Los Angeles’ portion of the domestic film and TV economy shrank last year amid devastating industry struggles, but it remains by far the most powerful entertainment player in the United States.

According to the latest Otis College Report on the Creative Economy, released Thursday, the City of Angels posted a 27% share of domestic film and TV employment in 2023 — down 8% from 2022 but still way ahead of its fiercest competitor, New York, which made up 12% of the entertainment workforce.

Other U.S. production hubs lagged far behind Los Angeles. Each claiming 2% of the entertainment pie last year were Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago and Miami; while Nashville, Tenn., Austin, Texas, and Washington, D.C., each hovered at 1% — largely in line with where they stood 10 years ago.

Additionally, the Otis report found that workers in Los Angeles County earned 50% of all wages across the domestic film and TV industry last year.

With the exception of New York — long a production stronghold — film and TV activity outside of Los Angeles was spread pretty evenly throughout other parts of the country, leading Otis College to conclude that there is no “New Hollywood” on the horizon.

The new report tracks the pivotal decade from 2013 — when Netflix launched the streaming revolution with the release of “House of Cards” — to early 2024, immediately following the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes.

“Los Angeles is still the apex of the entertainment industry, but the industry itself is undergoing once-in-a-generation changes,” Patrick Adler, principal at Westwood Economics and Planning Associates, said in a statement.

“It is less dependent on film and television studios, more oriented toward online content creation, live events and gaming, and also much more technical and managerial than ever. What it means to work in Hollywood is starkly different today than even 10 years ago.”

According to the study, film and TV currently covers about 52% of the entertainment business in Los Angeles County, coming in 12% behind 2013. Employment levels spanning film, TV, sound, broadcasting and print media — all labeled “traditional” entertainment fields by Otis — have similarly fallen roughly 9% from 2013 to 2024.

The waning prominence of film and TV coincides with a drop in production, which is still down 9% from pre-strike levels, according to the report. Film and TV employment in Los Angeles County is 19% lower than it was prior to the work stoppages — leaving thousands of writers, crew members and other entertainment workers in a state of financial and emotional distress.

Otis College previously reported that entertainment employment in the greater Los Angeles area plummeted by 17% during the overlapping writers’ and actors’ strikes.

Previous reporting by The Times illustrates that the production and employment crisis in Los Angeles predates the walkouts and can be largely attributed to an ongoing industry contraction following studios’ overspending during the streaming wars.

As a result, film, TV, commercial and other production activity in the first quarter of 2024 was about 20% below the five-year average, according to FilmLA, a nonprofit organization that tracks on-location production in the Greater Los Angeles area.

Meanwhile, job growth in “modern” entertainment sectors — identified as software publishing, video gaming, social media, streaming, performing arts, live sports and “independent artists” — rose 53% between 2013 and 2024, Otis College reported.

The fastest-growing corner of the entertainment industry in the county is software publishing (including video games), which has jumped 149% in the last decade. Film, TV and traditional publishing are the only areas that have seen a decline.

The report also determined that the number of college-educated workers in the Los Angeles entertainment industry increased from 46% to 68% between 2000 and 2022.

Creative and management positions accounted for 59% of entertainment jobs in 2013 and had risen to 66% by 2022. Meanwhile, the amount of manual occupations, such as transportation, cleaning, groundskeeping and construction, had declined.

Additionally, the entertainment workforce over the last decade has become more racially diverse. The share of white workers in creative fields decreased between 2013 and 2022, while employment for all other racial groups grew, the report indicates.

“My hope is that the trends identified in this study and our ongoing Otis College Report on the Creative Economy give industry leaders and policymakers insight into the needs of an evolving workforce,” Charles Hirschhorn, president of Otis College, said in a statement, “one that requires more training, investment and education than ever before.”

You’re almost certainly not prepared for Robot Dreams. Even after it getting the Best Animated Feature nomination at the Academy Awards, most of you who see the film are going to be walking in cold. That’s good, too, as it will be similar to how I approached the movie. Do it that we and this beautiful bit of emotional animation will wash over you in a very special way. Robot Dreams is one of my favorite works of late, easily representing some of 2024’s best cinematic bits (yes, I’m mostly counting it for this year).

Robot Dreams takes a very simple premise and executes it magnificently. Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure, it’s a tribute to the power of emotions, the need to be close to others, and how a true connection is not impacted by time. The movie is timeless and universal in its themes, while also being hyper specific in its style, as well as choice of characters. For me, it basically all worked.

Set in a version of 1980s New York City with anthropomorphized animals, we’re introduced to Dog, who lives alone in Manhattan. He’s clearly lonely and one day, while watching television, sees an ad for a robot friend. Ordering it and building it, he suddenly has a companion in Robot. An inseparable friendship blossoms, as they galavant all around the city. Towards the end of the summer, they go to the beach in Coney Island. There, a moment in the water, followed by sleeping in the sand, will change them both forever.

When Dog discovers that Robot has rusted and is unable to move it, he has to head home that night, planning to return in the morning with tools. Unfortunately, that plan does not work, so Robot has more or less been abandoned. Without hope, at least until the beach reopens next season, Dog goes about his life, trying to fill the void. While he’s attempting to make new connections, Robot dreams about being reunited, as well as what could be happening in those scenarios. Will they ever meet again? Plus, if they even can, will they still have what was so special to them once before?

While this film has no dialogue, the emotions speak volumes. Whether it’s the joy of the opening section, the sadness of the middle, or the mix of hope and melancholy that dominates the back end, we don’t need to hear Dog or Robot to completely understand them. That’s incredibly rare and one of the big triumphs of Robot Dreams.

Filmmaker Pablo Berger executes his vision with aplomb. The beginning is about as adorable and fun as anything you’ll see this year, while his ending ranks up there with La La Land (in more ways than one). Berger knows exactly how to make Robot Dreams never boring, always beautiful, and constantly compelling. It’s a home run.

Robot Dreams is worth the wait. Whether you heard about it before its Oscar run, during the awards season, or just here in 2024, you’re in for a treat. It’s one of the best films of the year so far, animated or otherwise, and demands your attention!

SCORE: ★★★1/2

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Elizabeth “Betsy” MacRae Halsey, best known for her recurring roles on “General Hospital” and “Gomer Pyle, USMC,” has died at age 88.

MacRae died Monday at Highland House Rehabilitation & Healthcare in her hometown of Fayetteville, N.C., local news outlet CityView reported and Deadline confirmed.

“She had a wonderful life,” the actor’s nephew Jim MacRae told CityView on Tuesday. “She was bright and articulate. She was still getting fan mail at Highland House.”

Throughout her decades-spanning career, MacRae charmed audiences and entertainment executives alike, appearing in a number of classic soap operas and fan-favorite sitcoms. She enjoyed a triumph later in her acting career with a lead role in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film “The Conversation,” which won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or.

MacRae was born in 1936 in Columbia, S.C., but spent her formative years in Fayetteville, according to CityView. As a child, she frequented the cinema, captivated by movie stars such as Rita Hayworth and Elizabeth Taylor.

Following her graduation from the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Md., a college-preparatory school for girls with an emphasis on the arts, MacRae decided to seriously pursue acting in 1956.

That year, she botched an audition for Otto Preminger’s historical drama “Saint Joan,” but despite MacRae’s misfire, the Austrian director encouraged her to continue honing her craft — including by pursuing formal training. MacRae took his advice and moved to New York City to study with German American actor Uta Hagen at the Herbert Berghof Studio.

“Daddy gave me $100 and told me to come home when it was gone,” MacRae recalled in a 1967 interview. Within a week of the move, she said, she had landed a modeling job at Bergdorf Goodman.

After two years of acting in various off-Broadway and summer-stock productions, MacRae made her television debut in the courtroom drama “The Verdict Is Yours” in 1958. Other jobs followed, she recalled in an interview, allowing her to mail $100 enclosed in a valentine to her father.

MacRae went on to appear in a number of classic television series, including “Judd, for the Defense,” “Gunsmoke,” “General Hospital” and “The Andy Griffith Show.” In 1966, she began one of her best-known roles on “The Andy Griffith Show” spinoff “Gomer Pyle, USMC” as the title character’s girlfriend, Lou-Ann Poovie.

According to a 1968 Times report, MacRae was originally cast to play a tone-deaf lounge singer for a single episode. But her Southern accent — which she’d ironically tried to shed early in her career — and effortless chemistry with series lead Jim Nabors promoted her to a recurring role. She appeared in 15 episodes, with her last in 1969, the year Nabors quit the series to pursue other projects.

“She was my alter ego, and she lives inside me still,” MacRae told CityView in 2021. “I loved playing Lou-Ann Poovie.”

After “Gomer Pyle” ended, MacRae worked predominantly on soap operas, including “Another World,” “Days of Our Lives,” “Guiding Light” and “Search for Tomorrow.” But just as her career seemed to slow down, she was cast opposite Gene Hackman in Coppola’s critically acclaimed neo-noir mystery “The Conversation.” The film is now recognized as one of Coppola’s — and Hackman’s — master works.

In 1989, MacRae left Hollywood and returned to New York City, where she embarked on what she called her “second career” as a drug and alcohol counselor. Nearly a decade later, she moved back to North Carolina with her husband, Charles Halsey.

She was inducted into the Fayetteville Performing Arts Hall of Fame in April 2023.

“Elizabeth had the ‘X factor’ that is an important part of being a performer,” Mayon Weeks, who inducted MacRae into the Hall of Fame, told CityView. “A warm and delightful person to be with, and an engaging performer in film and on stage. A treasured daughter of our Fayetteville community.”

MacRae is survived by five stepchildren — Terry Halsey, Peter Halsey, Hugh Halsey, Cate Halsey and Alex Halsey Topper — and many nieces and nephews.

A trove of items chronicling MacRae’s acting career, which she donated in 1999 and 2002, are housed in the Louis Round Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.