“We put our feet up, we took things for granted,” opined California Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 2, as he signed into law a doubling of the state’s tax incentives for film and TV projects from $330 million to $750 million annually. Now the impact of the move is starting to come into focus: California saw a 10 percent increase year-over-year in shoots in the third quarter, per a report from industry tracker ProdPro shared with The Hollywood Reporter.
Before the state’s advocates congratulate themselves on stemming the filming exodus, it’s worth underscoring that most of California’s biggest competitors saw upticks too. And California’s production spend in the third quarter actually fell 10 percent year-over-year to $1.5 billion, which ProdPro attributes to more indie films shooting in the state as opposed to big-budget titles, which usually employ more crewmembers….
