Los Angeles On-Location Shoot Days Plunge Again Amid Summer Of Strikes; 7th Straight Quarterly Drop

The WGA strike is over, but the fallout from that and the ongoing SAG-AFTRA walkout continue to clobber film and TV production in Los Angeles. FilmLA reported today that on-location shooting days plunged again during the third quarter, dropping 41.4% over 2022 — the seventh consecutive quarterly decline.

Local production during the previous April-to-June quarter had fallen to the lowest levels since the early days of Covid.

The city and county film-permitted office said the steepest losses in the July-to-September period came from the near-complete shutdown of scripted television production in May. TV drama production dropped 99% from July through September (12 shoot days in 2023 vs. 1,198 in 2022), and TV comedy shoots plunged 99.4% (2 days vs. 352).

There were no TV pilots shot during Q3 as 97.3% of all TV filming for the period came from reality series, which made up 40.8% of all location shoots in L.A., including Vanderpump Rules, Basketball Wives and Real Murders of Los Angeles.

Film production also was hammered in the quarter, with a 54.6% decrease from 376 shoot days vs. 828 last year. Most feature projects filming during the summer were smaller indie productions, among a few moving forward under SAG-AFTRA interim agreements. Projects included Adult Best Friends, Don’t Trip, Eyes in the Trees, From Ashes, Isaac, Lake George, Roses on the Vine and Who Says You Can’t Go Home.

There was no filming on film or TV projects that qualify for the California Film & Television Tax Credit Programs in the Television categories.

“Sobering as these statistics are, production numbers are not the ultimate testimony of the importance of this industry to our region,” FilmLA president Paul Audley said. “There’s a deeper testimony that comes to us through stories of families, businesses, lives and jobs affected by the present downturn.”

Commercial production also continued to decline in Q3, falling 25.8% year-over-year to 758 shoot days. Although commercials are directly affected by the strikes, loss of production to rival cities is an ongoing concern.

“We take encouragement from the recent successes achieved by the WGA and AMPTP at the negotiating table,” Audley added. When remaining talks conclude and production returns under mutually agreeable terms, that will be welcome to us all.”