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Another Desperate Stab: Hahn "Saves" Hollywood*
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4487 Reads
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 UPDATES BELOW
Ever the patronizing, panicking incumbent, Jim Hahn finally got off his ass today after four years of utter inertia and announced he's thought up a way to keep Hollywood from sending jobs and productions overseas: Fling a buttload of money at it.
The "incentive," as he's calling it, would reimburse productions for 5% of below-the-line costs of up to $12 million, in the amount of up to $625,000 per movie. One would assume this means productions shot on location, but the Hahn press release is unclear on that count, as it is thin on other little details - like how the hell you and I are going to pay for incentives that could cost the city up to $15 million in year one.
This is too little, too late (and too thinly planned) for a number of reasons:
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For one thing, Hahn should have made runaway production Item One on his to-do list for his first year in office in 2001.
He did not. Calling him a fiddling Nero would be bestowing too much honor on him: If this were Pittsburgh, it would be like watching the steel mills lose business, then bodies and ultimately their fire while government officials spent their time gladhanding people who'd put them into office.
For another, this effort assumes a massive bookkeeping effort on the city's part - who's going to watchdog the claims for M&Ms on the craft services table and Scientology rubdowns in every line item of all those slick little production budget statements filed with the city? Laura Chick?
And another thing: What's $625K to a summer blockbuster that can save millions by farming out entire FX sequences (or even simple, but time-consuming wire-removal work) to WETA in New Zealand, or any number of high-end, low-cost CG houses in India or Korea?
Pocket change. The savings in catering and lodging alone in somewhere like Rumania would eat up any nutrition found in such an incentive.
Also, someone else tried this two years ago. Um, Gray Davis, wasn't it?
The Hahn press release goes on to take credit for the business-tax breaks package passed last fall by the City Council: Mayor Hahn recently enacted a series of business tax reforms to support the entertainment industry, including an exemption on taxes for most independent writers, producers and directors, and a targeted reduction in business taxes for small and medium sized productions, like commercials and independent movies, which are the bread and butter of the film industry. Horseshit.
Hahn only jumped on that bandwagon after Councilmembers Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel barely dragged the tax-break measure out of committee in time to meet an expiration deadline by petitioning him and the rest of the council with a roster of more than 60 endorsing film companies, industry associations, civic groups and individuals.
But no matter - he's got two months left to dodge the axe, and sooo many industry people to try sucking up to in hopes he can salvage any chance of beating Villaraigosa.
This is as good an 11th-hour ploy as any.
UPDATE:
Martini Republic's Joseph Mailander weighs in a bit more optimistically.
The Times' Jessica Garrison rounds up some reax, and perspective: "This is half-baked. This is late. This is in the 11th hour," said Councilman Martin Ludlow, chairman of the council's entertainment committee. Ludlow, who supports Hahn's opponent in the mayoral race, Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, said entertainment industry officials have been pushing the mayor to adopt such incentives for years, but he resisted them.
"At a time when Los Angeles is fighting to hire more police and firefighters, recklessly proposing this in the middle of a budget crisis not only jeopardizes its passage, but alienates many who may be inclined to support it," he said.
Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who was an executive at DreamWorks before her election, said, "Anything we can do to save our signature industry, to keep it here, to keep jobs — we should look at all alternatives." Villaraigosa's camp dissed it as "election year spin" and Garrison added a few interesting details about Hahn's little (no, really, it was little) dog-and-pony show in front of Sunset Gower Studios:Also absent from the mayor's announcement were entertainment industry members. Hahn stood alone in front of television cameras, and only one representative from the industry was introduced at the event, a Teamsters union official. ...
Last year, however, film, video and television production in Los Angeles actually reached record highs. Entertainment Industry Development Corp. issued permits for 52,707 location production days — one day representing a single day of work on a single project — a 19% increase over 2003.
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 11:59 PM
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