Hollywood at Risk of Becoming the ‘Next Detroit Auto.’ Insiders Voice Alarm

The specter of Los Angeles becoming another Detroit, a city built on a specific industry that became a shell of its former self when that business moved out, loomed over a compelling film and TV industry town hall that tackled not only the calamitous drop in production in Hollywood and California, but also the fight to get the state to increase its entertainment production tax incentive.

The event on Monday night drilled down into a later stage of the entertainment production pipeline that is also currently in crisis: scoring and postproduction.

“This is not hyperbole to say that if we don’t act, the California film and TV industry will become the next Detroit auto,” said Noelle Stehman, a member of the “Stay in LA” campaign who spoke at the event.

The push for a proposed increase in tax incentives is hitting a critical phase in the legislative process, and California State Senator Ben Allen and State Assemblyman Rick Zbur were on hand to make an effort to get the necessary votes in. One major hurdle is politicians who see the incentives as a corporate giveaway to movie studios and media companies. That is poppycock to Allen.

“The studios don’t care where they do the work. They’ll do it anywhere,” he told the standing room-only crowd that packed Evergreen Studios, a recording and scoring studio in Burbank that was once a movie theater. “They’re still producing shows. What a lot of our colleagues simply don’t understand is that this is a middle-class problem. The studio heads are going to bed in Bel-Air no matter what.”

“This is not a tax giveaway,” Zbur concurred. “This is a job program that is keeping people in their homes, keeping people off the unemployment rolls. If we don’t do this, it’s going to cost a lot, lot more than these tax credits are costing us.”

He continued, “I say this to my colleagues: Why do you think all these other governments are putting these really rich tax programs in place? It’s because they pay for themselves, and because these jobs are jobs that people want. And why are we standing by and letting people cherry pick off the jobs that we have grown here?”

The event drew a wide swath of members from the production, postproduction, and scoring and music community. Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr., California Film Commission executive director Colleen Bell and Philip Sokoloski of Los Angeles County’s film office, FilmLA, were among those on hand to address the accelerated flight of postproduction and screen music work from the L.A. area with impacts on businesses and workers alike.

The event occurred just hours after FilmLA released its latest on-location production data showing that shoot days in the first quarter of 2025 had declined 22 percent compared with the same period the year prior.

“These jobs haven’t vanished, they’ve moved,” intoned ProdPro CEO Alex LoVerde, pointing out that the United States has seen a decrease in production of 26 percent since 2022. One beneficiary has been Australia, which has seen a gain of 14 percent.

The panels on postproduction and music underscored the loss those artistic communities have been undergoing. ADR supervisor Bobbi Banks recounted how she has only worked three months in the past 18 months and was even shadowed by a mentee from out-of-state for part of it. “What do I say to them?” she threw to the crowd when talking about how that person wanted to move to L.A. to pursue a career here. Visual effects artist Efram Potelle revealed having painful conversations with his family about finances.

The music and scoring panel was even more sobering. Music contractors and producers Peter Rotter and Jasper Randall, whose Encompass Music Partners hosted the event, pointed out how booked recording days for scoring stages in L.A. have collapsed, from a high during Peak TV in 2022 with 127 days to only a bleak 11 this year so far. They also explained that scoring work costs two-thirds less in Vienna, Austria, and 90 percent less in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Supervising sound editor Karen Baker Landers was among those pushing for a carveout in the incentive for postproduction. She said other states such as New York and Louisiana have carveouts, as do countries such as Australia and Spain, making them powerful draws for production.

“Even if movies shot somewhere else, they always came back to California to post; that has not been the case anymore for some time,” said the two-time Oscar winner. “Visual effects, sound, picture, music, have been migrating out of California, chasing these tax incentives. This has cost the state thousands of jobs, not only in the entertainment industry, but in businesses all around that support us.”

State policymakers have acknowledged the dire situation, with Gov. Gavin Newsom proposing to more than double the cap placed on the state’s film and television incentives program and lawmakers proposing two bills to expand and augment the existing framework. If passed, the latter legislation could increase the state’s incentive to 35 percent and render short TV shows, animated projects and specific unscripted titles eligible for the credit.

Those proposals could be part of a solution, according to the coalition that organized Monday’s event, but they aren’t the full remedy. “We know that it will take more work beyond the tax incentives to sustainably revitalize L.A.’s entertainment economy,” the mission statement for the group says.

The event came amid a multipronged campaign to bring more production work back to L.A. On April 6, hundreds rallied around the cause of production staying local at the “Stay in L.A.” rally in Burbank. That was followed by Rep. Laura Friedman and industry unions penning a letter to industry lobbying group the Motion Picture Association, calling on studios and streamers to produce more in Hollywood.

But the industry also needs to look to its own members for solutions. During the town hall, Sen. Allen encouraged unions and the creative community to engage in dialogue, saying “tough conversations must be had at the labor table.” Music union AFM president Stephanie O’Keefe stood up in the crowd, acknowledged that need, and said her organization was willing to engage.

“I do believe that the world is watching what California does with these incentives,” said Landers. “They know that if we get it right, it’s game on again for California.”