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Russ Fega connects movie shoots with Los Angeles residents who want to host filming on their properties, but while he lists more than 500 homes in Pasadena, he won’t be adding to their numbers.
“What’s the point when almost every location scout that contacts us says, ‘No Pasadena,’” Fega said.
According to Fega, who has more than 30 years experience working in the industry and runs a company called Home Shoot Home, Pasadena has cultivated a reputation in the entertainment industry for being one of the more difficult cities in which to film. He faults the city’s policy requiring signatures from neighbors and high costs.
“Pasadena’s film program has developed guidelines and procedures that consider a wide swath of residents, businesses and neighborhoods in order to balance the desires of property owners who support and benefit financially from filming with quality of life issues for those who do not,” city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said by email.
Pasadena rules say a majority of people living within the 300 feet of the prospective shooting location must give their approval under the following formula:
• 51% signatures required for filming between 7 and 10 p.m. seven days a week.
• 90% signatures required for filming between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Sunday through Thursday.
• 75% signatures required for filming between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
The signatures come from people who may have cars parked in front of their homes or who are impacted by filming in some other way – an inevitability if the scene takes place in a neighborhood, Fega said.
Fega also pointed to exorbitant fees as a reason film companies are staying away. For example, the Pasadena Fire Department charges $226 an hour, with a four-hour minimum, to have someone on the film set. The fire officer fee was just $79 an hour in 2017.
By contrast, Monrovia charges just $87 an hour for fire safety inspection with the same four-hour minimum commitment, an amount that increased by $2 on July 1. FilmLA, the official film office for the city and county of Los Angeles, charges $118 per hour for a firefighter on set, and they help filmmakers hand out “outreach” notices to neighbors without requiring signatures.
Long Beach charges $105 an hour for a fire safety officer, though 66% of residents must sign off on filming between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., while any filming before 7 a.m. or after 10 p.m. must gain 80% of nearby residents’ approval.
Despite the high fees, the Director of Planning and Community Development, David Reyes, said the city still hosts a number of film shoots each year. Pasadena gave out 466 film permits in 2019, 183 in 2020 – a drop off caused by the pandemic – and the city is on pace to give out more than 300 this year, according to Reyes, though how many of those are for commercial areas he could not say for sure.
Filming fees have increased across the Southland after the pandemic, according to Tawny Fernandez, who owns the film locations service Shoot On Location. She said many cities are increasing fees to recoup money lost when COVID-19 halted most business.
She agrees, however, with Fega that Pasadena’s reputation is bad.
“They facilitate the extortion of people,” Fernandez said. “When we film, we try to pay inconvenience fees if we can, but a lot of times smaller productions don’t have that in the budget. When it’s a public street and you’re paying the city for parking there, to turn around and then pay someone you’re parking in front of is redundant.”
Fernandez also said that when filming in the the city of Los Angeles, production can use the LAPD Film Unit to talk to people who are playing loud music or mowing their lawns during filming and won’t stop unless you pay them. Pasadena doesn’t offer anything like this, Fernandez said.
Once, Fernandez said, when filming in a house owned by Caltrans in Pasadena, a neighbor demanded $5,000 inconvenience fee to sign off and allow the shoot to continue. The city did nothing to assist with this production issue.
Reyes said he hasn’t had any personal experience with neighbors demanding cash for their signatures, and he has only really heard about it from a couple of people.
“I don’t have the information firsthand to share that with you, and I don’t think my staff does either,” Reyes said. “I don’t think anyone knows because we’ve never seen it actually happen, but the stories are there certainly.”
Joan Aarestad, volunteer film liaison for the East Arroyo Residents Association, said losing out on business from the industry hurts both the residents in her neighborhood, who would’ve made money on the rental, as well as the residents association itself because film companies would often donate to the association.
“According to our treasurer, about 80% of our revenues came from filming,” Aarestad said. “And that’s not a huge budget because we’re a small operation, but the two revenue sources were the film locations donations and our annual fees.”
The residents association would often use the money to refurbish parts of the neighborhood, Aarestad said, adding she’s unsure how they will fix things moving forward if they can’t find another source of revenue.
Pasadena isn’t the only place in California losing out on filming though. For years, local productions moved to Canada and other states which wooed them with incentives. For example, the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act grants an income tax credit of 20% to qualified productions, which include feature films, television movies or series, documentaries, commercials, and music video projects, according to a state pamphlet appealing to location scouts.
In response, California initiated a tax credit program of its own several years ago, administered by the California Film Commission, to encourage entertainment companies to keep production in California and hire workers in-state.
Reyes also added that Pasadena’s film office hadn’t heard about “No Pasadena” guidelines some companies demand of location scouts from the companies because the rules for filming in the city are readily available online. Any decision to look elsewhere likely happens before contact is made.
“The industry comes in, and they understand the rules,” Reyes said. “They play by them or they don’t, and they go elsewhere. Not that we’re trying to turn folks away, it’s just that these rules are in place for a reason.”
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