As the entertainment production capital of the world, the Los Angeles region is a different kind of place in which to live and work. In most other places across the globe, seeing a film crew working on-location is a rare sight -- and a bit of a treat. In greater L.A., home to more than 55,000 permitted production days of on-location filming per year, the local perspective is a little different.

Here, all those film crews represent our robust creative workforce and our region's worldwide leadership in entertainment production. A thriving local film business provides economic security for our families, friends and neighbors, boosts area tourism and supplies vital revenues to state and local governments.

But along with all the benefits, on-location filming brings a special set of challenges to address. Our mission is to meet those challenges and help our government clients manage on-location filming better than they can on their own.

FilmL.A. is charged with coordinating permits for on-location motion picture, television and commercial production in a way that minimizes the impact of those productions on area neighborhoods.

To do so, we solicit input from community members and consult with elected officials and authorities from dozens of city and county departments. These experts provide the guidance and micro-approvals necessary to protect the public welfare and help ensure that your interests are appropriately addressed on every permit.
 
The contributions of these official parties ensures that every permit that we release is the product of a rigorous collaborative process.  For more about the concepts and roles involved in permit coordination, please review our Glossary of Key Terms.

If you live, work, worship, volunteer, commute through or attend school in one of the areas that we serve, there's a good chance that you have benefitted from one or more of the services we provide.

The services we provide the community include:

• Operating a 24-hour hotline to respond to your concerns at all times.
• Providing you with advance notification of filming and making regular improvements to our notification program.
• Applying research collected through periodic filming surveys to craft permit terms that reflect your interests.
• Working closely with members of city and county departments, elected officials and their staffs to incorporate the input they submit on your behalf.
• Maintaining a database of known issues that helps us tailor future permits to the needs of your community.
• Assigning our own FilmL.A. Monitors to encourage permit compliance and assist you in solving production-related problems -- big and small.
• Reminding filmmakers of their obligations to you and your neighborhood by distributing the Filmmakers' Code of Professional Responsibility with every permit we release.

Despite the forethought and concern we put into every permit we coordinate, and despite our ongoing commitment to protect area neighborhoods from needless inconvenience, sometimes things do not go quite as planned. Admittedly, there have been times when we have failed to uncover and address all of the concerns of area residents. We have also seen filmmakers willfully violate our carefully-crafted permit terms -- to your frustration and ours alike.

If you have concerns about filming in progress, we recommend you first contact the production company and see if they are able to assist you.  If you cannot obtain an on-site resolution from the production company, we ask that you call us at FilmL.A.

Under no circumstances should you attempt to interrupt, delay or interfere with duly-permitted filming activities.  In the City of Los Angeles, willful interference with duly-permitted on-location filming is a violation of Section 41.20 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, punishable by arrest and fines.  The same policy bars production companies from filming without a permit.

We are grateful for the confidence of our government partners, who trust us to provide their constituents with filming-related assistance of all kinds.

Our partners know no one else can match our familiarity with film productions taking place in area neighborhoods, nor can they devote -- as we do -- the personnel and resources required to solve filming issues 24/7.  Please feel to contact us by calling 213.977.8600.