Hollywood backlots remained nearly full during the pandemic. Here’s why

Hollywood’s soundstages remained practically absolutely occupied all through the primary yr of the COVID-19 pandemic at the same time as filming halted, highlighting the shortage of studio house within the area, in keeping with a brand new report.

The typical annual soundstage occupancy fee reached 94% in 2020, up from 93% in 2019, in keeping with the brand new report from Movie LA, the nonprofit group that handles movie permits for the town and county.

One clarification: Many studios reported full backlots as producers sought out extra managed environments for out of doors capturing. Even with a 87-day shutdown, the variety of shoot days on backlots dropped solely 15 % from 2019 to 2020.

The report comes as California is trying to spur extra funding in soundstages throughout the area. Final summer time, state legislators approved an extra $150 million in tax credit for filming on renovated or newly constructed soundstages as a part of a plan to lure extra manufacturing to the state.

The shortage of studio house has led to rents rising 15% within the final 5 years and precipitated some producers to depart the area. Most studio operators didn’t lose a single lessee in the course of the manufacturing shutdown, in keeping with the report.

“There was nonetheless a terrific diploma of religion that the business was going to return they usually weren’t keen to make rash or snap judgments about their want for a soundstage,” FilmLA spokesman Philip Sokoloski mentioned. “They selected to carry on to it, believing that there can be a return to manufacturing within the close to future. It highlights the resiliency of the Los Angeles space market.”

Tv manufacturing, spurred by the intensifying competitors between new streaming platforms, drove demand for each on location and stage-based manufacturing. TV reveals accounted for 72% of all stage and backlot-based shoot days, up from 62% in 2019.

The report additionally highlights how function movies struggled to renew manufacturing in the course of the first yr of the pandemic, registering simply 146 shoot days in 2020, down 50% from 2019.

“We simply don’t have the house for them anymore as a result of now we have this explosion of streaming content material that’s been occupying phases,” mentioned Anne Hurts, FilmLA senior analysis analyst, mentioned. “Plenty of impartial filmmakers have indicated to me that it was simply too dangerous for them to shoot throughout COVID, and even now, as a result of they don’t know if issues are going to get shut down once more.”

Different states like New Mexico have had success luring corporations like Netflix and NBCUniversal by tying tax credit to infrastructure funding. Earlier than the pandemic, FilmLA cited the shortage of studio house in L.A. County as one cause for a stunning 6% drop in location filming on the finish of 2019.

Assistance is on the way in which. There are at the least 14 new studios or studio expansions underway in higher Los Angeles, in keeping with the report. These embody an growth on the Common Studios lot and $1.25 billion revamp of LA’s CBS Tv Metropolis to assist convey it into the streaming period, in addition to the plan to construct new phases at Warner Bros. Ranch.

The historic ranch in Burbank, the place reveals like HBO’s “Perry Mason” are filmed, will get 16 new phases as a part of a $500 million plan, the reported famous.

L.A. already leads world within the quantity of soundstage house with 5.4 million sq. ft. The UK is a detailed second with 4.7 million sq. ft, in keeping with the report. New York and Georgia have 2.4 and a couple of million sq. ft of stage house, respectively.