Los Angeles On-Location Filming Set First-Quarter Record, FilmLA Says

deadline.com:

On-location film and TV production in Greater Los Angeles is off to a “strong start” in 2022, with 9,832 days of on-location shooting setting an all-time first-quarter record according to the latest report from FilmLA, the city and county film permit office.

That topped the previous first quarter mark set in 2016 but was down 8.8% from the record-setting 10,780 shoot days racked up in the fourth quarter of 2021.Shoot days in the first three months of this year were up 40.2% compared with the first quarter of 2021, when the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus led to a voluntary filming hiatus that slowed production to just 7,011 shoot days for the quarter and were 9.7% higher than the five-year average of first quarters.“The potential for another Covid-related cutback had us eyeing the first quarter with concern,” FilmLA president Paul Audley said. “But with strong protective protocols in place, the industry was in a good position to weather the post-holiday Omicron surge.”Most of the first quarter’s gains, however, came in a FilmLA category that generates relatively few jobs: the “other category,” which includes still photography shoots, student films, music and industrial videos and documentaries.

Those shoot days posted a whopping 115.1% gain from a year ago – 3,608 vs. 1,677. Factoring out that increase results in a first quarter that wasn’t much better than the first three months of 2021.On-location TV shoot days were up 18.7% over the same three-month period last year, with reality shows logging a 71.7% quarterly increase and a 139% gain over the five-year average. (That average excludes the year 2020, when production was suspended in Los Angeles County between mid-March through mid-June due to Covid-19.)