Written by new-contact on Mar 5, 2015. Posted in On Location

Los Angeles appoints film liaison officer ahead of tax credit boost

The Mayor of Los Angeles has appointed a film liaison officer to help make the city more film-friendly. California’s filming incentive programme gets a major boost this summer and city departments in Los Angeles will also get more funding to help them increase filming services.

Chief film liaison Kevin James will be in charge of reducing bureaucracy in Los Angeles and making it easier to film on location in the city. Each city department will also appoint its own film liaison to ease the production process on the local level.

“With the new film tax credit in place, we now must make sure LA is as film-friendly as possible by cutting red tape, co-ordinating city departments and investing in city services that promote entertainment job production,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

California will boost the annual film fund for its production tax credit to USD 330 million in the next few months, with most of the money allocated to TV shoots.

In related news, Los Angeles tied with Vancouver and New York this season as the top location filming spot for TV pilots, according to Deadline. However, the seven pilots hosted by California was still the second-lowest annual figure in the city’s history and the majority of US TV studios are still filming all their shows elsewhere in North America.

With the new film tax credit in place, we now must make sure LA is as film-friendly as possible.

Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles

From the second year of the boosted filming incentive, California will set aside USD 70 million each year to attract TV shoots that filmed their first season outside the state.

Canada is becoming more popular as a filming location and this year hosted more US TV pilots than ever before, including a TV version of Steven Spielberg’s 2002 sci-fi drama Minority Report, shot in Toronto.

Of Kings and Prophets is one of only two US pilots to have filmed internationally, doubling South Africa for ancient Middle East locations.