On-location filming in LA sees sharp decline after WGA, SAG-AFTRA strikes
On-locating filming in Los Angeles saw a dramatic decline in 2023, according to a new report, which points to the twin strikes from WGA and SAG-AFTRA as the cause.
The annual report, which was released by FilmLA, a partner film office for the city and county of Los Angeles, shows that there were just 5,520 shoot days in the fourth quarter, compared to the 8,674 from 2022 in the same time span.
As a whole, 2023 saw nearly 10,000 less shoot days across film, television and commercials, dropping from 36,792 in 2022 to 24,873 in 2023 — a sharp 32.4% drop.
"History offers no point of comparison to the present," said FilmLA President Paul Audley in a statement. "The pandemic year aside, we have to look very far back — farther back than permit records allow — to find a time when production levels stayed so low, for so long."
The major decline can largely be attributed to the strikes that brought the entertainment industry to a screeching halt in 2023, with thousands of members from both the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild hitting picket lines as they fought for better contracts with studios.
WGA members were the first to strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, starting on May 2. They were joined by SAG-AFTRA members a few months later on July 14.
The months-long walkouts each hit more than 100 days before finally coming to resolutions, WGA on Sept. 27 and SAG-AFTRA on Nov. 9, when each finally came to agreements on their own respective labor agreements with AMPTP representatives.
Filming finally resumed in Nov., but the serious delay in between productions resulted in a handful of new episodes for on-air shows. Overall, 2023 saw television production dropped by nearly 44% to just 9,430 shoot days.
The report shows that most of the television production that did take place since May was actually reality television, and even that experienced a noted drop of just over 29% in the fourth quarter. Reality TV shows accounted for 76.5% of on-location television production in 2023, the report also showed.
"Everyone we are speaking to is eager to see production resume," Audley's statement continued. "Even as it does, we'll remain in uncharted territory. We have months to go before we can describe what the new normal looks like for filming in LA."
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