzed by Goodwin Simon Strategic Research, San Francisco and Los Angeles. (See page one story in last week’s SHOOT for a full rundown of this study.)
The Daily News headline was based on a couple of prime survey findings. Per industry activity between July 1, 2002 and June 30, ’03, Southern California was home to 46 percent of spot location shoot days in the U.S., and 36 percent of American production companies’ commercial lensing worldwide.
The Daily News went on to quote Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. "Given the cost of doing business in California, this [thirty-six percent] is a good percentage," said Kyser. "We don’t often stop to think about these [commercialmaking] people, as we just look at mainstream filming activity. This is very, very important to us and generates a lot of business."
Indeed, the percentages of 46 and 36 percent qualify for "mecca" status in today’s marketplace. However, it’s reasonable to assume that those percentages were considerably higher several years ago, prior to the six-month actors’ strike against the advertising industry in ’00. The strike exacerbated the so-called "runaway production" problem with Los Angeles—and for that matter, the U.S.—losing out on substantive levels of commercial production that migrated to foreign countries. The exodus of spot lensing was already being felt well before that strike, but the labor unrest prompted advertisers who hadn’t even considered foreign production to try filming abroad. Suddenly, those clients who had previously regarded foreign production as a bit of a boondoggle found out that there were often significant cost savings to be realized.
The Daily News article later noted that nearly one of every four spot shooting days took place outside the U.S., according to the industry survey. And the financial stakes are high. The study showed that AICP member houses spent nearly $3.5 billion on direct production expenditures in ’02-’03. Of this total, roughly $2.7 billion was spent on domestic production, with about $768 million spent on filming abroad.
The value of consumer press—such as the Daily News—reporting on the major positive economic impact of commercialmaking is invaluable. But the news story did not reference an essential survey finding that mainstream media need to get out to local communities—in order to garner these economic benefits, neighborhoods have to be film friendly.
Fifty percent of survey respondents said that community attitudes were "important" or "very important" in deciding whether to film projects in the U.S. or in foreign locations. Those production houses that made more commercials and reported earning higher levels of revenue (a company profile that’s typically active in foreign shoots) were far more likely than smaller shops to say that community attitudes significantly influenced their location decisions. This finding offers ammunition to commercial industry lobbying efforts to help improve attitudes toward filming in targeted local communities where problems exist.
That ammo is even more important when put into the context of infrastructure. AICP president/CEO Matt Miller noted that when a production center loses a significant amount of business for a sustained stretch of time, its infrastructure is weakened—in terms of less investment in equipment and resources. Furthermore, there’s attrition in the talent pool, as crewmembers move onto other livelihoods or even other cities or countries in order to gain employment. Conversely, foreign countries that have experienced increased filming are building up their infrastructures and number of qualified artisans. If business erosion continues, major markets can be deeply impacted. Relative to critical infrastructure, Miller observed, "The Los Angeles you left won’t be the same Los Angeles that you come back to five years later."
