Los Angeles film production off slightly in first quarter

Although overall production in the Los Angeles region was down 0.7 percent in the first three months of 2014 compared to the year before, the good news in FilmL.A.’s quarterly report is that feature film production rose by a whopping 24.2 percent.

Overall television production, which is the largest employment segment, was down 9.2 percent. Commercials were up 2.8 percent and lower-spending sectors such as student films, music videos and industrial filmmaking were pretty much flat with 2013.

The report, which charts permitted production days on non-studio lot or non-soundstage locations as issued by FilmL.A., plays up the fact that California’s state film incentives were applied to 25 percent of the quarter’s feature projects and 22 percent of TV dramas, which are the highest economic-value subcategory of the television business.

“This report underscores the importance of our work to expand the film and television credit program to create jobs and boost our economy,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in the report.

The mayor is backing efforts in the state Legislature to increase the amount of tax credits — currently capped at $100 million per year — and expand the range of productions that qualify for them to help stem the tide of runaway productions to other states and countries that offer more generous incentives.

Although such qualifying series as “Justified,” “Pretty Little Liars” and “Teen Wolf” helped prevent the TV category from collapsing, practically all subcategories were down in 2014: dramas by 7.9 percent, sitcoms 18.4 percent, reality TV 9.1 percent and Web-based TV by 29.7 percent. Only pilots grew over first quarter 2013, by a mere 1.5 percent — and they’re just pilots.

“A pilot would be just one episode,” noted Philip Sokoloski, FilmL.A.’s vice president of integrated communications. “We’d prefer to have an entire series located here. A pilot is the promise of potential future return, whereas a series is what you would like to have on the streets right now.”

Such major productions as “Entourage: The Movie,” “Horrible Bosses 2” and “Nightcrawler” contributed to the feature film surge. Such bigger spending movies were only a fraction of the overall picture, though.

“There were just over 120 feature projects in this quarter’s list, but you can presume that the majority of them were smaller shoots and didn’t generate many production days,” Sokoloski explained. “The handful of standouts were the ones attached to the California Film and Television Tax Credit.”

In actual permitted production day numbers, the overall figures for the first quarters of 2014 and 2013 were 13,265 vs. 13,361. For feature films, it was 1,588 permitted production days this year over 1,278 last year; television was down to 4,624 permitted production days compared to 5,091 in 2013; commercials had 2,380 days and 2,295 a year ago; and that catchall other category was down a mere three permitted production days to 4,693. All categories were up against their five-year trends except television, which was off 1.9 percent.

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