Is California's Prod'n Tax Credit Too Little, Too Late?

In the years I've been a journalist, nothing has evoked a more vehement response than an October 2000 piece I wrote for the Los Angeles Times about the remarkable amount of TV production going on in Vancouver at the time. What probably riled people most, frankly, was the cover story's headline, which I didn't write, which said, "Vancouver: If you were here, you'd be working now."

Actors, location managers and any number of other below-the-line workers didn't take kindly to what they saw as a flippant response to their loss of livelihood, and I've been especially sensitive to their plight ever since. Yet for all that, it's difficult to tell whether California's belated attempt to provide tax incentives to film in Los Angeles will yield the desired benefits, especially with movie production having fled almost entirely, both to foreign locales and states like Michigan, New Mexico and Louisiana, which have aggressively sought to woo them.

Oddly, as Variety's story about the provision notes, the apparent straw that broke the camel's back was "Ugly Betty" leaving L.A. for New York, in which case it's hard not to wonder what took the legislature so long to get mad. The reality is that even with Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor politicians didn't want to look like they were cozying up to Hollywood, not realizing that it's not just the studios but thousands of their constituents and local businesses that would reap the rewards from more production staying in L.A. county.

With the economy so tight, I suspect studios will still be drawn to the cheapest locations they can find. Still, as the nonprofit FilmL.A. noted in its bleak report in January, movie production has hit a low since those numbers began being tracked in 1993, and shooting reality TV shows here -- renting out Hollywood Hills mansions for MTV dating shows -- doesn't yield the same financial returns as a scripted series or big-budget movie. (The full report is available on their website.) 

Bottom line: It was time to at least try doing something about it. The problem is that the political class spent so much time worrying about the appearance of kissing up to the studios that they kissed off home-grown production.