LA Film Czar: Middle Class Suffers from Movie Production Flight

Los Angeles’ new film czar says the middle class is hurting the most from California’s inability to compete with other states’ studio tax breaks.

Film and TV shoots once were commonplace in around L.A., but as more states offered tax incentives to lure studios, the City of Angels started to lose its luster for money-minded executives.

This is a critical moment for our industry and our economy,” [Film czar Ken] Ziffren said. “If we don’t fight back now, these jobs are going to be lost for good, and that would be a devastating blow to our middle class….”

Ziffren stressed that the benefits of keeping film and TV production here go beyond the entertainment industry.

“This is about jobs for carpenters, electricians, makeup artists — good jobs that leave enough over at the end of the month to save for retirement, save for the kids’ college, and to spend in our neighborhoods.

Ziffren will be bending the ear of local legislators to get them to sweeten their tax incentives. Meanwhile, the bulk of Hollywood leans left, a political position which generally argues for higher taxes and less tax breaks aimed at corporations.