New fund attempts to assist local productions<\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES \u2014 Independent filmmaker Sylvia Ray always wanted to shoot her first feature film, \u201cThe Middle,\u201d in California \u2014 as it\u2019s set in Barstow, where she grew up.<\/p>\n
Instead, she shot it in Mexico.<\/p>\n
The math made the decision for her. Grants and incentives from the municipality of Torre\u00f3n and the state of Coahuila covered 30-40% of her production budget, which came in under a million dollars. She didn\u2019t pay for filming permits. On-site security was provided. Local hotels came in as sponsors. Over 21 days in March and April, the production hired 75 local crew members and college students.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I needed was a desert landscape and American homes. I could have definitely shot it in LA comfortably. Had I gotten more support and made it make sense for us financially,\u201d Ray said. \u201cBut it just didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her budget was too small to qualify for any California film incentive at the time, as the state\u2019s program doesn\u2019t reach projects costing under $1 million. Filmmakers and producers say that gap is the whole problem. California\u2019s incentives, even after the recent expansion, are built for productions several rungs above them.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles County has plans to change that. Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Kathryn Barger are developing an Entertainment Evergreen Fund, first introduced last July, which would channel money to productions the state\u2019s tax credit doesn\u2019t reach. It isn\u2019t a tax credit, rather a grant program.<\/p>\n
No dollar amount has been attached and the county has not committed funding. The board intends to explore a public-private model, with funding sources, amounts and any cost sharing determined only after an outside consultant completes an analysis and presents recommendations. Any final proposal returns to the board for public discussion and a vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike every County initiative, this work must be balanced with our current fiscal realities,\u201d Barger said in a statement, adding that she hopes to build \u201ca sustainable … partnership that helps keep film, television, and digital media production\u201d and keeps LA \u201cthe global leader in entertainment production.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horvath said in a statement that direct investment in productions, like with this fund, \u201cis the best way to keep the work here in LA.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cState tax credits have been the most instrumental tool to keep production local, and we want to amplify their success to make clear to the industry: LA County wants you here,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The trouble small-budget indies run into in LA is location and permitting costs, said Philip Sokoloski, vice president of communications at FilmLA, the nonprofit that coordinates permits and tracks local production.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany property owners inclined to rent out their homes or places of business for filming are used to an era where there was a lot of money to go around … It\u2019s not true anymore,\u201d Sokoloski said. \u201cUntil that message is widely understood, there\u2019s a certain priced-out-of-the-market feeling that many indies are experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n
A fund, he said, could help offset those costs.<\/p>\n
The broader production picture hasn\u2019t recovered. Between April and June, the greater LA area logged 4,711 shoot days, down nearly 13% from the same period a year earlier, according to FilmLA\u2019s second-quarter data. Feature film shoots fell 20% year over year.<\/p>\n
Incentivized work is one of the few bright spots. FilmLA said 170 projects between July 2025 and July 2026 have benefited from the California Film & TV Tax Credit Program\u00a0 while 33% of the 443 feature film shoot days in 2026\u2019s second quarter came from productions receiving tax credits.<\/p>\n
Making an indie movie is harder than it has ever been, said Steven Wolfe, a producer whose credits include \u201c(500) Days of Summer\u201d and more than 45 other films. Companies are less willing to finance independent projects, buyers are spending less and the exhibition market is harder to navigate. Yet \u201cthere\u2019s an audience that\u2019s very hungry for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Wolfe is developing what he calls a passion project with a first-time feature director, set to shoot in Los Angeles. Whether it gets made, he said, depends on whether the fund materializes. \u201cAll of us recognize the need to take extreme action and soon on trying to rebuild Los Angeles as the film capital of the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The fund is being shaped with input from the Indie Film Task Force, a group of industry voices led by the nonprofit NewFilmmakers Los Angeles. The task force pushed for grants rather than a tax credit, arguing that budgets this small don\u2019t generate enough tax liability for a credit to be worth much.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see this as a foundational level investment. It is a trickle-up incentive that\u2019s going to feed into the studios,\u201d said NFMLA Executive Director Larry Laboe. \u201cThis is a way to invest very little money in a lot of different productions and hope for some big wins from those productions that can trickle up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laboe points out Curry Barker\u2019s box office underdog \u201cObsession\u201d as the latest example of a major low-budget indie success. The horror flick, which hit theaters in May, was made in Los Angeles for a budget of $750,000 and has since grossed nearly $475 million worldwide.<\/p>\n
Laboe, one of the proposal\u2019s leading advocates, has projected the fund\u2019s ceiling could reach $100 million depending on fundraising. NFMLA isn\u2019t positioned to administer it, though he\u2019s open to a role.<\/p>\n
Barger said her conversations with filmmakers, labor representatives and production companies have surfaced \u201cseveral promising ways an Evergreen Fund could strengthen our local industry,\u201d including \u201cgrant incentives that encourage productions of all sizes \u2014 including independent filmmakers \u2014 to choose Los Angeles County.\u201d<\/p>\n
Film and TV production incentives rarely deliver the economic benefit that justifies them and only occasionally change where a project shoots, said Patrick Button, an associate professor of economics at Tulane University who studies the programs. He sees a particular problem with targeting small productions: Indie filmmakers, already working on thin budgets, are the least likely to relocate in pursuit of a subsidy. Chasing incentives across jurisdictions is largely the province of major studios.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the goal with these incentives being to attract filmmaking and lead to economic stimulus, that\u2019s not materialized in the data,\u201d Button said. \u201cIn general, these incentives don\u2019t have a good return on investment for the states and their counties.\u201d Low-budget producers, he added, aren\u2019t the ones moving around, \u201cwhich creates even less rationale.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also noted \u201ca lot of stress on the LA County budget right now, and a lot of other things that the money could be spent on,\u201d and expects the fund\u2019s effect to be \u201cvery small.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laboe countered that covering even 10% of an indie production budget would help keep work local, and said filmmakers may be able to layer a county grant with the state credit where it applies.<\/p>\n
Independent productions are a meaningful share of SAG-AFTRA members\u2019 income, particularly as major studios chase incentives abroad. More small films shot locally would mean more roles, said SAG-AFTRA Secretary-Treasurer Joely Fisher.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are rolling up their sleeves, raising money and going to make a movie for under a million bucks,\u201d Fisher said. \u201cBut also they\u2019re able to take more chances. People are being discovered in these indie movies, and I think that that\u2019s a great thing for our newer members, who can cut their teeth on something indie.\u201d<\/p>\n
Making the film is only half of it. The fund should address marketing costs, or the films won\u2019t get seen, said Jackie Brenneman, president of the Independent Film & Television Alliance. Those budgets traditionally come from distributors, but more independent films now go directly to theaters without one.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be able to exploit the thing you make,\u201d Brenneman said. \u201cIf we want to be able to access theaters, the theater\u2019s first question is going to be, what\u2019s your marketing plan? What\u2019s your marketing budget? And if you don\u2019t have one, then you\u2019re more likely to get four-walled\u201d \u2014 renting the screen themselves and absorbing the risk.<\/p>\n
Ray is still editing \u201cThe Middle.\u201d Whatever happens with the fund, it won\u2019t reach her first feature. But she\u2019s already thinking about her next one.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter this film is done, I\u2019ll have my next one to worry about,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a filmmaker here, there are so many hurdles, and it would just be nicer to have a clear pipeline, a scaling budget for all of these things and [provide] access to people who want to support emerging talent and artists, not just the studio system.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New fund attempts to assist local productions LOS ANGELES \u2014 Independent filmmaker Sylvia Ray always wanted to shoot…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":998039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[18910,3232,1582,276,38360,79,39054,125359,78351,2961,69425,224,6080,5337],"class_list":["post-998038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-tax-credit","tag-budget","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-credit","tag-economy","tag-filmmaking","tag-independent-film","tag-kathryn-barger","tag-la","tag-lindsey-horvath","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-losangeles"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}