{"id":503403,"date":"2026-10-21T22:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T22:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/503403\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T22:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T22:06:14","slug":"film-and-tv-shoots-in-l-a-continue-to-drop-despite-state-tax-credit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/503403\/","title":{"rendered":"Film and TV shoots in L.A. continue to drop despite state tax credit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Los Angeles is still struggling to bring filming back to the region, though projects that receive a state tax credit are making up a growing share of local shoot days, according to a new report.<\/p>\n

For the three-month period that ended Sept. 30, there were 4,171 shoot days in the greater L.A. area, down 4.8% compared with the same period last year, according to FilmLA Research, a program of FilmLA that tracks on-location production. That\u2019s also down about 11.5% from the second quarter, and nearly 29% below the five-year average.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere the tax credit applies, it\u2019s working to bring productions back to Los Angeles and put local crews to work,\u201d FilmLA Chief Executive Denise Gutches said in a statement. \u201cStill, overall production remains far below where Los Angeles needs it to be, and crews and businesses across the region are feeling it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report counts only on-location filming. Productions shot on certified soundstages aren\u2019t included.<\/p>\n

Television shoot days totaled 1,400, a 2.8% slide from the third quarter of 2025 and a drop of nearly 53% compared with the five-year average. About 23% of the TV shoot days were for incentivized projects, up from about 9% a year earlier. Among them was the CBS drama \u201cTracker,\u201d which relocated to L.A. from Vancouver<\/a> for the show\u2019s fourth season after receiving a state tax credit.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia\u2019s incentive is what made it possible to bring \u2018Tracker\u2019 here,\u201d Elwood Reid, showrunner and executive producer of \u201cTracker,\u201d said in a statement. \u201cLos Angeles is the big leagues, and after more than a decade away, I\u2019d forgotten what I was missing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within television, comedy made the biggest gains, with 192 days of filming, up 143% from the 79 days in the third quarter of 2025. More than 60% of the comedy shoot days were for projects that received a production incentive, FilmLA said. The organization said this figure could be even higher, as many comedies shoot on soundstages, which are not included in this report. Promisingly, the third-quarter comedy numbers were a 16% improvement on the five-year average.<\/p>\n

Other TV genres lost ground, including drama (494 days, down 9.4%), reality programming (630 days, down 2.9%) and pilots (nine days, down 52.6%).<\/p>\n

Feature film production was a bright spot, with 533 shoot days, up 2.1% from a year earlier and about 20% from the second quarter. About 24% of that filming came from incentivized projects, up from about 22% a year earlier, including Netflix\u2019s \u201c13 Going on 30\u201d reboot and Jonah Hill\u2019s comedy \u201cCut Off\u201d from Warner Bros., according to FilmLA. However, the third-quarter numbers are still a 19.3% decline when compared to the five-year average.<\/p>\n

Production for commercials, which are not eligible for a state tax credit, continued to struggle, with 562 shoot days, down nearly 16% from the same time period in 2025, though it improved 3.5% from the second quarter.<\/p>\n

FilmLA\u2019s \u201cother\u201d category, which includes student productions, still photo shoots, documentaries and online content, totaled 1,676 shoot days, a 4.2% drop from the same period in 2025. Within that category, however, online content accounted for 556 days of filming, up 16.3% from last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles is still struggling to bring filming back to the region, though projects that receive a state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2241,194765,194766,5929,48,52,51,194763,47,50,49,63,5935,194767,194768,1506,7555,194764,35959,194769,72],"class_list":["post-503403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-comedy","tag-filmla-research","tag-five-year-average","tag-great-l-a-area","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-local-shoot-day","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-new-report","tag-on-location-filming","tag-on-location-production","tag-project","tag-second-quarter","tag-state-tax-credit","tag-tracker","tag-tv-shoot","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}