Citing a disastrous downturn in jobs and earnings, Hollywood post-production staff have shaped a coalition, the California Publish Alliance (CAPA), to advertise higher tax incentives within the California legislature.
At a kickoff rally attended by greater than 200 at Burbank’s Evergreen recording studios Wednesday evening, CAPA officers introduced that California Assemblyman Nick Schultz would quickly introduce laws within the State Meeting for a standalone post-production tax credit score to assist lure the work again to L.A.
In a press release to Selection Thursday morning, Schultz mentioned: “Publish manufacturing is a crucial a part of our state’s inventive arts economic system. Proposing new laws that focuses on put up manufacturing builds on the work that we began final 12 months increasing the movie and tv tax credit score program.
“We’re competing with different states and overseas nations for put up manufacturing jobs, which is inflicting unprecedented threats to our workforce and to future generations of leisure business staff. In my district, now we have seen many roles go away and put up manufacturing operations considerably cut back operations within the final decade.
“This laws will goal to supply incentives for VFX, enhancing, scoring, and extra to protect its infrastructure in California and supply a level-playing subject for professionals within the leisure business.
“Final 12 months, I used to be one of many co-authors to AB 1138, which was simply step one to maintain the leisure business robust and thriving in California. This new laws will make sure that California stays the worldwide hub of movie and tv jobs.”
CAPA officers cited statistics displaying that greater than 4,400 jobs in put up have been misplaced over the previous 15 years, costing the state greater than $500 million in earnings and, counting the ripple results to different companies, a loss to the state economic system of greater than $1.6 billion.
“Publish manufacturing is leaving California,” economist Adam Fowler mentioned, and “the window is narrowing” to retrieve the work. The aim, CAPA president Marielle Abaunza mentioned, is to “reclaim and retain the work now we have misplaced.”
Particularly damage in the course of the previous many years has been the music recording enterprise, veteran music contractor Peter Rotter mentioned, with a rising variety of movie and TV scores — as soon as routinely recorded in L.A. — going overseas to London, Vienna and Japanese Europe. “That is killing our neighborhood. The entire ecosystem is bleeding out; we’re on life help,” he mentioned.
American Federation of Musicians Native 47 membership has declined by 37 % since 2008, in “a dramatic and accelerating geographic shift away from Los Angeles,” in keeping with one particularly startling slide screened in the course of the presentation.
Officers cited engaging tax credit in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Pennsylvania and different states as key causes for a manufacturing exodus, and surprisingly beneficiant incentives abroad (the U.Okay., Eire, Canada, Australia) for post-production companies together with enhancing, scoring, visible results, sound mixing and different crafts.
Publish-production bills can presently qualify if manufacturing occurs in California, however there aren’t any incentives for post-production alone, which has resulted in job erosion and a expertise drain as professionals transfer to different states to hunt work.
Fourth-quarter 2025 numbers confirmed that manufacturing spending in California was down 22 % however that New York manufacturing spending was up 23 %. An estimated 1,800 post-production jobs have been misplaced in California, “work that moved to different states with extra aggressive incentives,” Fowler reported.
“CAPA is about preserving jobs and the necessity to degree the taking part in subject,” Oscar-winning sound editor Karen Baker Landers mentioned.
“We have now forfeited a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} as a result of California has not invested in our business,” added post-production accountant Jennifer Freed. “And not using a aggressive put up incentive, we’re faraway from rivalry and we danger changing into a footnote in Hollywood historical past.”
The brand new group has enlisted former state Assemblyman Alberto Torrico as a lobbyist for the trigger, and Wednesday evening launched a fundraising marketing campaign with a $500,000 aim to help the hassle.
“We’re not searching for charity, we’re searching for parity,” mentioned CAPA board member Ben Urquhart.
