Filming Deal Nears Greenlight; Rewrite Still Offers Downtown Perks

By Eric Richardson
Published: Tuesday, September 30, 2008, at 04:27PM

Eric Richardson [Flickr]

A commercial films on 7th street in this file photo from August, 2007.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — The rules for filming in Los Angeles may come out of turnaround this week, as the city’s chief administrator pitches a new revision that includes some major rewrites. Studios declined to greenlight the piece last fall, but are likely to be more receptive now that the city’s taken some of its demands off the term sheet.

On Thursday the city council’s Public Works committee will consider a revised draft Request for Proposals (RFP) on the city’s contract for film coordination services. The Chief Administrative Officer prepared a first draft last year, but nearly a year later the RFP has still not been approved to go out.

The RFP covers film permit coordination, notification and complaint resolution. All three services are currently handled by FilmL.A., Inc., whose contract expires at the end of the year.

Downtown’s increasing population has created conflict between residents and film crews, who for decades have used the neighborhood as a heavily-shot backlot.

The new coordination contract would create service level requirements that should improve the filming experience for Downtown residents. While this draft still offers a significant improvement over current conditions, it substantially weakens similar dictates set in a version of the document produced last fall.

Rules on notification time in the new RFP are much softer than they were in the first draft. Shoots that require a community service are required to turn in their application five days before activity starts, instead of ten. Those that require street or lane closures see their lead-time cut from one week to five or three business days, respectively. Notification of residents and businesses is now required 36 hours in advance, instead of the 60 hours in the first draft.

Overall, though, the terms of the RFP should serve to provide an ample framework for filming conflicts to be lessened. By codifying requirements as city policy, the new contract should allow residents and business owners a much more concrete set of expectations.

The target schedule would have the draft RFP out to potential responders by Thanksgiving. Final responses would be due at the end of January, 2009. A new contract would not be executed until April 30, 2009.

The current FilmL.A. contract expires December 31st, but the city has two 60-day options that would extend it until the new contract date.

Filming Discussion Shows Many Interests, Little Common Ground
October 02, 2008
City Preps Filming RFP Terms; Lots to Like for Downtowners
November 02, 2007

Comments

Bert Green writes:

Most of the changes sound OK, except for the 36 hour notification. The idea that it might go to 60 hours was welcomed by many of us, as it is currently at 36 hours, and that simply does not work. Too often the notice shows up on the same day as the shoot, if at all. The electronic version is better, but still we occasionally see it in 12 hours instead of 36. I would have been OK with 48 hours.

I would strongly suggest everyone who lives downtown to read and comment on the RFP before it is finalized. Once it is finalized, there won’t be an opportunity to change it again for many years.

# on Sep.30.2008 AT 10:31 PM

Eric Richardson writes:

I think the big difference in the RFP is that there are penalties for not notifying on time. The policy may now be 36 hours, but that’s FilmL.A. policy, not city policy. When it’s city policy, it carries more teeth (the terms tie contract compliance to complaints received).

60 hours would be nice, but if it’s 36 hours, and that actually means 36 real world hours, that seems like an improvement.

# on Sep.30.2008 AT 10:48 PM

Benjamin Pezzillo writes:

The danger for Downtown residents with 36 hour notification is weekend filming.

If Downtowners are notified at 4p on Friday afternoon about a 4a shoot Sunday morning and they want to object to the shoot because there was a signature requirement not met, where is the ability for recourse? After all, the 36 hour notification has been met, right? If it’s a 6a Sunday call what office is open past 6p on a Friday when someone is likely to make last minute notification to take the stakeholder’s call?

So, any time table should include at least one full, non-holiday normal business day for stakeholders to contact their civic leaders to state concerns and have them addressed.

What seems more concerning is the continuation of the status quo, dozens of film permit contractor employees sending permits for legal approval to LAPD whom has only a handful of desks to review them all. The flow of work just doesn’t compute for me to believe the contractor ends up with de facto authority due to bureaucracy bottleneck in the current design.

It would seem to work better if the permit application and approval were under one roof where complaints could be addressed (i.e. LAPD). Notifications could then be contracted out among many different vendors to cover the whole City. At least the permit fee would be in a City department and not an outside contractor and that would perhaps negate the cost of additional personnel.

# on Sep.30.2008 AT 11:44 PM