Preview: SPECIAL REPORT: Soundstage Scarcity

Filming is up in Hollywood, and the space needed to create films – soundstages – is getting harder to find, presenting opportunities for entrepreneurs to lure productions to new spaces in the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County. Thanks to California’s recently expanded film tax credit, and increasing demand for TV comedies, dramas and web-based content, filmmakers can’t find enough soundstages in the traditional centers of Hollywood and Burbank, industry experts say. One developer hoping to capture some Tinseltown gold is Hollywood veteran Steve Needleman, a former TV producer who owns the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. He recently bought the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s former production facility in Simi Valley and plans to reopen its 120,000 square feet of soundstages, audio recording and editing studios and production offices to commercial productions. Its prior use had been limited mostly to the church’s programs. “In the Hollywood production studios downtown, it’s jammed,” Needleman said.