L.A. Location Shoots Dropped by 22% in Q1 2025 Amid Fires, but ‘Impact on Local Filming Levels Appears to Have Been Temporary'
After a promising end to 2024 where production had increased by 6.2%, on-production shoot days in the Greater Los Angeles area declined by 22.4% from January through March 2025, according to FilmLA's latest report.
There were only 5,295 shoot days across all the major filming categories. Commercials fell by 2.1% to 796 shoot days.
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Television accounted for 1,670 shoot days, falling 30.5%, and feature film production dropped to 28.9% with 451 shoot days.
The L.A. fires that devastated Altadena and the Pacific Palisades only had a small impact on filming in the area. A recent FilmLA analysis determined that combined, these areas had hosted 1,405 shoot days over the past four years — or roughly 1.3% of all regional filming. Approximately 545 unique filming locations fell within the fires' burn zones. At the order of the City and County, burn areas remain off-limits.
FilmLA VP of Integrated Communications Philip Sokoloski said, 'Loss of filming opportunity in no way compares to the cost of the Eaton and Palisades Fires in terms of loss of life, resident displacement and property damage. The fires sent many productions scrambling to reschedule shoots and displaced hundreds of industry workers from their homes. But their impact on local filming levels appears to have been temporary.'
The drop in shooting comes largely from global production cutbacks and California's ongoing loss of work to rival territories
Television production peaked in Greater Los Angeles in 2021 at 18,560 annual shoot days. With just 7,716 shoot days logged in 2024, annual television production declined by 58.4% in just three years.
In the first quarter of 2025, TV drama production declined again, down 38.9% to 440 shoot days. Of that, 77 shoot days (or 17.5% of all TV drama activity) came from projects attached to the California Film & Television Tax Credit Program. TV comedy production also declined 29.9% to 110 shoot days, and TV reality declined 26.4% to 969 shoot days.
TV comedies' half-hour series are currently ineligible for California's film incentive, making them easy targets for out-of-state competitors.
Unscripted series had been a staple of the LA filming economy during the strikes of 2023. Last year's reality plunge delivered an unexpected shock, and made 2024 the second-slowest year for filming in Greater L.A.
With global production in decline, industry stakeholders are focused on Governor Gavin Newsom's call to expand the California Film & Television Tax Credit Program. FilmLA supports the expansion of California's film incentive to $750 million or more per year, including proposed changes to make the program more internationally competitive through bills SB630 (Allen) and AB1138 (Zbur / Bryan). FilmLA President Paul Audley testified in Sacramento in March about the importance of filming to the state.
Sokoloski said, 'The California Production Coalition estimates that the average location shoot adds $670,000 and 1,500 jobs a day to a local economy. And the County of Los Angeles and Beacon Economics report that there are 10,500 entertainment related businesses in the state. Numbers like these make it plain: California can't afford to surrender any more work to its competitors.'
Lower-cost shoots such as still photography, student films, documentaries, music and industrial videos and other projects, dropped 20.2% (to 2,378 shoot days) last quarter.
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