Fires, strikes and the pandemic hurt Hollywood production. Now, industry workers are asking for help.

LOS ANGELES — More than 1,000 film and television workers packed into a building in Los Angeles’ Sun Valley neighborhood Sunday to rally for renewed investment in Hollywood.
The event was part of a grassroots movement pushing for studios to bring production back to Los Angeles after the city suffered a series of setbacks in recent years, including devastating wildfires, Hollywood labor strikes and the lasting ramifications of the Covid-19 pandemic.
From actors to production assistants to makeup artists and prop makers, a variety of industry workers showed up to the “Stay in LA” campaign’s first public rally to cheer on efforts to expand film and TV tax credits and make filming in Los Angeles more affordable.
At SirReel Studios, an equipment rental agency for film and TV productions, a mix of industry workers and local politicians took the stage as they called for further support from state lawmakers.
“People are struggling. Rents went up; groceries went up. But the only thing that’s not going up are the jobs, the paychecks. The jobs that people are looking for … they’re gone,” Alex Aguilar Jr., principal officer of LiUNA Local 724, a union that represents 1,800 workers across films, TV, commercials and theme parks, said before the crowd. “We get calls every day from people being out of work: ‘How can I pay my rent? I don’t have any benefits for my wife, for my kids.’”
Other speakers included Burbank mayor Nikki Perez as well as city councilmembers from Los Angeles and Altadena, a city that suffered massive destruction from the fires in January. U.S. Reps. Judy Chu and Sydney Kamlager-Dove also spoke at the rally.
Promoting its campaign mainly through social media, Stay in LA’s Instagram page has grown to more than 11,000 followers since its first post in January.
The movement includes a petition to uncap the tax incentive for Los Angeles-area productions for the next three years, and for studios and streaming services to pledge at least 10% more production in the region. It’s gained more than 22,000 signatures, including from numerous celebrities such as Keanu Reeves, Zooey Deschanel and Kevin Bacon.
Wes Bailey, the owner of SirReel Studios who volunteered his building as a venue for the rally at no cost, said the company suffered a drastic revenue drop over the past two years that forced him to cut several jobs. He said that he has struggled “just to keep the lights on, to keep people employed.”
Momentum was slow when the Stay in LA movement formed in August, he said, but the catastrophic fires in January instilled a new “sense of urgency” in bringing production back.
At Sunday’s rally, local and state-level elected officials were nearly half of the speakers listed.
“The dirty little secret is that none of those people were going to be here until 1,500 people signed the RSVP, so I’m encouraged,” Bailey told NBC News. “I’ve had conversations today [with lawmakers] that I couldn’t get to answer my call. I don’t think that it’s that they didn’t care. I just think that they wanted to see where the momentum is, and we have the momentum.”
Sound stages in the greater Los Angeles area were on average around 90% full from 2016 to 2022, according to a study published Thursday by FilmLA, a nonprofit organization that coordinates film permits and supports on-location production in the region. But industry strikes made that number drop to 69% in 2023, and in 2024, occupancy levels fell even further, to 63%.
Costumer Shirletha Jordan, a member of the IATSE stage and screen union who attended Sunday’s rally, said that before the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes, work was coming in so reliably that she often had to turn down jobs. But the lack of work for actors and writers in the past two years translated to less work for costumers, as well.
Now, Jordan said, she might go months without a gig.
“It’s an emotional roller coaster,” she said. “My position right now is I don’t have any work. What do I do? Do I go try and get another job, because I do have two degrees? But I believe in this work so much, and I’m first-generation Hollywood. … I don’t want to move back home [to Atlanta]. I made my way here to live in California.”
Recent legislative efforts have tried to draw production back to Hollywood through a renewed focus on competing with higher or more accessible tax incentives offered by other states.
State lawmakers this year proposed increasing the California Film & TV Tax Credit Program to cover 35% of qualified expenses for projects shot in the Los Angeles region, up from the current credit of 20% to 25%. That came after Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed last year to dramatically increase the amount of money allocated to the tax credit program from $330 million to $750 million.
In a win for Hollywood filmmakers, the California Film Commission last month approved a record 51 film projects for tax incentives, the largest round of awards in state history.
As industry leaders say they plan to continue the fight in Sacramento, Stay in LA has also been working with the City Council on municipal legislation to reduce certain regulations, permitting requirements and fees to remove barriers for production companies.
“We’re not asking for a handout. We’re asking for the chance to work,” City Council member Nithya Raman said onstage Sunday. “We want to work in L.A. We want to live in L.A. We want to raise our families in L.A.”