Monica Bushman
produces arts and culture coverage for LAist's on-demand team. She’s also part of the Imperfect Paradise podcast team.
Published September 18, 2026 5:00 AM
California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference, where he announced a major expansion of the state's film and TV tax credit program, raising the cap to $750 million in an effort to keep entertainment productions in California, at the Ranch Lot Studios in Burbank, California on July 2, 2025.
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FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
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AFP
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Topline:
In 2025, California majorly boosted its film and TV tax credit program for the first time since 2014 in an effort to keep jobs in the Golden State. One year out, we asked film and TV workers in Los Angeles how they're faring.
The responses:
Chineza Ezinkwo, production coordinator/supervisor: “It feels incredibly uncertain, but I will say there's more hope these past two years than there was certainly [in] the past three or four years.”
Pam Elyea,prop house owner: “Are we at where we were before? No. But we certainly are so much better, and so it kind of gives you hope moving forward.”
Andrea Wheeler, costumer: "Everybody is on eggshells. Everybody's just like, "Oh, thank God we're working. ... You feel like you're in a dying industry right now."
Read on ... for more on the state of the entertainment industry in Los Angeles.
“Was it like this during the Great Depression?”
It’s a question that prop house owner Pam Elyea says she’s asked herself in recent years, as the film and TV industry has weathered multiple hits — the pandemic, the dual industry strikes of 2023, the 2025 fires — and a loss of production jobs to other states and countries that began decades ago.
Elyea, along with her husband Jim, opened History for Hire, a prop house in North Hollywood, in 1985. Before the pandemic, they had a staff of 20 people, but now employ only nine full-time employees.
“As an employer and a business owner, the feeling you're always trying to overcome is that feeling of weariness,” Elyea says. “ That it was just dragging on and on, and there's really no big hope in sight.”
Elyea says she started to see positive effects sooner than she expected, about three months in, first with new TV productions that were tax credit recipients coming to History for Hire for props, and more recently feature films.
Members of the Set Decorators Society of America (Pam Elyea in center) in Washington, D.C., lobbying for a federal film and TV tax incentive on September 16, 2026.
“Are we at where we were before? No,” she says. “But we certainly are so much better, and so it kind of gives you hope moving forward.”
‘Flickering back to life’
Elyea’s experience is reflective of some of the data on film and TV productions in Los Angeles over the last year.
On the LAist podcast Imperfect Paradise, entertainment journalist Dawn Chmielewski notes that Film LA, which tracks permitting for on-location shoots in and around Los Angeles, showed that television production was up in the second quarter of this year. When it comes to television dramas in particular, there was a 55.1% increase in the second quarter over the first quarter.
“Overall, the numbers are still down year over year,” Chmielewski says. “But it's showing that the industry is sort of flickering back to life.”
Another promising data point Chmielewski points out: ProdPro, which tracks productions around the world, “showed that both the number of films being shot and overall production spend are both up in California for the second quarter of this year.”
But there are also statistics that point to a less rosy picture.
Film LA research that shows the number of shoot days in Los Angeles has decreased by nearly 50 percent since 2017. And it’s estimated that since the peak of the streaming era in 2022, nearly 50 thousand production jobs have been lost in Los Angeles.
‘It feels incredibly uncertain’
Costumer Andrea Wheeler describes the current climate in the industry as one where “everybody is on eggshells,” with so many people she knows who’ve had to pivot to other careers that “you feel like you’re in a dying industry right now.”
Andrea Wheeler is a costumer who has worked on TV shows like "Lopez v. Lopez" and movies like Marvel's "Eternals."
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Courtesy of Andrea Wheeler
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While Wheeler was recently able to find work on a show that moved from Vancouver to California because of the tax credit boost here, she says the pay and working conditions didn’t match up to the kind of work she was able to find in the past.
From around 2016 to 2019, she says, “if you were in a job that was really atrocious, just like really bad working conditions ... You could just leave and find another job the next day. There was a lot of security there, [but] not now.”
Chineza Ezinkwo is a production coordinator based in Los Angeles. She most recently worked on "Tyrant," a Charlize Theron film that shot in LA.
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Courtesy of Chineza Ezinkwo
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Chineza Ezinkwo, a production coordinator who’s worked in the film and TV industry in Los Angeles since 2011, echoes Wheeler.
“ Yes, there's more work happening, but also it's hard to find,” Ezinkwo says. “You can't really plan to build a life in the way that you felt like you used to even a few years ago.”
Still, she says there is also a bit of a renewed sense of optimism in the industry right now.
“It feels incredibly uncertain, but I will say there's more hope these past two years than there was certainly [in] the past three or four years.”
Jordan Rynning
has been following this case for months, including interviewing the man at the center of allegations.
Published October 31, 2026 7:00 AM
Michael Angel Alvarez, 41, spoke with LAist on Sept. 16, 2026, about the federal body armor case against him being dismissed.
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Jordan Rynning
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LAist
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Topline:
The L.A. County District Attorney’s office dropped its felony body armor charges against Michael Angel Alvarez earlier this week. Alvarez was sentenced to time served on a lesser charge — a probation violation. He served more than 100 days in jail earlier this year while awaiting trial.
Most serious claims haven’t materialized: Though federal prosecutors made headlines claiming in court documents and on social media that Alvarez was “leading a violent street gang, while claiming to be a gang interventionist for the City,” they have not filed charges related to those claims.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office dropped its felony body armor charges against Michael Angel Alvarez on Wednesday. Alvarez was sentenced to time served on a lesser charge — a probation violation. He had served more than 100 days in jail earlier this year while awaiting trial.
Why Alvarez’s arrest made headlines: Alvarez was working as a city-contracted peace ambassador in MacArthur Park when he was arrested by federal agents in May. Federal and county prosecutors each brought felony charges against him, claiming he was in possession of body armor as a violent felon.
Bill Essayli, who leads the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A., pointed to the case on social media to criticize city officials for allowing taxpayer money to be “shelled out to a convicted gang murderer.”
About his criminal record: Judges in federal and state court have now dismissed prosecutors’ felony charges against Alvarez, after U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang found on Sept. 9 that Alvarez did not have a violent felony conviction. Alvarez was 15 when he committed a gang-related murder. He was tried and convicted as an adult in 2002. After a change in state law increased the age at which minors could be sentenced as adults to 16, Alvarez’s case was sent back to juvenile court, and he was released in 2024. At that point, he had served more than 20 years.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday, Oct. 7 that Republican Bill Essayli is not legally serving as the top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles.
The ruling is the latest roadblock to the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. The strategy was designed to bypass confirmation by the U.S. Senate — something that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support.
Essayli “is unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States Attorney,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright wrote.
The order won’t take effect until the court rules on the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal. Essayli said he doesn’t agree with the court’s order. He said the president and Attorney General “have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department.”
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Mariana Dale
explores and explains the forces that shape how and what kids learn from kindergarten to high school.
Published October 31, 2026 5:00 AM
Myrna Velasco (left) performs as Dolores Huerta in “¡Sí Se Puede!” at Boyle Heights City Hall on April 2, 2026.
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Carlin Stiehl
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LAist
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Topline:
An all-ages play about the life of Dolores Huerta and other under-told stories of the farmworker labor movement is back on tour in Los Angeles.
The backstory: Center Theatre Group commissioned ¡Sí Se Puede! from Eliana Pipes in March 2025 and it debuted in L.A. this spring. “There's this perception that farm work was only done by men,” Pipes said. “There were women on the fields, there were women on the picket lines, and there were women in leadership in the United Farm Workers movement.”
An all-ages play about the life of Dolores Huerta and other under-told stories of the farmworker labor movement is back on tour in Los Angeles.
The show's extension had been announced prior to the news that Huerta died Wednesday, Oct. 28., at her Bakersfield home. She was 96 years old.
“There's this perception that farm work was only done by men,” said playwright Eliana Pipes. “There were women on the fields, there were women on the picket lines, and there were women in leadership in the United Farm Workers movement.”
Center Theatre Group commissioned ¡Sí Se Puede! from Pipes in March 2025 and it debuted in L.A. this spring.
CSULA seeks memories from underground music scenes
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published October 31, 2026 5:00 AM
CSULA is seeking memorabilia from LA's underground music scenes for its research archives.
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Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State University, Los Angeles.
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Topline
There’s a whole world of underground Southern California music history that’s hidden in storage boxes — photos, fliers, cassettes and other memorabilia. Research librarians at the California State University, Los Angeles are holding a community archive event on Nov. 5 to ensure the cultural memory of L.A.’s underground music scenes are preserved for future generations.
Why it matters: The memorabilia are the physical remnants of the supportive L.A. communities built around music and enjoyment. But many of these objects languish out of sight, and run the risk of being lost, along with the memories attached to them.
Why now: For four years, archive staff have held an annual day to receive ephemera from the public. They're doing it again on Thursday, Nov. 5.
Read on… to hear how goth, rockabilly and other underground clubs in L.A. inspired the head archivist.
Right around the year 2000, there was a club night in Hollywood called Clockwork Orange. Fans of The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Bauhaus and other bands came for the DJ’s mix of their favorite songs but also for a vibe that welcomed people regardless of race, ethnicity or sexual and gender identity.
“I was a pretty shy person, and so that was a place where I could sort of be myself and express myself,” said Azalea Camacho, a regular there in those days.
She had just graduated from Workman High School in the City of Industry and was also clubbing at rockabilly music nights in Rosemead and goth club nights in downtown L.A.
Camacho said there was lots of memorabilia from those times, such as photos taken in and outside the clubs, ticket stubs and promotional fliers. They're the physical remnants of those supportive communities built around music and enjoyment, but many of them languish in shoeboxes and storage units, at risk of being lost — along with the memories attached to them.
Cal State LA has hosted Sounds of the Underground Archive for the last four years. It's an opportunity for people to donate their underground music scene memorabilia.
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Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State University, Los Angeles
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“I think the danger is maybe those stories are not being told, or people don't know about the story,” she said.
Keeping stories alive
More than two decades later, Camacho is now in a position to make sure those stories are kept alive. She’s head of special collections and archives at the university library at California State University, Los Angeles.
Four years ago, she and library staff created an annual day for area residents to donate or digitize memorabilia for their Sounds of the Underground Archive. This year it's on Thursday, Nov. 5. They’ll accept physical donations, but they’ll also have a scanner to digitize printed material, so people can keep items that are precious to them.
SOUNDS OF THE UNDERGROUND ARCHIVE
Date: Thursday, Nov. 5 Time: 2 p.m. – 5 p.m. Location: Cal State LA Library Community Room, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles
Camacho is hoping this year will bring in a bumper amount of memorabilia. It's taken time to get the word out, she said.
“From the actual community archiving day [we’ve collected] maybe 100 or less than 100 items. … It's not a lot,” she said.
She said they're on the lookout for a wide range of mementos, including:
Fliers
Handbills
Zines
Newsletters
Posters
Set lists
Photographs (prints, negatives or digital files)
Cassette tapes, CDs, or vinyl records
Ticket stubs
Wristbands
Band merchandise (stickers, buttons, patches, T-shirts)
DIY press kits or liner notes and correspondence (letters, emails, messages related to music scenes)
Venue or collective ephemera (membership cards, schedules, announcements and more)
