Nithya Raman’s L.A. Production Rescue Meets Reality

You know we’re in trouble when even Baywatch isn’t safe at the beach.

Fox’s reboot of the iconic lifeguard drama arrived at Venice Beach to shoot this past March, and the production quickly crashed into Los Angeles’ bureaucratic nightmare.

There were disputes over parking fees, restrictions on drones and nighttime filming, and even rules governing which stretches of sand the crew could drive on. Production ground to a halt while the producers spent three weeks untangling the mess.

Those restrictions came from regulatory agencies outside City Hall’s purview, including the L.A. County Beaches & Harbors Department and the California Coastal Commission. The city-owned parking lots were the one lever Mayor Karen Bass actually controlled, and she offered a 20 percent discount. For everything else, she cajoled agencies over which she had no direct authority.

In the end, after three weeks, the production remained on Venice Beach.

“When you think of shooting your first TV show, you think, ‘Oh, I’m going to move to Hollywood.’ And I feel like now that’s not the case with a lot of shows,” series star Brooks Nader said during a MIPCOM panel moderated by Janice Min. “So to be in Los Angeles, in Hollywood, on the beaches of Venice, shooting such an iconic love story to L.A., it was a pinch-me moment every single day.”

Enter Nithya Raman, Los Angeles’ incoming mayor as of Dec. 14, who has promised to rescue a film and television production business in free fall.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. On-location filming in L.A. is nearly 29 percent below its five-year average, with television production down a staggering 53 percent. Employment in the motion picture and sound recording industries has fallen by more than a third, from 150,000 jobs to fewer than 100,000. Productions are fleeing to Georgia, Vancouver and London, taking jobs and business for local caterers, prop houses and equipment suppliers with them.

“I feel like this city and this mayor have let the industry walk away,” Raman told Richard Rushfield during the campaign.

Her proposed fixes include a dedicated film czar, cheaper permits for independent productions, less bureaucratic red tape and a push for bigger California tax incentives.

But there’s a fundamental problem with Raman’s Hollywood rescue plan: Many of the forces driving production out of Los Angeles are beyond her control.

The mayor can’t dictate what the county or Coastal Commission does. She can’t tell neighboring cities how to regulate filming. And she certainly can’t decide how much Sacramento spends on tax credits — arguably the single biggest factor determining where studios shoot.

So what can Raman actually fix? And will any of it be enough to bring Hollywood back? A look at the issue-by-issue roadblocks reveals what’s coming…