If you work in entertainment, you probably heard some variation of this last year: "Survive 'til '25." Things have been bleak. In a recent article from The Wall Street Journal, the reporting goes as far as to call Los Angeles' production prospects "a disaster movie."The numbers are stark. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 100,000 people were employed in Los Angeles County's motion picture industry at the end of 2024. Two years earlier, that figure stood at 142,000. That's a loss of 42,000 jobs—nearly a third of the workforce—in just 24 months.The decline shows no signs of stopping. WSJ's report paints a now-familiar picture—an Oscar-winning sound mixer who can't find a gig, an animator who worked on Pocahontas who's out of work. These are talented people having to recalibrate everything they know about Hollywood.FilmLA, the official film office for the city and county, reported that on-location production was down 22% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year. Television production has been especially hard-hit. The region reached a peak of 18,560 annual shoot days in 2021. By 2024, that number had plummeted to just 7,716. It's a 58.4% decline in three years.Paul Audley, president of FilmLA, told NBC Los Angeles that 2024 was "the worst year on record, excluding COVID." The first quarter of 2025 looks even worse. Every major category of production, from television dramas to commercials, logged fewer shoot days compared to the year before. Why Is This Happening?What's driving this...
Published By: NoFilmSchool - Yesterday