04.27.20 - Hollywood is no stranger to strange and troubling times like a global pandemic on the silver screen, but the real-life version has no director or screenwriter.
During the global coronavirus pandemic, a captive audience flocks to the streaming services of Netflix and Hulu to watch TV hit series and movies they missed in the theatre. But for the hundreds of thousands of craftspeople, technicians, and artisans who make up the backbone of the film and entertainment industry, livelihoods were thrown into limbo when Hollywood studios were forced to halt production. In California alone, film and entertainment production supports more than 722,000 jobs and $68 billion in wages, according to the Motion Picture Association.
In the last fiscal year ending in September 2019, the industry generated over $2.4 billion in direct in-state spending, according to the California Film Commission.
The pandemic proves an unprecedented challenge to the industry's creative capital, where one in eight of all private wage and salary workers are estimated to work directly or indirectly in the creative industries, according to the latest figures from the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation.
FilmLA, the city's film permitting agency, announced Thursday that filming was already down 18% in the first quarter. While there were 1,091 local productions filming in Greater Los Angeles in February, by the end of March that number dropped to zero.
Source: Bloomberg
