*Amid a sharp drop in on-location film and TV shoot days in Los Angeles, down 22% in Q1 2025, industry leaders gathered Monday night to strategize on reviving California’s faltering post-production and music sectors.
Held at Evergreen Studios in Burbank, the “Stay in L.A.” town hall brought together lawmakers, union leaders, and creatives, all urging for a significant expansion of state tax incentives to prevent the local entertainment industry from becoming the next “Detroit auto.”
“This is not hyperbole to say that if we don’t act, the California film and TV industry will become the next Detroit auto,” warned Noelle Stehman, an organizer of the Stay in L.A. campaign, per The Hollywood Reporter.
California State Senator Ben Allen and Assemblyman Rick Zbur addressed the crowd, defending the proposed incentive expansion. “This is not a tax giveaway,” said Zbur. “This is a job program that is keeping people in their homes.” Allen added, “The studios don’t care where they do the work… This is a middle-class problem.”
Music contractors Peter Rotter and Jasper Randall highlighted a grim metric: L.A. scoring stages, once booked for 127 days in 2022, have seen just 11 days of use so far this year. With places like Vienna and Bratislava offering scoring services at a fraction of the cost, productions are increasingly looking overseas.
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Two-time Oscar-winning sound editor Karen Baker Landers emphasized the loss of post-production work, which once reliably returned to California, saying, “That has not been the case anymore for some time… This has cost the state thousands of jobs, not only in the entertainment industry, but in businesses all around that support us.”
“Even if movies shot somewhere else, they always came back to California to post,” said Landers.
“Visual effects, sound, picture, music, have been migrating out of California, chasing these tax incentives,” she stated.
Attendees also included Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. and California Film Commission director Colleen Bell. The town hall followed a broader campaign to keep productions local, including a recent rally in Burbank and a letter from Rep. Laura Friedman and labor unions to the Motion Picture Association.
While Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers are backing new bills that could increase incentives to as much as 35%, attendees agreed more action is needed.
“I do believe that the world is watching what California does with these incentives,” Landers said. “They know that if we get it right, it’s game on again for California.”
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