Quick question: Where do all your favorite movies come from?
Hollywood, obviously. Right? For decades, the town had a virtual monopoly on big-budget studio pictures to the point where the name has become synonymous with the entertainment industry.
But these days a striking number of movies and TV shows are produced outside Tinseltown.
“The Walking Dead” and “The Hunger Games” are/were filmed around Atlanta, Georgia. Parts of “Deadpool” and “Fifty Shades of Grey” were shot in Vancouver.
And here in the Santa Clarita Valley – yes right here – producers filmed “A Wrinkle in Time,” “Ultimate Beastmaster” and “Santa Clarita Diet” (naturally).
Why is our little slice of paradise becoming so popular with the entertainment industry?
Here are the top four reasons:
1. Location, Location, Location
SCV is slightly closer to Hollywood than Atlanta (only by a couple thousand miles), and many in the industry already call southern California home. Plus, our community is right off of I-5, and features a variety of diverse and distinctive settings for filmmakers to use as their backdrop.
2. Plenty of Skilled Labor
Santa Clarita is already home to more than 20 sound stages, several film ranches, and a well-educated labor force (54 percent of residents have at least a four-year degree). More than 6,000 SCV residents work in the entertainment industry, and the talent isn’t just limited to TV and film; SCV also has workers skilled in video game production, graphic design, web development, animation and editing.
3. Pro-Business Environment
The cost of doing business keeps a lot of production companies away from otherwise ideal filming locations. That’s not the case in Santa Clarita Valley. Here, local governments offer everything from production credits to employment tax credits, and just as importantly don’t nickel-and-dime businesses with things like parking tax or business license fees.
4. Technical Assistance
We don’t like to brag (that much), but our business team here at the Economic Development Corporation is pretty darn good at helping production companies acquire everything they need to get their projects off the ground quickly. They help identify incentives, connect with local studios, get real estate information – pretty much everything you need to hit the ground running.
No, the SCV is not Hollywood. It’s Hollywood North. It’s Hollywood with a more agile workforce, less red tape, and more scenic vistas. More production companies are starting to realize that, and that means more great jobs for our community.
See you at the movies.
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7 Comments
pour vous Annie et Kiki bisous
It’s all great…however, the beautiful Scenic the scenic Vistas you speak of will all be gone if they don’t stop building… Santa Clarita Valley is already overpopulated..I wish they would just take care of it as it is now and leave it alone, overpopulation is not always progress…It’s destructive!!!
The scenic Vistas you speak of will all be gone if they don’t stop building .. I hope and pray they will just leave Santa Clarita the way it is now, maintain it, and take care of it… Overpopulation is not always progress… It’s destructive!
So that’s the reason Cherry Street is intermittently swarming with film equipment.
Well, that depends on who you think “they” is. The long established practice is for developers to buy up land just outside the City’s border, develop it under LACO’s much less stringent requirements, and then petition the City to “adopt” the “orphan” 15oo or so residential units, er, neighborhoods into the city for future tax income.
The SC City Council might actually either slow down, minimize the effects on current residents, or reduce the size of “developments” if they had the authority to do so. Especially if the voting residents were militant about it in large numbers. But it will take something really big to wake up the sleeping electorate in this town.
Inside the Thirty Mile Zone means much more than it used to. The weather is better away from the beach. Nobody watches TV any more, it’s too popular.
Good luck with that idea. Growth will continue as long as money and people are needing it to do so.
The SCV is in the position to be the intermediate location between the SanFer Valley and the Antelope Valley. 40 minutes to SFV and 60 minutes to LA (downtown). That’s on the best of days, anyway.