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12:00 PM PST 01/12/2021
by
Bryn sandberg
FilmLA says permit applications fell 25% last month.
Production in Los Angeles hit a new pandemic-era low last month.
FilmLA released its latest report on filming in the greater Los Angeles area in December, revealing that film permit applications fell 25% from the previous month. Filming activity had already fallen almost 8% in November – but the organization says permit applications rose from 813 that month to 613 in December. As another comparison, there were 965 permits in December of last year.
The decline in production started at the start of the month and deepened throughout, according to the report. The week before Christmas, FilmLA issued 143 permits, then 58 on holiday week (December 14 to December 20) and 50 on New Years week (December 28 to January 3). With just 21 working days in December, the organization distributed an average of just 29 film permits per day – the lowest daily production it has recorded since last August.
Of course, analysts attribute the drop in production to efforts to curb the surge of COVID-19 in the city. While film production remains permitted in Los Angeles County, as long as productions follow industry COVID-19 protocols – whose current practices include routine employee testing, extensive PPE, and remediation efforts Improved – The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health urged the film industry on Dec. 24 to consider halting production for a few weeks.
FilmLA spokesperson Philip Sokoloski said that weeks before the recommendations, a handful of productions planned to work during the holidays to make up for time lost earlier in the year due to the initial shutdown. “When production started in September, the intention at the time was, ‘We’re going to go all-out until the end of the year and catch up now that we can,” Sokoloski notes. “But it became clear in early December that this really wasn’t going to happen.”
Major studios, including CBS Studios, Warner Bros. TV, Universal Television, Disney Television Studios and Sony Pictures Television, all scheduled vacation breaks, then later opted to extend those breaks until mid-January, in hoping the virus will be more under control by then. While some studios plan to start production as early as this week or next, Sokoloski says most of the permit applications received in the past two days have been for photographs.
Of the movie licenses that were distributed in December, television production accounted for 27%. Only a handful of TV series began filming locally in December, including CBS ‘ Ghosts and The 3 of the United States, HBO Unsafe, HBO Max’s Tacoma FD and Showtime The L word: Generation Q.
Feature film production accounted for 6% of December permits. A total of 26 feature films, largely independent, began filming in December, including titles Monstrous, Killers and This earth. Meanwhile, reality TV shows included NatGeo Impossible dog, NBC Jay Leno’s Garage, CBS All Access’ Teen mom og and Investigation Discovery People Magazine season 5 investigates.
For its part, commercial production accounted for 28% of permits. Projects that shot in Los Angeles County last month included spots for products ranging from Haagen Dazs, Honda and Mountain Dew to Carl’s Jr., Lowe’s and Progressive.
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