‘Stay in LA’ Organizers Unpack Crisis of Production Fleeing Hollywood

Keeping Hollywood production in Los Angeles has been a growing concern among industry workers as sets shift to other states or abroad — an “already bad situation” that the devastating wildfires made “deeply troubling,” per the organizers of the “Stay in L.A.” petition.

“We’ve been really worried about cast and crew not being able to afford to live here anymore, and then when these devastating fires began, we were all talking about what would be something we could do that would meaningfully help L.A. rebuild, and this immediately became top of mind,” Sarah Adina Smith, an independent filmmaker who has only had the chance to shoot in L.A. twice in her career, told TheWrap. “It’s become an existential issue.”

Smith teamed up with Alexandra Pechman, a screenwriter and early career director, who after seeing her community post about bringing jobs back to L.A., gave voice to the harsh reality that while producers want to shoot in the city, “but they can’t, because we don’t have a competitive tax credit.”

“I’ve overseen budgets for Hungary, Croatia, Italy, Malta,” Pechman told TheWrap. “These places are offering up to 40% and we’re only offering 25% for a movie and 20% for TV. That really opened my eyes to why everyone I know who’s working above-the-line is not here, and why my friends who work below-the-line aren’t working.”

Partnering with CA United and the Union Solidarity Coalition (TUSC), the “Stay in L.A.” petition calls upon California politicians to uncap the tax incentive for productions that shoot in L.A. county for the next three years, as well as studios/streamers to pledge at least 10% more production in LA over the next three years. The organizers applaud Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposal to increase California’s film/tv tax incentive to $750 million annually, though urge the legislature to pass the proposal without delay.

Since its launch less than a week ago, the petition has gained the support of over 15,000 industry workers as of this writing, including A-listers like Keanu Reeves, Patty Jenkins, Cord Jefferson, Rian Johnson, Noah Wyle, Jason Reitman, Joshua Jackson and Alison Brie, among others.

Below, Smith and Pechman unpack how the tragedy of the wildfires has ignited a passion for keeping jobs in L.A. and outline their organizing plans.

TheWrap: Why do you think this cause resonated with so many people, including A-list actors and showrunners as well as below-the-line crew?

Smith: The fires have been eye-opening for people. When a tragedy of this scale occurs, it also reminds us that our most important resource is each other. Everybody has come together in really beautiful ways, and wants to show this city love, and that’s what’s bringing a lot of unity on this particular issue. Before the fires, I think that there was a perception, in a way, that Hollywood was never going to go away, because so many executives live here. There are a lot of celebrities here, and there’s this sort of surface feeling that this is where Hollywood will always be. But the truth is, the very lifeblood of our industry are the craftspeople who make the films and TV shows and commercials and music videos that we watch. It’s sort of the ancestral home of cinema, you could say, and we’re in danger of losing that. It’s sad that it takes a tragedy like this to open people’s eyes to the suffering throughout the city, but it’s a really beautiful opportunity to come together and do something finally on this issue.

Pechman: I think a lot of actors have responded to this because they don’t want to go to Bulgaria or South Africa — They want to stay home with their families, and especially now, in the wake of this disaster, people want to rebuild — let’s give them an incentive to do that. We’ve seen a lot of people leave the city — hair stylists and stunt people, actors — who want to be included. If you move to Atlanta, above-the-line is part of the tax credit, and so there’s an incentive to hire you there if you live there. This is emotionally hitting a lot of people.

What are your plans for political and labor organizing? Have you reached out to state legislators with regard to your call to uncap tax credits?

Smith: It’s still pretty early days for us. Right now, we are making contacts at all the big agencies, unions, trying to reach out to studios, all the different advocacy groups, the MPA, really just trying to understand everyone’s position. These people have been doing great work on this issue far before the fires and long before we got involved. Our hope is that we can help amplify the good work they’re doing. Our two big goals for this campaign is to change the conversation about tax incentives — They should be talked about as job creation and about putting money back into the city, so rather than just some sort of Hollywood elite issue or that only benefits big corporations — and our second big goal is to do whatever we can to bring be a bridge for communication between all these major players, and to get everyone talking to each other and holding hands on this issue so we can solve it once and for all.

Pechman: The next phase of our campaign is going to be to ask for testimonials. We want to call for people to share their stories, not just from within our industry, but we’ve seen industries you wouldn’t expect posting our campaign — furniture dealers and florists and dry cleaners — these places get a lot of business from production that’s moving here, and we want to hear from them.

Have you heard from any California politicians and/or any streamers/studios about these asks?

Smith: We’re just starting to make contacts there, and we’ve been actually holding off on contacting lawmakers yet because we really want to a grow our campaign even more, so that we can go to them and say these are huge numbers and be able to say X% is not even from the industry, but from adjacent industries. We want to educate ourselves on all the existing efforts so that we are supporting, for example, Gavin Newsom’s budget, and supplementing them and drawing attention to what really should be emergency relief for L.A. right now.

What should be the response from Hollywood Labor if studios claim that labor costs are a reason they’re not moving back, even if this tax credit expansion is passed?

Smith: A huge point to talk about is universal health care. One of the reasons labor costs more here is that there are many places you can shoot where health care is taken care of by the government, and everyone’s using a public option, so those costs get built in to our wages.

Pechman: We shouldn’t take for granted that Hollywood is and will always be the movie making capital of the world. All of the studios that we’re talking about are based in L.A,, and we want executives and studios to be thinking about this. They’re continuing to build huge facilities in Nevada, New Mexico, Texas — Is that where they want to live? Because this affects them, too — you might wake up and your job isn’t in L.A. anymore.

Have there been discussions about other policy points you can push for to encourage productions in California?

Smith: It’s not just about increasing the amount of the tax incentive, but also the finer points of the way it’s run. It needs to be an incentive that’s transferable in order for studios to be really motivated to take advantage of that. It’s closer to the way other states currently run their incentives and why they’re so attractive. Short form should be included, making it easier for commercials to also stay here, but also independent films.

Pechman: Other states will include above-the-line in their incentives programs. We don’t do that. There’s many, many points to be talking about — the way permitting is done. We really just want to get people talking about what could make our program more competitive, and to see the weaknesses that have existed for a long time … we want to create something lasting.

Smith: The motivation for this campaign — it starts in raising awareness and changing the conversation overall about these incentives as not being something that takes away from California’s overall budget, but instead is about job creation and about bringing money back home and investing in communities.

Many of the studios/streamers committed millions of dollars in donations for fire relief, but how would bringing more productions to L.A. be a meaningful change?

Smith: It’s a great thing that they want to offer donation for fire relief. If they’re really serious about caring about this community, then they need to start shooting more here. We are really in danger of losing what has been traditionally a great American industry with a lot of middle class jobs. I can’t emphasize this enough, it’s already in a dire spot, and if we lose it, it’s not going to be so easy to bring back, because what we’re losing are the people, the craftspeople and artists who simply can no longer afford to live here if they can’t work here.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.