The number of commercial location shooting days in Los Angeles increased a whopping 116 percent in November as compared to October, according to film permit figures released by the Entertainment Industry Development Corporation (EIDC), the public/private sector partnership that oversees the joint Los Angeles City/County Film Office.
The rise—from 155 days in October to 335 in November—represents a significant surge in the aftermath of the six-months-long actors’ strike against the advertising industry, during which Los Angeles endured high levels of runaway production. October was the last month of the strike.
Though encouraging, the November upswing does not necessarily signal the beginning of a complete recovery from the strike. The 335 location shoot days actually comprise a 13.4 percent decrease from the November ’99 tally of 387.
And as earlier reported (SHOOT Production Companies’ Special Report, 11/17, p. 34), several in the production community felt there would be an immediate increase from October—due not only to the strike’s end, but also to the change of climate in choice runaway destinations such as Vancouver, B.C., and Toronto. The real test may be the volume of business in Los Angeles after the winter.
A prime stateside concern is that the strike caused many advertisers to discover that shooting in Canada and overseas represents a viable cost-saving alternative (see year 2000 recap story, p. 1). Thus the strike could have a lasting impact in terms of heightened runaway production for years to come.
While the jury is still out on that theory, the strike’s adverse effect on Greater Los Angeles in calendar year 2000 is already documented. For the six-month stretch (May-October) of the strike, the EIDC reported 1,425 commercial location shooting days—a staggering 55.6 percent decrease from the 3,210 days during the same period in ’99. As chronicled in SHOOT, that decline translated into a hard financial hit on Southern California crew members and support service companies.
For the calendar year thus far, January-November ’00, the EIDC-released figures show 4,461 spot shoot days, as compared to 6,072 for the same 11-month span in ’99. That’s a 26.5 percent decrease. The overall decline this year would have been even more dramatic if not for a flurry of activity during the four-month stretch of January-April ’00, when the industry stepped up levels of production in anticipation of a possible strike. According to EIDC figures, the spot location shoot-day tally was 2,475 for January-April ’99, increasing nine percent to 2,701 for the same time frame this year.
