Silver lining for film production

BURBANK — Shrinking local economies could begin recovering starting in 2010 as California’s tax incentive program for film and television projects kicks off, potentially curbing the occurrence of “runaway productions,” according to a forecast released this week by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.

Businesses in Glendale and Burbank are largely intertwined with the heavily rooted entertainment industry, which has struggled over the last year as labor disputes limited the amount of motion picture and television projects that have entered production, according to the report.

And projects that have begun development have often been in other states or countries that offer generous tax incentives worth up to 30% of total production costs. But that may change as California launches its own program this year and as incentive budgets in other states run out of cash, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the corporation.

“We’ve got our fingers crossed,” said Kyser, who explained that the program may add relief to what has been a difficult year for the Glendale and Burbank economies.

Area businesses that benefit from the industry — from sound stages and rental houses, to restaurants and dry cleaning services — crawled through drops in activity of up to 70% because of the struggles faced by major motion picture and television studios, and many companies have shut down altogether.

And while most industry businesses began feeling the pinch as a result of the labor disputes between screen writers and actors and major motion picture and television studios, the recent growth in runaway productions has prevented a local rebound, experts and business owners say.

Zilla Lighting, which offers rental equipment for movie and TV projects, has begun sending equipment to productions outside of California because of the lack of work inside the state, owner Gary Nepa said.

Still, Nepa’s business is down 30% from a year ago, he said.

“We’ve been able to prevent our numbers from going down further because we’ve been forced to service jobs that are out of state, and that doesn’t help all of the local people,” he said.

The amount of feature film permits requested in Los Angeles County has continued a downward trend since a high in 1996, when a total of 13,980 days worth of on-location production permits were issued by FilmLA, a nonprofit that coordinates permits for shoots in the area.