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If you live in L.A., you've most likely experienced the wrath of a film or TV shoot in your neighborhood. While you may have just been silently annoyed by your scarce street parking taken up by trailers and the sidewalks full of production crew and police officers, there has been an uptick of local residents filing complaints about the shoots.
Film L.A., a nonprofit that organizes and coordinates filming permits in the city, told the L.A. Daily News that they've received 3,268 complaints in the 2015 fiscal year, a 20 percent increase in complaints filed compared to 2013.
Residents were mostly upset about the usual suspects: the loss of street parking, late filming hours, the frequency of filming, and city blocks crowded with production trailers and sets. (Over in Agoura along the 101 Freeway on Sunday, folks complained to the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. about a college film production involving military fatigues and a fake assault rifle that they mistook for a real-life ambush.)
However, the spike in complaints may have something to do with the increased number of productions filmed in L.A. this year. In August of 2014, California Gov. Jerry Brown announced his support of a $330-million film tax credit bill in an attempt to bring film shoots back to the state by offering increased subsidies. It tripled the amount of the $100-million annual film tax credit that had been offered annually since 2009. Brown wrote in a statement, "This law will make key improvements in our Film and Television Tax Credit Program and put thousands of Californians to work."
Before this new credit went into effect this year, productions were leaving California at an "alarming rate," according to a story in The Hollywood Reporter in March of 2014. The $100-million tax credit California previously offered was paltry compared to other states' programs. For example, New York was offering a $420-million film tax credit, which would make up 30 percent of production costs, compared to the 20 percent California was making up for at the time.
Showing the changing landscape of film and TV shoots in L.A., this year's complaints were up by 7 percent from 2012.
