Hollywood Tries to Keep Film and TV Industries in Town

The nationwide economic downturn seemingly spares no one, but especially not film and television producers. Now, Los Angeles is taking steps to stem the tide of film and TV work that has been migrating outside of the state for the past few years.

In the face of lucrative deals and deep tax breaks that make filming cheaper in other states and even countries, L.A. has been losing a lot of business. Canada, New York City, Michigan, Illinois and more have economic measures in place to induce films and TV shows to move their sets to their turf in order to save money.

So to counteract this trend, on Wednesday (Oct. 7) the L.A. city council unanimously approved a series of legislative measures designed to keep film-related business at home. Among them are business tax credits, sales tax refunds on purchases made for a production when at least 75 percent of the filming is done in the city, free downtown parking for cast and crew after hours and on weekends, and use of city power nodes for film crews to reduce their costly and polluting generators.

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