Los Angeles Film Shoots Plummet 54% Due to Pandemic, FilmLA Study Says
While Hollywood is slowly resuming film and TV production with COVID-19 safety regulations enforced, the pandemic is still taking its toll on the industry as the latest quarterly study from FilmLA reports a 54% year-over-year drop in shooting days for the third quarter of 2020.
The report counted only 4,199 total shooting days between July and September, down from 9,226 in the same time span last year. The good news is that when the numbers are broken down on a weekly basis, there is a steady increase in production. Back in July, when FilmLA was starting to take film permits again but California was stuck in a new surge of virus infections, less than 20 unique projects — films, TV shows, commercials — were actively filming. In the week of Sept. 28 – Oct. 4, 222 unique projects were filming.
Also during this past quarter, Hollywood’s labor force — led by SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, DGA and Teamsters Local 399 — reached an agreement with the AMPTP to finalize an official set of COVID-19 safety regulations to protect workers on set. The regulations, which include regular cleaning of sets, testing of all cast and crew, and a tiered system of access to minimize the number of people on set at any given time, were developed after months of collaboration between the studios, guilds, and health experts.
“The stage is set for a return – not to business-as-usual but to the ‘best-progress-possible’ for film production in area communities,” said FilmLA President Paul Audley said in a statement. “LA loves film, and there is a real enthusiasm to see this work come back, plus real effort on the part of the industry and local public health authorities to see that it does so with care for public health.”
More to come…
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