LOS ANGELES — In Hollywood, getting a production off the ground once started with a script. Today, it starts with a tax break.
Heather Fink knows that reality firsthand. The boom operator and aspiring director said California’s new film tax incentives have already sparked a surge in production.
“As soon as our state released the new film tax incentives, we saw an immediate increase in production,” Fink said.
For more than a decade, Fink has chased the classic Hollywood dream — to write, direct and tell her own stories. Until that happens, she keeps the microphone overhead on sets such as “Grey’s Anatomy” to pay the bills.
“I have seen a lot more people working and production has picked up,” she said.
State tax credits are designed to bring production jobs back to California, but a new frontier of filmmaking is testing those limits. Los Angeles City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield is proposing an extra incentive aimed at so-called “micro-dramas” — low-budget, vertically shot series made for cellphones.
“They are, first of all, vertically shot, so formatted for a cellphone held vertically,” entertainment attorney Jonathan Handel said. “They are one- to two-minute episodes with dozens of episodes per story or per season, and they are budgeted at extremely low levels. They’re very popular in China. They’re making their way over.”
Micro-dramas have already gone mainstream in China, drawing over 830 million viewers and generating an estimated $9.4 billion in revenue this year, according to Media Partners Asia. But with budgets typically under $200,000, they often fall below the threshold to qualify for California’s existing tax credits.
Handel said keeping these productions in Los Angeles could provide a critical boost to Hollywood’s working middle class.
“The working and middle class in this industry are being hollowed out by the loss of production to places like Atlanta, New York and overseas,” he said.
Fink welcomes the effort — as long as crews get the pay and respect they deserve.
“It’s really smart and encouraging to see our city be proactive instead of reactive when it comes to funding these vertical and micro-budget projects,” she said.
For a city built on filmmaking, California’s latest push is one more attempt to keep the industry where it began.
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