Q&A; WITH BETH KENNEDY : ‘Nobody Has the Size, Breadth or Depth of L.A.’

Working out of a cramped office in Hollywood, Beth B. Kennedy is busily filling notebooks and figuring out ways to help prevent Los Angeles from becoming to the film industry what Detroit became to the automobile industry. As the first occupant of the newly created city post of executive director for entertainment-industry affairs, Kennedy has been on the job just over two months. She reports directly to Mayor Tom Bradley.

The so-called film czar position was created after much political infighting as a means of encouraging film and television production companies to remain in Los Angeles rather than seeking out-of-town locations. So-called runaway production is estimated to cost the region more than $2 billion a year in direct and ancillary losses.

Kennedy, a lawyer, screenwriter and onetime academic, spent 15 years at MCA Inc., ultimately becoming senior vice president of planning and development for Universal Pictures.

Question: What are the main reasons producers are leaving Los Angeles to shoot elsewhere?

Answer: Some of it has to do with what I call “creative snobbery”--the feeling that we’ve seen these locations too many times. Then there are the plain economics of international trade agreements.

Q: How do international trade agreements affect runaway production?

A: When you’re doing a co-production or a joint venture with either a European or a Canadian partner, in some of those areas there are requirements that a certain amount of content has to be filmed in the other country.

Q: Don’t we have the right to make the same demands?

A: No, that’s not true of the Canadian agreement, for example. There’s also a big difference in the dollar--the Canadian dollar is 80 cents to the U.S. dollar. On a budget of $1.5 million, that’s a big economic incentive to film in Canada.

Then, too, in Los Angeles, you have to pay for police and fire protection when you’re filming. There’s also a perceived ease (in other places) of dealing with some of the unions. And there’s a perceived high cost of locations; people in Los Angeles are much more sophisticated about what they can charge for their locations.

On the opposite end, you have people like Ann Richards, the governor of Texas, who says, “Hey, y’all can come film in my Capitol and you can shoot in my bedroom for free!”

Twenty years ago, there were a handful of film commissions. Today there are over 200, and they all have one objective, which is to take business out of Los Angeles. Obviously, it’s a very lucrative business. There’s a multiplier effect.

Q: How much money is Los Angeles losing?

A: I don’t think anybody can tell you. You have to look at where television is filming. We have very little miniseries and movies-of-the-week business in Los Angeles. Jeff Sagansky (president of CBS Entertainment) told me that CBS does 55 movies a year. They do very few in Los Angeles. Certainly less than 10.

This is not a case of the producers not wanting to be here. Because I think if you talk to the studios or the production companies, they would tell you: “We would rather shoot close by. It’s better for us, we have more control. We simply can’t afford it.”

Q: How do you deal with the perception that Los Angeles is overused as a location?

A: Clearly in some neighborhoods that may be true.

Q: Can you identify other less familiar neighborhoods?

A: I hope to be able to do that. I think there are neighborhoods where filming has never occurred that would love to have filming.

Q: Filmmakers complain that one disgruntled homeowner can block filming on an entire street, that people here take the industry too much for granted. What can you do to change this attitude?

A: In many areas, Los Angeles included, if you film before 7 a.m. or after 10 p.m. you need to get (residents’) signatures; the percentage of signatures needed varies by jurisdiction. Calabasas was recently talking about requiring 100% concurrence during daytime filming as well. That does not send a good message to the motion picture industry.

On the other side, one of the things that the major studios and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the city now have been encouraging all of the majors (studios) and many of the independents to adopt is the Code of Professional Responsibility.

This basically says, when you go on location, there are certain rules of behavior and decorum we would like you to follow--you know, throw away your trash, and don’t be rude. And you should have a telephone number that’s answerable 24 hours a day, seven days a week, when companies are shooting. So that if a resident has a problem, there’s somebody for them to call. Until recently, they’ve had to call the city or their council office or they’ve just been infuriated and exasperated. We don’t want that to happen. We still have over 80 companies shooting on any day in Los Angeles. Some of it does cause inconvenience for the neighborhood. And some of it is unintentional and some of it is arrogant.

Q: When it comes to simplifying procedures so as to make Los Angeles more attractive to filmmakers, aren’t there other jurisdictions that could provide a model for us?

A: There are some places that are considered better than others, and certainly when we talk about streamlined permitting procedures we’ll look at them. But nobody has the size, breadth or the depth of Los Angeles or the production volume. I intend to steal from the best when I can. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel.

Q: One of the problems is the multiplicity of jurisdictions.

A: Eighty-four of them in Southern California.

Q: But you work for the mayor of Los Angeles. How will you coordinate with other jurisdictions?

A: In any way I can. There are a number of issues that are multi-jurisdictional. One of the problems that the industry has talked about is when they’re doing a chase scene and you can go through six jurisdictions and you have to deal with police in all of them.

Q: One of the concerns raised before this position was created was that the industry would have a lobbyist within the mayor’s office. Yet you see lobbying as one of your functions?

A: In politics, lobbying is a term of art and it comes with a lot of things attached to it. That’s not where I am. I work for for the mayor, and my job is to support and retain the industry here. So if that’s a form of lobbying, then I guess that’s what I’m doing. But I don’t think it’s the same thing.

Q: You are working for a lame-duck mayor who leaves office next spring. Does that make your job more difficult?

A: (The legislation creating this job passed) unanimously in the City Council, and many of those people are talking about running for mayor. So in terms of support for the position, I don’t think that’s an issue. In terms of whether I specifically will have it after next year, that will be for the next mayor to decide.

Q: What about the Old Guard in the mayor’s office, who fought against creating this position?

A: I have not had any opposition, to my face, in terms of things that I’ve wanted to get done.

Q: Are you still finding time to write screenplays, or have you put that part of your life on hold?

A: That’s not a subject for discussion. (Laughter) All of our screenplays will be based in Los Angeles. I am not going to the South of France to film. And they are all under a pseudonym. I don’t want any appearance of conflict or impropriety.