Santa Clarita Frets Over Role in Hollywood Production Machine

It could be called “Hollywood North,” if that nickname weren’t already taken--ironically enough, by Vancouver.

Santa Clarita, less than 30 miles from Tinseltown’s hub, emerged in the 1990s as a major film-production center, home to “Melrose Place,” “Jag,” “The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” and other television fare, plus commercials and feature films.

Today, business is booming.

Cost-conscious producers, lured by the region’s supply of professional facilities at about one-third the price of shooting at a major Hollywood studio, have made Santa Clarita a top production site. Nearly all the approximately 20 local sound stages are full these days, in some cases booked well into the future.

Many movie ranches, a local fixture since the early silent westerns of William S. Hart and Tom Mix, are going strong.

So why are some members of the Santa Clarita entertainment production industry complaining?

Despite all this good news, some of them insist there’s a financial cold front from Canada blowing through the canyons of Santa Clarita--although there is plenty of evidence they’re overreacting.

Some local production sources claim that when cost-conscious producers, the kind that traditionally flock to the affordable digs of Santa Clarita, choose Canadian locations such as Vancouver and Toronto, they are taking dollars out of the local economy that will never return.

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Particularly troublesome to some is the number of TV movies now shot in Canada--the Screen Actors Guild estimates it at 51% of all TV movies for the U.S. market.

Those who work on episodic TV series, an employment mainstay in Santa Clarita, once relied on TV movies to supplement their incomes while series production was suspended each year.

Now, those jobs are scarce.

“People who work on episodic television would normally go to work on a pilot or a movie of the week when the series finished shooting, but now they’re just not working,” said Jeff Morton, manager of the Polsa Rosa Ranch, a 730-acre movie ranch in Acton, where “Titanic,” “Godzilla” and “The X-Files” have filmed.

The subject has become a hot-button issue in Hollywood, with the California Film Commission taking up the cause.

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At a recent public hearing by the California State Assembly’s Select Committee on Entertainment and the Arts, production executives pleaded with state officials to take action to stem the flow of production to Canada and other countries. Some would like to see the state or federal government reestablish tax credits, particularly for productions with budgets below $10 million.

Screen Actors Guild President Richard Masur is concerned. “The work that’s gone to Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Europe, that’s work that isn’ being done here and is definitely a loss to U.S. performers,” Masur said.

Without question, Canada has become a magnet for some U.S. producers because of costs. The exchange rate, with the weak Canadian dollar, translates to a roughly 25% to 35% saving, although that fluctuates. In addition, the Canadian federal and many provincial governments offer tax breaks to foreign producers.

Canadian officials say they can shave 20% to 25% off a production’s price tag. As a result, many U.S.-based shows--such as Fox’s “Millennium” and USA Network’s “La Femme Nikita”--are shot in Canada.

“SOF Special Op Force,” Rysher Entertainment’s syndicated one-hour action-adventure series, which was based in Santa Clarita last year, moved to Montreal for 14 shows this season. Explained producer Sam Strangis, “You could save a couple hundred thousand dollars a show, which is $3 million to $4 million a season.”

Masur and other union officials believe the trend has far-reaching implications.

“The industry is evolving in the same way, say, the shoe industry has evolved,” Masur said, predicting producers “are going to run around the world chasing the cheapest labor and the cheapest locations.”

But for all the hand-wringing over the Great Flight North, the sound-stage business in Santa Clarita generally appears to be thriving.

Los Angeles County’s Entertainment Industry Development Corp. says that while production days rose only 8% countywide in the year ended June 30, Santa Clarita’s increased 49%, from 870 the prior year to 1,297.

From July through September, while countywide filming days dropped 8%, the totals for Santa Clarita were up 13%, from 286 to 322.

“While Los Angeles County has experienced some slowdown, I have seen no evidence of any slowdown in production with Santa Clarita,” said development corporation President Cody Cluff.

Indeed, neither have some locals.

“I don’t know where this misinformation about Canada is coming from,” said Vince Vellardita, chief executive of Valencia Entertainment. On the contrary, he may have to expand to meet the demand, he said.

“If I could build up four more studios, I would,” said Vellardita, whose company has six sound stages ranging from 6,000 to 20,000 square feet in the Valencia Industrial Center and long-term deals with “Jag” and “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.”

“The shortest amount of time I’ve had in the business without a production is maybe three months,” Vellardita said.

Santa Clarita Studios in the Valencia Industrial Center opened its seventh and eighth sound stages in November. All stages, ranging in size from 12,000 to 14,000 square feet, are now busy with feature film and TV projects, including an upcoming ABC-TV movie, “Swing Vote,” with Harry Belafonte and Andy Garcia.

But it wasn’t always so. President Herman B. David, one of three partners, said he slashed his prices about 25% this fall in order to fill sound stages that were nearly empty in September and October. The reason: Canada, he says.

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“The demand is slowing because so many productions are going to Canada,” he insisted. “A number of productions come here for bids, and then we don’t get them, and I find out later that they went to Canada.”

David would not reveal his rates, but other sources say the going monthly rate for sound-stage rentals in Santa Clarita is $1 to $2.05 per square foot, depending on the length of stay. Tenants who sign long-term leases can get cheaper rates in some cases. Exterior shooting rates range broadly from $1,000 to $5,000 a day.

Warren Entertainment, located in the same Valencia industrial park, had as many as nine sound stages at one time, but last year downsized to five. President John Warren said he decided to cut back because the mounting workload was taking too large a personal toll, not because of diminishing demand.

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With a key long-term tenant--”Melrose Place”--Warren Entertainment is in solid shape financially, Warren said. But he regards the Canadian threat as real. “We’re missing the ancillary tenants, the short-term tenants, the movies of the week,” he said. “It’s had an impact on us.”

But the business looks good enough to draw a real estate developer, Legacy Partners, which purchased the 477-acre former Lockheed facility at the north end of Rye Canyon Road in May. Some of the massive warehouse space where engineers formerly tested landing gear for giant aircraft have been rented to the UPN science-fiction drama “Seven Days.”

Modernistic buildings on the north end of the campus were used for exteriors recently in TNT’s “The Pirates of Silicon Valley,” and two features by unidentified major studios will go before the lens there early next year.

“We’re looking for a busy 1999,” said Jeff Botsford, director of locations.