On-location filming in Los Angeles fell by 2.4% in 2022 compared to the prior year, with feature film and television shoot days down 9.6%, TV pilots plummeting 71.9% and commercial shoot days falling 22.6%, according to the latest report from FilmLA, the city and county film permit office.
Last year had been shaping up to be a good one for local filming, but production fell off sharply in the third quarter and again in the fourth – down 19.5% compared to Q4 2021.
Even so, on-location shoot-days continue to hold steady at not-so-great pre-pandemic levels. “The return of pre-pandemic filming levels places us roughly where we were in 2019, which was itself a year of significant production decline,” said FilmLA president Paul Audley. “Can we hold here, or will the pre-Covid downtrend resume?
That is the question everyone is asking.” The only bright spots in the report were for TV reality shows, which were up 5.2%, and the category of “Other,” which was up 22.9%.
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