Hollywood’s Ice Age — Film Workers Fighting to Come Back From a String of Disasters

by James Mathers
Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society
(Excerpted from the January 2025 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter)

I try to keep positive and avoid being an alarmist when sharing my thoughts on the motion picture industry.  However, the sad truth is that the prospects for folks trying to make a living and support themselves and their families working in this business have gotten bad, really bad, especially for those of us living in California.  

It’s almost as if a giant meteor crashed down and destroyed all signs of work life for those seeking employment making movies.  I have plenty of friends who not too long ago had thriving careers, but have only managed to eek out a couple days of work in the last year.  Throughout 2024, the popular saying was just “Survive ’til ’25,” but now we’re into 2025 and there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel; it has gone from bad to worse.

Perhaps a giant meteor was not the best analogy, because it was not just one catastrophic event, but a series of major challenges and setbacks.  The first to be logged was a world-wide pandemic, but with masking, vaccinations, and other various protocols, we figured out how to keep going and deal with the challenges.  In fact, it got pretty busy as competition for streaming subscribers trapped in their homes kept things cranking near full capacity.  

However, as we now know, that led to an oversupply of content, and when creatives, including writers and actors, wanted a more equitable share of the pie, the studios were in a position to just let them stew for the better part of a year.  The work stoppage seemed interminable, but the writers and actors did finally settle, only to make room for IATSE and the Teamsters to start negotiations.  They didn’t even have to ever officially go on strike, just the threat of it was enough to hold up almost all productions around here for many months prior.  No producer wanted to risk being shut down in the middle of a production.  

And in the Los Angeles area, it got even worse, faced with devastating fires after having suffered decades of decline due to runaway production.  The wildfires caused unimaginable suffering, with many friends losing their homes and what little was left of their livelihoods.  In light of the fires, perhaps I should have used the phoenix analogy, and how we now need to rise from the ashes. But, it is hard to rebuild when the foundation has been eroded away.  

For far too many years, California has not kept up with the lucrative financial production incentives offered around the globe. Legislation was recently announced by Governor Gavin Newsom to dramatically increase these incentives to be more competitive with other regions. However, passage of the legislation, and then implementation, will take considerable time, and even with the increase, California’s offer will not compare well to other locales.  For example, California will still have a low cap with a complicated formula for crew ratio rather than just applying it to anyone working in the state. Unlike elsewhere, talent and much of the above-the-line, which are some of the more expensive budget items, are NOT eligible for the incentive in CA.  (See the link at the end of this essay for details on a movement called “STAY in LA” that is working to advocate toward fixing these imbalances and bring work back to Hollywood.)

This has been going on now for quite some time. I recall losing many DP jobs going back to the early 1990s when productions went to foreign lands where I was not allowed to work due to government restrictions.  I was once weeks away from heading to South Africa for what would have been a major upgrade to the pictures I was shooting at the time.  I had shot several projects for the producer and got on well after meeting the director.  I was told the job was mine, only to then find out that since a portion of the film was being financed with European incentives, the DP had to have a European passport.  Mind you that this was an English language, US production, shot in South Africa, (although set in space, so it could have been shot anywhere,) yet as mandated, the job went to an Italian.       

I did use to travel the world over for filmmaking assignments.  I even spent a wonderful year in Ireland until my temporary work permit expired.  Nowadays, only the very highest tier of cinematographers are invited to travel abroad for work, and even then they are highly discouraged or denied the chance to bring their regular teams.  I’m proud to say that Hollywood crews are still among the best in the world, but these incentives have caused there to be many additional viable centers for production located all over the globe, and available pools of trained and talented filmworkers for producers to choose from.  So, Hollywood crews aren’t able to travel for work, and there is a dearth of production happening locally; it is a bad combination. 

In spite of my complaints, I must admit that I have more than survived; in fact, I have thrived.  I managed to build a long career doing lots of interesting projects, even if they were not the marquee motion pictures I dreamed of early on. I’m now much closer to the end of my career than the beginning, but I worry about those who are trying to come up behind me.  

I’m often asked about how one breaks into the film industry, and I honestly don’t know.  The advice I used to give was to show up on time, have a great attitude, and don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty doing whatever kind of shooting job you can get.  Just keep gaining experience, and be ready when opportunities arise.  However, I’m not sure that advice still holds up. 

You have to have passion, of course, but there are too many who are willing to take advantage of a beginner’s yearning enthusiasm to build a career.  With an oversupply of film workers and no clear-cut system of apprenticeship, there is frankly little chance that such situations serving others will ever lead to meaningful and sustaining work. 

It can’t hurt, but getting a degree from a film school is also no golden ticket to a career. My advice now is to get a day job doing whatever you can to sustain you, and then start making your own content on the side. With the tools of content creation so readily available now, there is no better way to learn, and perhaps you’ll somehow strike gold, (just don’t bet the farm on it.)  

One thing is for sure, however, even for veteran filmmakers like myself, we must all keep re-inventing ourselves. As I often say, the only constant is change.  With the possible exception of coins from a vending machine, you can always count on change.  Some may leave the industry, but that may be for the best; adjustments will need to be made. And as crappy as things now seem to appear, these bad times will pass.  We can rollover and become extinct like the woolly mammoth of the last ice age, or we can adapt and meet the challenges of a new ever-evolving environment.  I suggest the latter.

For more information on the STAY in LA initiative advocating for increasing the tax incentive for productions that shoot in LA county for the next 3-years as part of the overall disaster relief effort, visit:

https://www.stayinla.org/