L.A. Mayor Declares State of ‘Emergency’ As Movie, TV Production Flees Hollywood

Variety ^ | 8/26/13 | Ted Johnson

[Nachum]

Los Angeles’ new mayor has vowed to help stanch the flow of film and TV production jobs out of Hollywood, starting with the appointment of a film czar at City Hall. But to make a real difference, Eric Garcetti needs to convince skeptical state pols to combat the lure of rich tax incentives from outside California.

Two days after this year’s Oscars, Hollywood’s councilman Eric Garcetti, then running for mayor of Los Angeles, staged a media event at Sunset Gower Studios.

Only a smattering of reporters and photographers showed up, perhaps because the gathering was to address “runaway production,” a buzzword that means little for those outside the industry and, for insiders, is a timeworn term for a chronic, unresolved problem alongside piracy and studio accounting.

But Garcetti, a series of location managers and other crew workers who spoke in late February tried convey a message of urgency: Hollywood’s homegrown industry is being ceded to other states and countries whose favorable tax credits are increasingly luring away movie and television production at an alarming rate. As competition both in the U.S. and abroad continues to grow, the state’s market share and longtime stronghold on production jobs and spending are fast evaporating.

[ZOOKER]

Maybe they should put up a fence.

[SpaceBar]

A film czar? Oh yes, a petty bureaucrat appointed to oversee a segment of the economy just like in the glory days of the Soviet Union.

[SkyDancer]

Unions.

[Signalman]

California is such a business-friendly state./S

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Free Market Capitalism 101.

[Wagonboy]

I guess it's no emergency that 1,000’s of other businesses and entire industries have left L.A. County. It's no emergency that our schools are graduating students with I.Q's to match their shoe sizes. It's no emergency that illegals are overrunning the infrastructure/institutions at the same time that there aren't any funds to keep those infrastructure/institutions maintained and operating safely. It's no emergency that there are more piglets on the teets than there are teets.
The people of La-la land have elected yet another economic and social moron. -Wb

[Tennessee Nana]

Los Angeles’ new mayor has vowed to help stanch the flow of film and TV production jobs out of Hollywood, starting with the appointment of a film czar at City Hall.
_______________________________________________

In the movie FDR got Annie to help...

[VR-21]

There’s a lot of irony in the fact that the people in our country’s political class who call themselves ‘Czars’ are the very same kind of people who pumped bullets into the Romanov’s.

[Bernard Marx]

What disgusts me is the hypocritical double-think. Hollywood muckety-mucks understand the horrible effects of runaway unionization and high taxes when their own pocketbooks are involved. But their product sends a constant Leftist message demanding the things they’re trying to escape.

[capydick]

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The answer is obvious... raise taxes.

[Drango]

Where is the barf alert?

[count-your-change]

The real question, Mr. Mayor, is why the industry has stayed so long.

[Political Junkie Too]

Did somebody say...

-PJ

[tennmountainman]

So who is going to make up the revenue that LA gives to Hollywood.
LA taxpayers, that who.

[lowbridge]

bump

[Atlantan]

Lots of films being made in Georgia. Crews are filming all around Atlanta.

http://www.georgia.org/competitive-advantages/tax-credits/Pages/film-tv-credit.aspx

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The mayor is going to raise taxes to keep production from leaving. /sarc

[cripplecreek]

Michigan seems to be a major destination for filmmakers these days as well.

Low Winter Sun is a new cop drama set and filmed in Detroit.

http://www.michiganfilmoffice.org/Made-in-Michigan/Film/Default.aspx