Inside the Future of TV and Film Production After the L.A. Fires

variety.com:

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media Analyst One of the many dilemmas the city of Los Angeles finds itself facing in the wake of the devastating fires that swept through the region last month is how the film and TV production business can recover.

This sector was already struggling prior to to the disaster, a subject detailed in the latest report from Variety Intelligence Platform released last week, “Production Pipelines: Film & TV in Flux.” One of the authors of the report, Tyler Aquilina, joined Variety’s “Strictly Business” podcast to share the report’s findings and his observations, including who is feeling the impact of the fires most. Listen to the podcast here: “The immediate toll of the fires is really on the the below-the-line workers who crew these projects,” he said. “Now they’re facing additional financial burdens, many of them who may have lost their homes or possessions in the fires at a time when work was already scarce, thanks to both the post-peak TV contraction that we’ve seen that has resulted in a major drop-off in the levels of films and TV shows being produced, along with the general production exodus away from Los Angeles.” Aquilina, who was also joined on the podcast by fellow VIP+ analyst and report co-author Kaare Eriksen, noted that the jury is still out on how the fires will affect the bottom line for companies paying for production in the region. “There’s been a lot of speculation that the costs of production insurance might rise,” he said. “The costs of the raw materials you might need for building sets and things like that.” “Strictly Business” is Variety’s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. (Click here to.