LA film shoots plunge.

A

Aspiring Mogul

According to the LA Times, feature films shoots have plunged 21% in the third quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. That's pretty steep, but the first two quarters of this year saw feature film shoots rise 16% and 9%, which is pretty good.

So the trend is not clear just from this year's data.

That said, I am also debating LA v NYC. As of now, NYC is recovering from the Great Financial Crisis, while California is seeing three cities going bankrupt and counting. That said, LA is also the place where deals are made, and Tinseltown still has more film production than NYC (#2) and Canada (#3) combined. So I'm ambivalent as to which city is better.

Rik, I've always valued your opinions. What do you think?
 
What is your position in all of this. What I mean is, are you strictly a screenwriter, or are you an actor, or do you practice a craft (DP, H/MU, PSM, post editor, etc.), or do you want to be a director, or do you want to produce? That will have a great bearing upon which direction you (literally) want to go.

As always there will be many schools of thought.

What do you want out of your life/career? That's in some ways a bigger question.

How do you define success? Is it millions in the bank or is it a comfortable living and/or a stable home environment?

Do you want to be a little fish in a big pond (move to LA, NYC, Vancouver, the dive in head first approach) or do you want to be a big fish on a little pond (doing well in a small market), or combine the two - start small and work your way up (the incremental approach)?

And always keep the words of The Bard in mind; "The best laid schemes of mice and men go often awry."
 
This is good news to the rest of us who don't want to ever move to LA to make a living in film. I'm desperate to find a way to make a career out of film/media production of some sort (still in school so not sure exactly what position yet) but I don't want to move to LA. From what I understand, a lot of the big shoots are going to cities with excellent tax incentives and a strong local crew base to save the millionaire producers some money.
 
Steve_in_MD said:
This is good news to the rest of us who don't want to ever move to LA to make a living in film. I'm desperate to find a way to make a career out of film/media production of some sort (still in school so not sure exactly what position yet) but I don't want to move to LA. From what I understand, a lot of the big shoots are going to cities with excellent tax incentives and a strong local crew base to save the millionaire producers some money.
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Yes. Louisiana is doing well, and New York is the second largest film production center after California. But, in the end, CA still has more than other places, and CA is therefore the place where many deals are made. That said, Vancouver, which was No. 3 and is now No. 4, had all the science-fiction type TV shows, from Stargate to Smallville to BSG.

I'm still deciding whether I want to set up a satellite office in NYC or LA. NYC has more money, being the financial capital of the world, but LA is the film capital by far. OTOH, CA has cities going bankrupt like you wouldn't believe.
 
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