New York thrives while Los Angeles slides.
March 02, 2007
By Lauren Horwitch

New York and Los Angeles have always been rivals. Whether it's Broadway versus Hollywood or Yankees versus Dodgers, neither coast tires of touting its many attributes - and very loudly.

And now New York can brag about a booming film- and television-production industry. According to an end-of-the-year report out of New York, production there hit a record high in 2006 thanks to its citywide program, Made in NY, which offers tax credits on production costs - up to 10 percent from the state and 5 percent from the city - to productions shot at least 75 percent in New York City.

Meanwhile, a separate study found that feature-film production in Los Angeles - which does not have a tax incentive program - continues to decline, and TV commercial production is down for the first time in seven years.

Paul Christie, the Screen Actors Guild's second vice president and head of its New York branch, was thrilled with the NYC Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting's report that the number of shooting days on public property increased almost 10 percent, from 31,578 days in 2005 to 34,718 days in 2006. The Hugh Grant-Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Music and Lyrics and Ridley Scott's American Gangster were among the 276 films shot last year in the city, which also played host to TV shows such as NBC's 30 Rock and ABC's The Knights of Prosperity. Silvercup Studios in Queens has four new pilots under way, and six other new pilots are being produced around the city. "It's pretty cool. It's kind of a weird feeling when you kind of get everything you wished for," Christie said. "It was really like a perfect storm of everybody in the industry working and moving in the same direction."

More shooting days means thousands of additional jobs, which is good not only for actors and other artists but also for crewmembers, construction workers, and local businesses, which benefit from increased revenues. New York officials have estimated the city's production industry now employs 100,000 residents and contributes $5 billion annually to the city's economy.

According to Christie, the next step is to build new facilities and train more crewmembers to accommodate the boom. "You've brought the production here," he said. "Now the problem is finding the studio space and the crews to do it with, which is a nice problem to have."

Christie said SAG is continuing to work closely with the mayor's office and state government to attract even more work to the city. One initiative in development includes educating young people and minority workers about careers in entertainment. Christie said it's heartening to work on "something that's ahead of you down the road rather than something that's strangling you at a particular point."

L.A. Story

Though based at SAG's national headquarters in L.A., Pamm Fair is also encouraged by New York's numbers. As the union's deputy national executive director for policy and strategic planning, she does not focus on a particular region. "We as a national union are thrilled with the success of that incentive," she said.

Still, Fair isn't blind to what's happening close to home. "As you know, in California, episodic TV is up, commercials are down a little bit, and features are very down," she noted.

FilmL.A., a nonprofit organization that provides shooting permits, reported Jan. 25 that overall TV production rose 1 percent in 2006 due to a 52.7 percent surge in reality shows. Sitcom productions were up 12.6 percent and dramas 6.2 percent.

However, feature-film production slid 7.4 percent and commercial production fell 3.4 percent - its first year-to-year decline since SAG and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists commercials strike in 2000.

FilmL.A. president Steve MacDonald was disappointed by the latest numbers. "It's a little bit discouraging with regards to the feature-film production in particular, because we had seen feature-film production up a little bit in 2004 after it peaked in 1996," he said. He added that tax incentives offered in New York and other states - including Louisiana, New Mexico, and Oregon - are not entirely to blame for the L.A.'s production woes but are certainly a factor. "At the same time that we're seeing our feature-film production go down, we're reading these reports of just these huge double-digit increases in other cities and states that have incentives," he said. "Maybe not all of it is coming at the expense of L.A. or California, but at least a good percentage of it is."

A production tax-incentive bill, known as Assembly Bill 777, was introduced into the California legislature in 2005 but did not garner enough support from lawmakers on two separate attempts to get it passed. Some in Sacramento balk at the bill's requirement to set aside $100 million in the state's budget to fund up to 15 percent tax credits on wages and other production costs. SAG, the California Film Commission, and AB 777's other supporters argue that, though the film and TV industry is still based in L.A., a tax incentive is necessary for California to stay competitive with other states and countries. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a SAG member, has said he will set aside funds for an incentive program in the state's annual budget if AB 777 fails again this year. The bill is currently listed as inactive and nonurgent.

Christie, Fair, and MacDonald agree that tax incentives have been approved in other states because California's production industry is already well established. "It's much easier for a New Mexico or a Louisiana…to offer that kind of incentive because they weren't starting with a large base of production. So everything coming in is kind of new. It's kind of found money," MacDonald said.

"This should be a wake-up call to Sacramento, maybe to start paying attention," said Fair, who has lobbied for AB 777 in Sacramento. Although she has seen many SAG members flee L.A. to states where work is more plentiful, Fair insists L.A.'s industry isn't going anywhere. "Overwhelmingly, the television industry is in Los Angeles," she contended. "That's a huge economical force, but we feel that Sacramento needs to look at the decline in commercials and feature films."