Antelope Valley Sees Drop In Filming

Preliminary figures from the Antelope Valley Film Office show a decrease in the number of projects filming in the area, including a sharp decrease in feature films. For the seven months of its fiscal year that ends June 30, the Antelope Valley Film Office has tallied 143 projects. For the 2005/06 fiscal year, 248 projects filmed in the Antelope Valley for 409 days. While it was possible that the number of projects will pick up over the remaining five months of the fiscal year it was the actual number of filming days that was important and brings money to the region, film office Executive Director Pauline East said. One of the bigger hits the region has taken is in feature films. For 2005/06, 61 film projects shot in the Antelope Valley including the third installment of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series but only 25 features have filmed there since July. “That is indicative of what Los Angeles [County] is going through,” East said. In Los Angeles County, on-location feature film production fell by 7.4 percent in 2006, according to statistics kept by FilmLA, the agency issuing filming permits. That is a 37 percent decline since 1996 when film production in Los Angeles peaked at 13,980 days. For the seven-month period, 24 television shows have filmed in the Valley. For the full 2005/06 fiscal year, 31 shows filmed there. Still photography shoots have declined with 33 taking place so far as compared with the 77 for the 2005/06 year. What film and television makers, photographer and others find attractive about the Antelope Valley is that it is the closest desert to the metro L.A. area. When Japanese or Korean film companies need a desert, they come out to Lancaster, East said, adding that the desert has been popular as a location for projects set in Iraq. “We used to be able to keep them closer to the studio zone,” East said. “There’s more development now and that gets in the background.”