FilmLA, partner film office for the City and County of Los Angeles and other local jurisdictions, reports that the conclusion of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA work actions on September 27 and November 9, respectively, came too late for production to pick up by year’s end.
Local on-location filming declined steeply in the fourth quarter, with 5,520 shoot days (SD) logged for a 36.4 percent decline against the same period in 2022. Viewed on an annual basis, summing four consecutive quarters of double-digit decline, production activity fell 32.4 percent year-over-year in 2023, to 24,873 SD.
“History offers no point of comparison to the present,” observed FilmLA president Paul Audley. “The pandemic year aside, we have to look very far back–farther back than permit records allow–to find a time when production levels stayed so low, for so long.”
“Everyone we are speaking to is eager to see production resume,” Audley added, “Even as it does, we’ll remain in uncharted territory. We have months to go before we can describe what the new normal looks like for filming in L.A.”
After the near immediate return of some programming, including late night talk shows, in October, many hoped scripted television might return before the holidays. Once able to resume filming in November, only a handful of continuing series attempted new episodes. That left television production down 54.3 percent to 1,707 SD for the quarter, and down 43.8 percent to 9,430 SD for the year.
Most television production that has taken place since May came from reality series. The reality TV category was down 29.2 percent in the fourth quarter to 1,425 SD and down 28.1 percent to 7,221 SD for the year. Nonetheless, reality TV comprised 76.5 percent of all on-location television production in 2023. Local reality productions included Dancing with the Stars (ABC), Death in the Dorms (Hulu), Master Chef (Fox), Selling Sunset (Netflix) and Murder in the Heartland (Investigation Discovery).
TV drama production dropped 91.3 percent from October through December (101 SD in 2023 vs. 1,155 SD in 2022), and TV comedy production dropped 85.6 percent (51 SD vs. 353 SD). During that time, projects qualifying for the California Film & Television Tax Credit Program logged 25 SD. Dozens more qualified projects are expected to restart in January. The shows quickest to return to production included Loot (Apple TV+), The Family Business (BET+), Quantum Leap (NBC), The Rookie (ABC), S.W.A.T. (CBS), and Unstable (Netflix).
Feature film production also dropped steeply last quarter, with a 57.5 percent decrease to 323 SD. Most feature projects in production this summer were smaller, independent productions, among a few moving forward under SAG-AFTRA interim agreements. Three independent features in production last quarter were associated with the California Film & Television Tax Credit Program; the films Hurricana, Shell and Starstruck together generated a total of 28 SD.
Unaffected by the strikes but trending lower due to runway production, filming for web and television commercials slipped last quarter with a 9.9 percent year-over-year drop to 746 SD. Commercials made in L.A. included automobile ads for BMW, Chevy, Honda, Lincoln, Nissan and Toyota. Retailers such as Best Buy, Walmart and Walgreens also shot spots locally.
FilmLA’s “other” category, which aggregates smaller, lower-cost shoots such as still photography, student films, documentaries, music and industrial videos and other projects, declined 18.1 percent (to 2,744 SD) for the quarter and 20.7 percent (to
10,157 SD) for the year.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More