California film tax credits create thousands of jobs in L.A.

A lot more film and TV production will be starting up in California in the months ahead thanks to the state’s film tax credit program.

The ratio of tax credits given to the economic benefit received is about 5 to 1, according to Colleen Bell, Director of the California Film Commission.

“$51.6 million in tax credits have been allocated, and these projects are on track to spend an estimated $284.4 million in qualified expenditures,” she said.

And then there’s the additional economic impact of giving jobs to almost 20,000 cast and crew members over the next year, most of whom will spend their paychecks here in California.

Bell also said there’s something special about having TV series set in L.A., like the upcoming Suits: L.A. , actually film in the city. She said even though the show is set in L.A., California  could have lost the production to Vancouver, where the pilot was shot, without the state’s tax incentives.

“This project alone, Suits , will create over 2,600 new jobs here,” she said.

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Other high-profile projects that received tax credits include long-awaited Communtiy movie and a Janis Joplin biopic starring Shailene Woodley.

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