When actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson grumbled throughout a current podcast look that it was cheaper to fly his whole U.S.-based crew to Bulgaria for 3 days than to shoot simply sooner or later in California, he echoed the identical eulogy sounded throughout three nationwide shops. The Wall Road Journal known as Los Angeles’ leisure financial system a “catastrophe film.” The DailyMail warned that California is “the following Detroit.” And UnHerd columnist Joel Kotkin (a contributing author to L.A. Occasions Opinion) famous that L.A. is dropping not solely its artistic workforce however its guests.
All of that could be true partially, however each obituary of Hollywood misses the identical plot twist.
Sure, conventional studio filmmaking is shrinking as tax incentives instituted in different states and nations lure productions away. However Los Angeles is not outlined by solely its soundstages. It’s outlined by its expertise — and the expertise in California is just not vanishing; it’s evolving.
Stroll by way of Culver Metropolis or Burbank and cranes nonetheless fill the skyline, to not construct backlots however for building of latest media campuses, post-production labs and tech-meets-storytelling start-ups. The subsequent technology of manufacturing corporations — digital-first studios, brand-funded leisure companies, short-form manufacturing collectives and podcast networks — is being established right here. They might not but be family names, however their attain is already world.
In the course of the early days of radio and tv, announcers usually opened reveals with strains like “delivered to you by Purina” or “offered by Colgate.” At this time, that custom of brand-backed storytelling has advanced into a contemporary ecosystem of small artistic companies: lean groups producing high-impact sequence for social platforms, streaming channels and direct-to-brand partnerships like Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” marketing campaign. They rent editors, composers, digital camera operators and writers, lots of the similar professionals as soon as employed by legacy studios.
One of many fastest-growing artistic areas in L.A. is immersive and mixed-reality studios, with corporations designing contemporary experiences that mix bodily and digital areas by way of VR, AR, domes, projection mapping and interactive installations. Audiences need experiential storytelling that you could enter, not simply watch. Cheaper VR and AR {hardware}, immersive instruments and superior 3-D software program make high-quality work attainable.
As Hollywood evolves, there’s rising demand for brand new codecs that bridge tech, story and place. Manufacturers and venues are crafting “Instagram-able” activations to attract individuals inside and buyers are backing the pattern, with immersive manufacturing corporations together with Meow Wolf, Illuminarium and Cosm planning venues throughout Higher Los Angeles.
In 2024, one of many fastest-growing segments of California’s leisure financial system was branded and creator-led storytelling, a sector that didn’t even exist 20 years in the past.
The infrastructure of creativity can be shifting. Inexpensive manufacturing expertise has liberated a technology of filmmakers from the soundstage. Distant modifying, digital 3-D units and cloud-based collaboration enable tales to be designed and produced from anyplace, but California stays the command middle — the place the place expertise converges.
Over the previous few years, podcasts have additionally turn into a robust new lane for high expertise, providing each artistic freedom and important viewers attain. And in that point, the area has exploded to turn into a severe extension of the leisure business.
This can be a reminder that L.A. creatives adapt sooner than anybody else, always reinventing how tales are advised and consumed. These improvements are fueled by town’s combination of expertise, expertise and storytelling traditions.
One other fact hardly ever seems within the gloomy headlines: The world nonetheless appears to be like to Los Angeles for cultural management. The studios might have competitors all through the world, however the state continues to export its creativeness. From animation to gaming, from music movies to YouTube empires, California stays the worldwide heartbeat of storytelling.
Latest comparisons to Detroit misunderstand what makes every metropolis exceptional. The Motor Metropolis’s decline was largely because of corporations offshoring innovation to cheaper factories overseas. Los Angeles’ problem is the alternative: an overabundance of innovation that’s decentralizing sooner than anybody anticipated. The business is just not dying; it’s diversifying.
This second, uncomfortable as it might be, is precisely what Hollywood wants. Durations of contraction pressure artistic focus. They strip away extra and invite reinvention. The way forward for leisure is not going to be dictated by geography however by creativeness, and that’s the place California has at all times had a home-field benefit.
Mel Gibson could also be proper that it’s cheaper to movie in Bulgaria. However the world doesn’t go to Bulgaria to seek out expertise. Expertise nonetheless calls California residence.
Rachel Zaslansky Sheer and Lori Zuker Briller are the co-authors of the upcoming ebook “Straight from the Grapevine.”
