Governor Gavin Newsom unveils an expansion of California’s film and TV tax credit program in October 2024.
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California Is Doubling Its Film Incentive, but It May Be Too Late to Stop Runaway Production
“Mad Men” was set in 1960s New York, but it was mostly filmed at a studio just west of downtown Los Angeles. Sienna DeGovia was one of hundreds of people who worked on the show. Someone needed to re-create the food of that era, like savory Jell-Os and the carrots cut into one-inch cubes that used to be served on airplanes, and that’s what she does — she’s a food stylist. She started as an assistant 25 years ago and after learning the craft, became a lead stylist.
Los Angeles is full of weird jobs like that — or at least it used to be. But content production peaked in 2022, and the world’s entertainment capital has since been battered by a global contraction.
“The beginning of 2024, everything fell off a cliff,” DeGovia says. “I called all my old mentors and begged to be taken on as an assistant. I never had to do that in 20 years.”
The lack of work in Hollywood has renewed age-old calls for government intervention. Her father, Jack DeGovia, was a production designer who worked on “Die Hard” and “Speed.” In response to a downturn in 1999, he organized the Film and Television Action Committee, which took aim at “runaway production,” particularly the then-new phenomenon of shooting American films in Canada because it was cheaper.
“They were taking the bread out of our mouths and attacking our families,” says DeGovia, now 84. “They were making believe they were America. They’re not; they’re Canada. We were willing to play hardball with these guys.”
DeGovia led rallies in L.A. and Sacramento, where crews chanted “Film American!” and demanded a state tax incentive to match Canadian subsidies. That effort fizzled out. But a generation later, California has a production tax credit and is poised to double it in response to foreign incentives.
“We have to be more competitive,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said on May 14, noting that the business is on “life support.”
That may not be enough. Doubling the program should generate 4,000 to 5,000 jobs, according to state estimates. But in the past two years, California has lost 40,000 production jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Trying to be competitive, or close to competitive, is going to require not only a state effort but some sort of federal incentive,” says film producer Chris Bender, noting that at least 70 countries have a national subsidy. Jon Voight, a “special ambassador” appointed by President Trump, has pitched a national incentive as part of a plan to save Hollywood.
The industry has been dreaming about that idea for generations. Ronald Reagan backed a federal tax break to counter runaway production when he was governor of California in 1970. Twenty years before that, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he lobbied President Truman on the issue.
“Runaway production is not new,” says Russell Hollander, national executive director of the Directors Guild of America. “What is different now is that we are experiencing a tremendous global contraction in film and television production.”
According to DGA data, every major production center — California, New York, Georgia, Canada and London — has seen a downturn in the past couple years. But it’s been more severe in the U.S. than overseas.
“Under these circumstances, every job that leaves the United States to chase foreign tax incentives takes on added significance,” Hollander says. “Recapturing that work has to become an even more important priority.”
In Canada, production subsidies are a matter of cultural sovereignty. Without them, Canadian movie theaters and TV screens would be overwhelmed by American content.
“We want to see ourselves reflected on our airwaves, as does every other country,” says Norm Bolen, former president of the Canadian Media Producers Association. Bolen is skeptical that the U.S. needs a federal subsidy. “From a Canadian perspective, that’s absurd,” he says. “Hollywood dominates everywhere. What’s the deficiency that needs to be addressed?”
He also disputes the idea that Canada offering subsidies to international producers caused a loss of U.S. jobs. “They weren’t really taking jobs away from Americans,” he says. “They were providing financial resources that allowed these productions to be made. They wouldn’t have been made at all.”
In 1986, Stephen J. Cannell was producing an L.A.-based action show for NBC called “Stingray.” Facing declining network fees, he hit on the idea of saving money by filming in Canada.
“We didn’t have much choice,” says Michael Dubelko, who was president of Cannell’s company. “We were a small company. We did it for survival.”
The company ended up in Vancouver, which had almost no production industry at the time. Cannell turned a former distillery into a TV factory, churning out “21 Jump Street,” “Wiseguy,” “The Commish” and other shows.
“We didn’t know what we were doing when we started,” Dubelko says. “It was crazy.”
In his view, filming on location in Los Angeles had simply become too expensive. Homeowners would demand $5,000 or $10,000 to rent their house for a day. Once the crew got there, a neighbor would fire up the lawnmower and demand to be paid to turn it off.
“We go to Vancouver, and they’d say, ‘Come on in and shoot for free,’” he recalls. “We weren’t being ripped off all the time.”
And with a favorable exchange rate, Dubelko estimates they saved at least $100,000 an episode — or more than $2 million a season. Of course, leaving L.A. behind created some backlash. “We took heat for it,” he says.
But soon, others followed.
Producer Stephen J. Cannell at his production offices at Paramount Studios in 1983.
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The British Columbia film industry now employs thousands of people. Dubelko remembers being in Vancouver with Cannell a few years before he died. “We were going down the street, and people were stopping us, saying, ‘Oh my God, we’re in the business because of you,’” Dubelko says. “It was not one or two. Maybe 20 people came up to us and told us how grateful they were to him. He was really the one that pushed all this stuff. He was really a visionary.”
Lately, though, Vancouver has been hit hard by the contraction. According to the local crew union, only 25% of its members are working.
“We have been dead,” says Tonya Hartz, who has worked as a location scout in Vancouver for 28 years. “Production levels have been incredibly slow in 2025.”
Hartz knows people who have lost houses and are struggling to afford groceries.
Trump’s threat to impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made films, coming on top of blanket tariffs on Canadian goods and threats of annexation, has added to the strain.
“You can imagine the panic that rippled through our membership,” says Crystal Braunwarth, business representative of IATSE Local 891 in Vancouver, who fielded at least 50 calls after Trump’s threat.
While a movie tariff would probably be unworkable, some worry that U.S. producers may nevertheless shy away from filming abroad, exacerbating the downturn.
“This is a global industry,” says Spencer Chandra Herbert, B.C.’s minister of tourism, arts, culture and sport. “Trying to shut the door on it being a global industry misunderstands how the industry works.”
Canadian-based Gary Lam, an editor whose credits include “District 9” and “Terminator: Dark Fate,” says it’s not a zero-sum situation. “If it’s slow in Hollywood, it’s slow here,” he says. “We want Hollywood to be busy. When they get so busy they have trouble finding crew, that’s when we tend to get the call.”
Several in the Vancouver industry agree that the business moves in cycles, and they expect the slow period will not last forever. Lam says it’s also up to local governments to do what they can to help. “I do think that tax breaks and government support are the way to go,” he says.
So does the B.C. government, which recently increased its production incentive. “We’ve made this a priority,” Chandra Herbert says. “We’re responding to the same thing everyone else is. The major studios have reduced how much they’re spending. It’s been very hard on our workers.”
Dubelko isn’t convinced that a U.S. incentive is a great idea. When he was making TV, there were about 50 shows on the air. They would get Nielsen reports, and they all fit on one page. Now there are 500. “All this production that currently exists couldn’t have been done in one city or one state,” he says. “The business became very mobile in the mid-’80s. It was a very natural evolution that it would start being done outside Los Angeles.”
“How do you get that business back?” he says. “I don’t know. I don’t see how that happens.”
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With California’s June 2nd primary election nearing, Republican candidates for governor, Steve Hilton and Sheriff Chad Bianco, are set to appear at a forum in Clovis.
The Fresno County & City Republican Women Federated is hosting its “Celebrating 250 Years of America Dinner” and a gubernatorial forum on Friday, May 22nd, at The Regency Event Center, 1600 Willow Ave., in Clovis.
The forum will be moderated by State Senator Shannon Grove.
The discussion is expected to focus on major issues facing Californians, with questions presented via video by a panel of state and local figures, including Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp on public safety and crime; former Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims on border control and citizenship; William Bourdeau of Bourdeau Farms LLC on water rights and agricultural issues; California state Assemblymember David Tangipa on taxation and fiscal responsibility; Jonathan Keller of the California Family Council on parental rights and education; and Matthew Dildine, CEO of Fresno Mission, on homelessness and mental health.
Clovis Mayor Pro Tem Diane Pearce and Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig are listed as masters of ceremonies.
Doors are scheduled to open at 4:30 p.m., followed by a social hour at 5 p.m. Dinner and the program are set for 6 p.m.
Attire is listed as cocktail or business formal. Organizers said a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Veterans Home of California – Fresno.
GOP California governor candidates to face off at Clovis forum ahead of primary (Courtesy: Fresno County & City Republican Women Federated)
[RELATED] Top-two primary could pit same-party rivals as crowded Democratic field fractures votes
“This forum comes at a pivotal moment for our state,” FCCRWF event organizers said. “Bringing the top Republican gubernatorial candidates to Clovis allows Valley families, farmers, and business owners to get real answers on the issues that affect their daily lives, from water infrastructure to public safety and the skyrocketing cost of living.”
Individual tickets are $150, with discounts offered to FCCRWF members.
Table sponsorships are available at the $1,500, $2,500 and $5,000 levels.
Tickets and sponsorships are available online at FresnoRepublicanWomen.org.
Orange County’s top prosecutor said Amazon has agreed to stop California sales of certain e-bikes that can go faster than state speed limits following a series of fatal collisions.
The announcement, first reported by KCRA, comes on the heels of an April consumer alert by California Attorney General Rob Bonta that highlighted a rise in deaths related to e-bike and motorcycle crashes.
“We are seeing a surge of safety incidents on our sidewalks, parks, and streets,” Bonta said in a statement. “To ride a motorcycle or moped, you need to have the appropriate driver’s license and comply with rules of the road.”
Bonta’s alert stated that pedal-assisted e-bikes cannot exceed 28 mph. Throttle-assisted e-bikes are limited to 20 mph.
Amazon had continued to sell e-bikes with speeds over 40 mph. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Electric bikes and motorcycles have become increasingly popular in the last few years, particularly among teens. But the surge has been shadowed by a spate of deadly crashes.
Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer has charged at least three parents with allowing their children to ride electric motorcycles illegally, calling the vehicles a “loaded weapon.”
Spitzer noted in a post on X that Amazon said it removed e-bikes advertised with speeds over 40 miles per hour after KCRA contacted the company.
“The company said it has removed the examples provided and is investigating compliance for similar products,” Spitzer wrote.
That includes an Orange County mother, who faces an involuntary manslaughter charge after her son allegedly struck an 81-year-old man with an electric motorcycle. The 14-year-old boy had been doing wheelies on an e-motorcycle
A 13-year-old boy on an e-bike in Garden Grove died earlier this week after veering into the center median and hurtling onto the roadway. The boy was traveling at around 35 mph on a black E Ride Pro electric motorcycle, authorities said.
Amazon’s new sales limits come as the Los Angeles City Council pushes to keep electric bikes of off most city recreational trails, arguing they are a threat to hikers. E-bikes would still be allowed on designated bikeways, such as along the L.A. River.
Daniel Felix, 10, looks out from atop a gargantuan stump of an old-growth redwood on his tribe’s ancestral land. Once, this forest on California’s North Coast was replete with the ancient behemoths that can live beyond 2,000 years.
Only a fraction are left now, depleted by a logging company before the state acquired the forest in the 1940s.
This is unique public land, Jackson Demonstration State Forest, spanning 50,000 acres. Trees are plentiful here, but they might not live a millennium. California’s 14 demonstration forests are required to produce and sell timber to show — or “demonstrate” — sustainable practices. Money from logging — roughly $8.5 million a year — pays for management of the forests by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
Daniel’s tribe, the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, has pushed to rein in the cutting — spearheaded by his late great-grandmother, Priscilla Hunter. They’re part of a diverse coalition that includes environmental activists, local politicians and other tribes.
Now they may finally get their wish. Assemblymember Chris Rogers (D-Santa Rosa) has introduced a bill that would nix the forests’ logging mandate, instead prioritizing values such as carbon storage, wildfire resilience and biodiversity.
The bill represents the latest chapter in a region legendary for fierce battles over logging, and it marks an uncommon alliance between tribes and the environmental movement.
Under Assembly Bill 2494, there could still be logging, but it would have to support those new principles, and the forests would be funded differently.
And it proposes another significant change. It would pave the way for giving tribes a say in managing the lands for the first time since they were forcibly evicted more than a century ago, and for integrating Indigenous knowledge — like cultural burning — into the forests.
“It’s what we dreamed of,” said Polly Girvin, Hunter’s former partner and a retired lawyer focused on Native American issues. “And to have it come true? I’m used to movements that sometimes take 30 years in Indian Country to get to the justice you’re seeking.”
Kids play in the stump of an ancient redwood during a potluck held after the spirit run in Jackson Demonstration State Forest last month.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
Some backers say the bill offers a new economic path forward for communities behind the so-called redwood curtain. With the decline of logging and cannabis, they see tourism driven by ultramarathons, mushroom foraging and other outdoor activities as a financial savior.
“If we had an increase of 10% of visitors coming to our county because of recreational opportunities, that would more than surpass all of the timber tax in our county,” Mendocino County Supervisor Ted Williams said, projecting an increase in money from a lodging tax.
But the push to reshape forest management is fiercely opposed by loggers and mill owners, who say their work is sustainable and provides blue-collar jobs in a region where they’ve dwindled. Already California imports most of its wood from Oregon, Washington and Canada.
“California has the most rules and regulations of anywhere in the world so all they’re doing is exporting the environmental impact to somewhere else, still using the product,” said Myles Anderson, owner of a logging company in Fort Bragg founded by his grandfather. “It’s pretty disgusting, really.”
Anderson believes the bill will greatly reduce logging, even stop it altogether. In his office, with photos of him and his father at a logging site decades ago, he points out it’s sponsored by the Environmental Protection Information Center. Why else would they and other environmental groups “support it if they didn’t see the same thing that I’m seeing?”
Last month, activists who have sought to rein in logging at Jackson held their first major gathering in about four years, galvanized by the bill that they see as a significant step in the right direction.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
A new but old fight
About five years ago, community members caught wind of plans to chop down towering redwoods within Jackson, near the coastal town of Caspar. Priscilla Hunter would come out to the forest “and could hear them crying — it was our ancestors,” said her daughter Melinda Hunter, the tribe’s vice chairwoman. “Then she had to protect [the trees].”
Environmental activists and Native Americans, not historically allies in the region, joined forces to fight it. “Forest defenders” camped out high in the canopy and blocked logging equipment with their bodies. Some were arrested.
The uprising harked back to the 1980s and 1990s, when iconic environmentalist Judi Bari led Earth First! campaigns against logging in the region. Many of the old tree sitters — white-haired and brimming with stories of Bari — have come out of the woodwork for the latest battle.
For them, it was a win. Cal Fire paused new timber sales and, citing public safety, halted some that were underway — including one expected to generate millions of dollars for Myles Anderson’s logging company.
“We were left with nothing,” Anderson said.
Then, last year, Cal Fire approved the first harvest plan since that hiatus. It riled up the sizable, ecologically minded community.
Jessica Curl, 47, remembers growing up nearby “in a terrain of trunks” as trucks carried out logs. Now the redwoods are regrowing, “gorgeous” and gobbling carbon, she said.
“We’re so lucky to live in an area where we have this amazing climate-change mitigation tool, that if we would just leave it alone would do this amazing work that we’re trying to think of all these cool, inventive things to do.”
Isidro Chavez receives burning sage, or smudging, after a run in Jackson Demonstration State Forest. Smudging is a ritual used to cleanse spaces and individuals of negative energy, promote calm and improve mood.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
Tears of grief, resolve
A group of “spirit runners” — a Native American tradition of bringing prayer — sprinted through the heart of Jackson forest as rain poured through the canopy. The mid-April event marked activists’ first major gathering since protests wound down in 2022.
Attendees gathered in a circle to wait for them. Misty Cook, of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, read a statement as eyes misted all around:
“All the living things around us, they miss us. They miss the language. They miss our touch, our hands, touching all of the things — the water, the plants. They miss the songs. They miss the beat of our footsteps and our voices, and they miss the children’s laughter and play, which was so important. They want us to gather them, to use them and to share them. Otherwise they will get sick and possibly die.”
Cal Fire launched a tribal advisory council to bring Indigenous perspective into Jackson. But some local tribes say it’s not enough because they lack decision-making power.
When the runners arrived, the circle absorbed them. Then they continued on to the site of a controversial proposed harvest, Camp Eight. They wrapped a bandana that belonged to Priscilla Hunter around a small tree — a quiet, somber act where she took her last stand. Runners took turns embracing the trunk.
Redwoods at the Capitol
In March, Rogers’ bill cleared a committee and is now in the Assembly Appropriations Committee’s suspense file. A hearing is set for Thursday.
Funding is a major point of contention. Environmentalists say funding these forests with timber operations incentivizes cutting bigger trees. Cal Fire maintains decisions are driven by forest health, not industry demand.
AB 2494 would fund the forests through a tax on lumber and engineered wood products. The shift could create “[o]ngoing state costs and cost pressures of an unknown but potentially significant amount, possibly in the low millions of dollars annually,” according to a legislative analysis.
The California Forestry Assn., a timber industry trade group, says the idea is a nonstarter.
Cal Fire declined to comment on pending legislation but Kevin Conway, the agency’s staff chief for resource protection and improvement, said its nearly 80-year history managing Jackson reflects “care and attention.” Since the state acquired the forest, “we have more trees on the landscape, more habitat and those trees are trending larger,” he said.
For the tribes who have rallied and prayed, a burning question is whether the land will again reflect their vision, or remain shaped by decisions made by others.
Buffie Campbell, executive director of the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council — co-founded by Priscilla Hunter and one of the groups supporting the bill — said young people wouldn’t be able to fathom the significance of the legislation passing. Maybe that’s a good thing.
“Maybe they don’t need to know about all the fighting that we have to do before they get to go out and enjoy and be tribal guardians stewarding their land.”
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