GELFAND’S WORLD-The city and state are desperate to keep film and television work within our borders. They have gone to great lengths to curb runaway production, a chronic battle with far off places like Toronto. Tax giveaways get the most press, but irritating problems arise from the incessant takeovers of our streets and sidewalks by location crews. The local San Pedro independent newspaper, the Random Lengths News, reopened the discussion in a recent edition, but the topic has been important to Angelenos for years.
In the modern era, that is to say the mid-1970s, the Los Angeles City Council made an effort to ease the regulatory burden for television and film studios that wanted to work outside of the Hollywood area. The result was the oddly named Entertainment Industry Development Corporation (EIDC), which reigned with impunity. More recently, the creation of Film LA as a one-stop shop for location permitting has made it easy for productions to close down your block, take away your parking, and bring in retired LAPD officers to tell you where you can't drive.
There is a paradox in all of this. A region such as San Pedro or Sylmar might also appreciate the boost to its local economy if only the difficulties could be balanced off against tangible benefits. Film crews need to be fed, for one thing. There's no reason that restaurants and markets couldn't be brought into the entertainment business through some kind of certification system that Film LA could run. With a little imagination, we could extend some of the economic benefits of location filming to the people who have traditionally been negatively impacted. Some jobs could be contracted out to locals.
The way to make this happen is to bring local communities into the process of location permitting. We can imagine a system in which merchant organizations and homeowners' groups negotiate with production companies. The economic interruptions described in the Random Lengths article would still exist, but they could be ameliorated to some extent. Owners of small businesses should have some say in maintaining customer access, and local parking should be preserved as much as possible.
Instead, the city and state have made it clear that the industry can have whatever it wants, whenever it wants it. The idea that a community could oppose Film LA in granting a permit that would result in a particularly onerous location shoot is something that is entirely foreign to our elected leadership. It's understandable that the mayor and the City Council want to preserve well paying local jobs, but damage to other parts of the economy and impositions on our standard of living have been lost in the mix.
About a decade ago, there was a move to bring local organizations such as neighborhood councils into discussions with studios and production companies. The industry rose up, applied its considerable political clout, and shut the whole process down. Considering that the proposal was limited to a discussion, it's curious how resistant the industry was. Both sides could have benefitted, because the industry could have smoothed over some of the friction that it was engendering with the residents of Los Angeles.
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As readers of this website may have figured out, I'm something of a film buff at heart, even if my core interest is the early history of film in L.A. We have a lot of local history, and the region has contributed to the great art form of the 20th and 21st centuries.
We also get a lot of local coverage, even if we aren't recognized for it. The new CBS crime drama Battle Creek is ostensibly situated in the Michigan town of that name. But in one of the opening episodes, you could recognize the corner of Pacific Avenue and 7th Street right here in San Pedro. The area within a few blocks of that site has doubled for Miami, New Jersey, and countless other places.
I'm not opposed to the use of my neighborhood for television and film work. Quite to the contrary. But the benefits to the industry have to be balanced with the needs of the local residents. The way to move towards this laudable goal is to hold informal, voluntary conversations that include the industry, local business owners, and residents of Los Angeles.
As the Random Lengths article explains, the mayor has appointed Kevin James to smooth the process by which film production companies get their permits. May we suggest that Kevin also open discussions with the communities that are most impacted by location filming. There is little to lose and a lot to gain.
(Bob Gelfand writes on culture and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 26
Pub: Mar 27, 2015
