DETROIT ALL OVER AGAIN

I read and listen to all the bad news coming out of Detroit and have to feel for the people who live and work in Michigan.  For how many years has Detroit been a symbol of  America? The auto industry is as American as apple pie. As GM goes so goes the nation, the refrain goes. Well based on what is happening in Detroit I would say America is in trouble. Did we see this coming? Were we able to something about it? Did anyone do anything, other than talk? The answers are yes we saw it coming, did nothing and now we are all making excuses for the past irresponsibility. Detroit is a company town. That company is AUTO. Everyone in the world knows that and we let it die, right in front of our eyes. Detroit and bankruptcy are now synonyms.

My point? Hollywood is a company town. Do i have to explain that Los Angeles is the home of entertainment and people from around the globe come here to visit Hollywood, which doesn’t even exist as a geographical location for film making? The entertainment business represents more than $30 billion dollars to the Los Angeles area and the business is migrating out of here faster than auto making moved to Japan. Why? Simple. Locations around the world and in the states have found out how valuable it is to have film, television and commercial production in their hometown. In Los Angeles legislators and politicians are allowing this to happen, unions are allowing it to happen and the industry is allowing it to happen. I know a producer who will shoot a film in Los Angeles. I asked him if it would be less expensive to shoot here than somewhere else. He said no, but he wanted to shoot it in his home town. A few years ago LA at least had a reputation for the most skilled crews in the business, but now that other locations are so aggressive chasing our  business they too are developing qualified and available technical skills in movie making. What to do? Get a dialog going with those who have a stake in keeping the industry here in Los Angeles. Stop all the strike rhetoric, the union bashing, the studio criticizing. Put serious people in the room, put the dire news reports of Detroit in front of the participants, hang enlarged banners with the words BANKRUPTCY, BAILOUT and UNEMPLOYMENT on all the walls and then open the meeting with “Gentlemen, and ladies, this is us in a few years if we don’t do something about it, NOW”.  

Don’t waste time articulating the problem, we all know what it is. No one leaves the room unless there is an action plan for everyone in the room. An action plan that has quantifiable benchmarks and time lines for success. If this does not happen right away the inevitable is right around the corner. The words on the wall will be about the film business in Los Angeles and another company town will have disappeared from America.