After soaring to highs in the third quarter not seen since 2018, production in Los Angeles set an all-time quarterly record to end 2021.
Most of the previous year saw substantially more production than 2020, which mustered just 18,933 shoot days, a 48 percent decline from 2019 and the lowest annual number that local film office FilmLA has reported through 25 years.
Production in L.A. remained robust with 10,780 shoot days from October to December, which is 4 percent above the previous three-month high, set in the last quarter of 2018, according to FilmLA’s latest report, released Wednesday. The figure is an increase over the previous quarter, revealing a brisk pace of production leading into the holiday season.
Related Stories
“The quarter four report really establishes that the film industry is ready to return in large volume when and if it’s safe to do so,” FilmLA president Paul Audley said. “We saw a gradual increase in the year as things got better and the safety protocols proved their ability to keep people safe.”
Television production fared the best in the quarter, posting 4,925 shoot days. For the year, television shows produced in the area logged 18,560 shoot days, which bested the previous record set in 2016 by 18 percent.
TV shows that shot this past quarter include The CW’s All American, ABC’s Promised Land, FX’s Snowfall, HBO’s Euphoria, Peacock’s Bel-Air, HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant and Made for Love, ABC’s Home Economics, NBC’s Kenan and Mr. Mayor, TBS’ Chad and Netflix’s Frankie.
Audley said “television has become a mainstay of production” for the city, attributing its growth to the proliferation of streaming services. He added, “A lot of the huge increase we saw is playing catch-up for delayed production” from 2020.
Production for feature films, however, remained severely impacted throughout the year due to the ongoing pandemic: 2021 ended with a total of 3,406 shoot days for features, which is 19 percent below the pre-COVID average.
“Feature film production has some pretty wild cycles,” Audley said. “Unlike TV, which comes in and can move fairly quickly, the lead-up to produce a large feature is a lot longer. My instinct is that they’ve become a lot more cautious as the pandemic has continued across the world.”
Features that filmed locally include four Netflix films — Me Time, Your Place or Mine, The Gray Man and an Untitled Jonah Hill project — in addition to independent films He Went That Way, Way Down Bundy and Wild Chickens.
Commercial productions for the quarter and year were also on par with the pre-COVID average.
