Opinion: What should be done about the plunging film production numbers?

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The filmmaking industry seems so closely identified with Los Angeles, it was a shock to see Richard Verrier’s story this morning about the dramatic decline in feature film shoots this year. In the first three months of 2009, Film L.A. reported, feature filmmakers racked up only 903 production days in Los Angeels County, down 56% from the previous year. In fact, the number was the lowest quarterly total since 1993, which is as far back as Film L.A.’s statistics go.

Also down: commercial shoots, which fell more than 34% from the first three months of 2008. That figure was the lowest first-quarter number in at least 25 years. But it wasn’t the lowest ever, not by a long shot -- commercial shoots tend to fall off sharply during recessions, then bounce back quickly. In fact, the big dropoff for commercials in the current downturn came in the third quarter last year, and they’ve rebounded a bit since then. Meanwhile, television production remains strong, compensating for the fall-off in features and commercials.

So, what to make of these numbers? Some film-industry allies have renewed their call for tax breaks for filmmakers, saying California had to start competing with the giveaways offered by New York, Louisiana and New Mexico. (The Legislature recently approved breaks for films with budgets below $75 million, but the subsidies aren’t as generous as other states’ and don’t take effect until 2011.) There’s no question that those states’ financial incentives have helped them attract producers who weren’t wedded to other locales; the issue for California officials is whether they’d gain more than they lose by offering more competitive subsidies. And while at least one filmmaking hotbed outside of SoCal is reporting boffo production numbers, it’s hard to find the data for U.S. film production that could reveal just how well other parts of the country were doing in comparison to the local doldrums.

One other thought: as Richard’s story noted, the local feature-film numbers may be affected not only by the recession, but also by the protracted impasse in contract negotiations between the studios and the Screen Actors Guild, the union with a virtual lock on film actors (but not on TV productions). Local film production days hit their highest point in nearly seven years in the second quarter of 2008, as studios raced to finish work before SAG’s contract expired June 30. Since then, however, the numbers have new lows every quarter.

In sum, the picture’s murkier the deeper you go into the numbers. But what do you think? Should the financially crippled state ramp up incentives for filmmakers? Are there other, better ways to boost the production numbers? Or will these worries fade when the SAG impasse ends and the recession goes away?