From Newsgroup: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy
On 6/21/26 7:49 AM, Julian wrote:
rCLBaywatchrCY was a staple of low-budget, first-run syndication in the 1990s, as natural to Los Angeles as David HasselhoffrCOs chest hair and as defining of the city in that era as the O.J. trial and the Sunset Strip.
By the time it ended its run in 1999, it had become too costly to
produce at a profit....
https://variety.com/2026/tv/features/hollywoods-exodus-film-tv- production-los-angeles-1236780390/
cons and their constant economic fear mongering
lets ask gemini to refute this:
While itrCOs easy to look at the recent drop in local shoot days and
panic, the rCLHollywood is the next DetroitrCY narrative pushed by this Variety feature relies heavily on doom-and-gloom hyperbole. It
misinterprets a severe, necessary cyclical correction as a permanent
terminal illness.
There is no denying that the local industry is going through an
incredibly painful stretch, but the idea that Los Angeles is permanently losing its crown as the entertainment capital of the world ignores
several massive structural realities.
---
Here is why the article's core thesis falls apart under closer scrutiny:
### 1. The "Detroit" Analogy Fundamentally Misunderstands Hollywood
The article compares the migration of physical film sets to the collapse
of the American auto industry. This is a false equivalency. Detroit lost
its car manufacturing *and* eventually its executive and engineering dominance. Hollywood is completely different.
While the "factory floor" (the physical shooting of a scene) can
temporarily move to London or Vancouver to chase subsidies, the entire creative brain, intellectual property control, and financial
distribution network remain permanently anchored in Los Angeles. The
writers' rooms, the agency packages, the studio greenlight committees,
the elite VFX houses, and the highest concentration of "above-the-line"
talent (actors, directors, showrunners) live and work in L.A. You can
buy a camera package anywhere, but you cannot replicate a century-old
creative ecosystem overnight.
### 2. Aggressive Legislative and Tax Counter-Measures Are Already Landing
The article paints California's regulatory environment as a rigid, unchangeable roadblock. In reality, the state and federal governments
are aggressively moving to bridge the incentive gap:
* **The Federal Push:** A bipartisan coalitionrCospearheaded by California legislatorsrCois actively moving forward with a 15% *federal* tax credit
for labor costs. This would act as a massive safety net on top of state incentives, completely neutralizing the baseline mathematical advantage
that Canada and the UK currently enjoy.
* **The Return-to-L.A. Pivot:** The state's expanded tax credit program
is already bearing fruit. Major high-budget series are choosing to
relocate back to Los Angeles from international hubsrCosuch as CBS's
*Tracker* moving its entire production footprint back home from British Columbia.
### 3. This is a Cyclical Hangover, Not a Structural Death Spiral
Variety treats the historic low of roughly 19,600 shoot days in 2025 as
a permanent baseline. It's not. The current drought is the result of
three massive, overlapping cyclical events:
1. The severe economic hangover of the historic dual Hollywood labor
strikes.
2. The sudden bursting of the "streaming bubble," which forced mega-corporations to aggressively cut content spending across the board
to satisfy Wall Street.
3. Severe regional disruptions, including the catastrophic early 2025 wildfires.
What we are witnessing is an industry-wide recalibration to sustainable production levels after a decade of hyper-inflationary spendingrConot a terminal decline.
### 4. L.A. Is Pioneering the Tech-Driven Future of Filmmaking
The feature focuses almost entirely on traditional, legacy location shootsrCothe exact type of filming most prone to tax-incentive shopping.
It entirely misses the massive structural shift toward **virtual
production** and independent filmmaking.
Los Angeles is the epicenter of LED volume stages and real-time
rendering environments. These technologies allow massive blockbusters to
be "shot" in exotic locations without ever leaving a soundstage in
Burbank or Culver City. Furthermore, FilmLArCOs rapid rollout of
"low-impact permits" is specifically designed to keep a booming wave of
lean, tech-savvy, independent projects localized right where the
creators live.
**The Takeaway:** Physical production will always fluctuate globally
based on currency values and tax breaks, but painting Los Angeles as an abandoned factory town is a gross mischaracterization. L.A. isn't dying;
it is simply adapting to its next iteration.
--
hi, i'm nick!
let's end war EfOa
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