PALMDALE — There may not be a sign on the hillside heralding “Hollywood,” but the film industry is alive and well in Palmdale, and city officials are working to make it an even greater part of the local economy.
Many outlying locations have long served filmmakers large and small, and Palmdale officials have taken steps to encourage more filming to locate at various points in and near the city.
“We’re seeing a steady increase as Palmdale develops its reputation for being very film-friendly,” Palmdale Film Liaison David Halver said. “We really do our best to expedite the process for film crews.”
The city has an ordinance that promotes filming in Palmdale and continues to expand the film-friendly program, Economic Development Management Analyst Mica Schuler said.
The film program enjoys a long-standing relationship with the Antelope Valley Film Office and FilmLA, the office which provides a one-stop shop to filmmakers for permits and the like in the greater Los Angeles area.
Halver, who has more than 30 years in the industry, works directly with location scouts and filmmakers to facilitate their efforts here.
“It’s greatly appreciated that we’re so hands-on in terms of getting locations to fit their needs,” he said.
Most of Palmdale lies within an extension to the zone designated by film production unions’ agreements that does not require per diem pay for workers.
“It’s actually been a real blessing for us, because more studios and productions are coming out into the Antelope Valley,” Halver said.
The city also has discounted rates available at local hotels for film crews, a benefit for those who are working in the area for multiple days.
“We’ve had a real spike from that,” Halver said, something that provides an economic boost to the city, even if the filming itself is outside the city limits.
As an example, a 90-person crew for the science fiction film “Dune” shot some special effects scenes at Red Rock Canyon State Park, north of Mojave, but stayed at Palmdale hotels for the nearly two weeks they were in the area.
In addition to hotel stays, film crews contribute to the local economy through restaurants, gas stations and area vendors for supplies such as hardware.
In 2020, despite the constraints on filming due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the city still hosted 19 productions, which led to approximately 1,500 room-nights for local hotels, Schuler said.
With production rebounding, Palmdale is on track to more than double that number this year, she said.
“We’re starting small, but we’re really building up our program,” she said.
Earlier this month, the City Council awarded a contract to convert a former tire store building on Sierra Highway owned by the city into a 6,000-square-foot film studio that will host production for film, television, music videos, photo shoots and the like.
The site, which has large, covered bays along one side, has already seen use for filming. Last year, a crew was filming at the Club Ed film set on the east side when an icy storm hit. The city offered the Sierra Highway building as a place to work without battling the elements.
The feedback from that impromptu studio “was overwhelming,” Halver said.
The city also has seen interest from production companies to build studios of their own in the area, including outfits such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, Halver said.
More than sound stages, companies are looking to create a production hub with support buildings, offices, “everything you would find on a studio lot,” he said.
With state incentives encouraging production to return to or remain in California, sound stages and production facilities in Los Angeles are nearly at capacity, with little room and restrictions to building more.
“We have a lot of space up here, we are film-friendly, we have the zoning that’s appropriate for them, easy access to the major freeways — it’s just very attractive for them,” Schuler said.
“The shortage of stages is really the driving factor now for the studios and independent production companies looking at possibly building a stage in Palmdale,” Halver said, adding officials hope to see it happen in the next year. “It looks very, very promising.”
Enjoying support at every level of city government, officials are working to truly establish Palmdale as a filmmaking center, which would benefit the Valley as a whole, he said.
“It’s a really clean and really great industry for us to add to all the different businesses we have here in the Antelope Valley,” Halver said.
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