Film Back on Track in Santa Clarita

The Santa Clarita Film Office is returning to pre-pandemic levels of television and film production in the city.For the recently completed 2020-2021 fiscal year on June 30, the city’s film office had issued 462 permits accounting for 1,369 film days. In the previous fiscal year, the city had issued 468 permits for 1,249 film days.Evan Thomason, an economic development associate with the city, explained how last year, the film office was on pace for another record year until Los Angeles County shut down in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic. From then until mid-June there was no filming activity anywhere in the county.But then in August, filming began to return to the Santa Clarita Valley starting with the CBS show “SWAT,” Thomason said.

“Since then, it has built up and for the last while we have been at the pre-pandemic levels which were pretty busy,” he added.

The fiscal year did bring in a record amount of economic activity from film and television production with $347 million, the highest amount recorded by the city since it started tracking it in the 2002-2003 fiscal year.

Contributing to that economic impact figure is the work done at soundstages around the city, which do not require a permit. Only on-location production and filming on other private property requires a city permit.

Santa Clarita Studios, for example has 32 soundstages, while LA North Studios has eight stages spread around three locations in the city, according to their websites.

Among the projects that have been filming in the city are “SWAT,” “Mayans MC,” “Westworld,” “NCIS,” and sports reality competition shows “Holey Moley” and the rebooted “Wipeout.”Feature films include “The Little Things” starring Denzel Washington and Jared Leto, the sequel to 1996’s “Space Jam” called “Space Jam: A New Legacy” pairing LeBron James with the animated Looney Tunes characters, and “Jackass Forever.”