And the Winner Is: Change

Oscar fever hits Los Angeles Tuesday with the disclosure of the nominees for the movie industry’s top honors. Hollywood is taking its usual lumps on the creative front, and it is facing some formidable challenges--mostly technological. But it’s strutting high into the 72nd Oscar season. The Oscar bash alone will pump $60 million--from catered champagne to rented limos--into the local economy and remind us, if we need it, that the fantasy makers are the lifeblood of this city.

Perhaps no one is more aware of what Hollywood means to Los Angeles than Jack Kyser, chief economist at the L.A. Economic Development Corp. His figures show that motion picture and TV production in Los Angeles County is a $27-billion business. The industry employs close to 250,000 people, mostly independent contractors, including sound mixers, costume designers, scriptwriters and prop builders. Just as important, Hollywood is a magnet for tourism, the county’s third-largest industry, providing a livelihood for an additional 260,000 people.

No wonder then that when rank-and-file workers began complaining about production shifting out of Los Angeles to other places, mainly Canada, local legislators were ready with a bailout package for Hollywood. State Sen. Richard Polanco’s version offers millions in tax credits to producers who stay put and employ locally. The Los Angeles Democrat’s motives are salutary, but the effect of tax incentives would be limited and, anyway, hard to justify to L.A. apparel makers or auto parts manufacturers who are facing even stiffer competition from abroad.

The main reason for the runaway production is the weakness of the Canadian dollar ($1 Canadian equals 69 cents U.S.), which makes movie production there substantially cheaper. Canada’s own tax incentives to lure U.S. movie production are just as ill-advised as such measures would be here, and they rankle Canada’s movie producers, who can’t find enough facilities at affordable prices.

Besides, movie production in Los Angeles is alive and well. According to industry sources, more production is taking place locally than ever before. Some civic groups are so sick of film crews working in their neighborhoods that they are taking the studios to court to curtail location shooting.

There’s indeed an economic danger for the thousands of grips, costume makers, electricians, truck drivers and others, but it doesn’t come from Canada. It comes from within the industry itself. Studios are increasingly becoming part of global business conglomerates. They are spending more and more on marketing and are paying far more for star actors than on those folks behind the camera.

In addition, technological advances threaten jobs. Using digital technology, producers can create spectacular scenes inside a computer and dispense with a platoon of production workers. This, however, creates openings for a new breed of studio workers--computer technicians and high-tech special effects artists.

The technological mutation of Hollywood has reached seismic proportions, far greater than its passage from silent film to talkies and the advent of video combined. But creative talent will continue to be the key ingredient of filmmaking, and the March 26 Oscar presentations provide recognition of the best such talent. This is Hollywood’s time in worldwide limelight.