The Bay State, which some boosters call “Hollywood East,” has become a fast-growing hub for film and TV production, joining dozens of states that have cut into a business once concentrated in the Golden State.
Globo, a Greek company that makes enterprise mobility products, is reversing the normal migration pattern of Silicon Valley technology companies.
What’s happening on the red carpet mirrors what’s happening on film sets and TV soundstages. New York had a record number of film and TV projects last year and is on track to do the same in 2014, state officials say. Credit goes to generous financial incentives, experienced crews that rival Hollywood’s best and friendly (some might say star-struck) politicians.
Fillmore & Western Railway Co. may be forced to shut down as a result of a legal dispute with the Ventura County Transportation Commission, which recently filed a lawsuit to evict the company.
In a dramatic sign of the rise of streaming video and how vulnerable companies can be to changing technology trends, Qumu Corp. (NASDAQ: QUMU) is coming back to the Bay Area and will divest itself of its shrinking disc publishing business so it can focus entirely on its growing corporate video content management software business.
Mr. Bocanegra is leading an aggressive push, along with entertainment companies and Hollywood unions, to hand out as much as $2 billion in new tax breaks to increase movie and television production in California, which has lost business to states like New York with far more generous subsidies. Last year, for the first time, more studio movies were filmed in Louisiana than in California, according to the nonprofit FilmL.A.
Deeply frustrating Silicon Valley’s tech industry, federal officials on Monday announced that the annual cap on the number of H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers has been reached less than a week after applications for the controversial program were accepted.
Business owners who have fled California often say their decision to leave wasn’t just about tax rates, but about the punitive attitudes sometimes found among tax and regulatory authorities here. A new wrinkle in a high-profile, 22-year-old tax case gives fodder to those who make such claims.
The county’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to send a five-signature letter to Gov. Jerry Brown and members of the Legislature asking them to “recognize the negative impacts high taxes and excessive regulations have on the entertainment industry and provide reforms to make California competitive with other states who are successfully luring film and television production away from California.”
Commissioned by the Southern California Association of Governments to examine the Golden State’s $100 million annual tax program, the report found an 11 percent return on investment in the program’s first three years.
The layoffs were felt at the studio’s Culver City headquarters and at international offices. Among the divisions said to be deeply affected by the staff reductions is Sony Pictures Interactive, the studio’s digital marketing arm.
Los Angeles’s entertainment and San Francisco’s tech industries are the state’s two big cash cows, home to powerful, rich, and mostly left-leaning industry leaders who support the state’s deep blue and green politics. All too often, the policies championed by the LA and San Francisco elite make life harder for people in poorer, inland parts of the state by increasing red tape and taxes and driving much-needed businesses to neighboring states.
California Ranks Fourth in Total Live Action Film Project, Job and Spending Counts.
Over the past 15 years, the state’s share as a filming location of the top 25 live-action films significantly dropped to 8 percent last year from 64 percent, illustrating the effect of runaway production. Including animated films, California’s market share of the top 25 films was 24 percent.
Set to be released Thursday, the study entitled “A Hollywood Exit: What California Must Do to Remain Competitive in Entertainment — and Keep Jobs,” paints a bleak picture of the jobs California has lost to New York and other rivals due to the proliferation of film tax credits and rebates.