Film Liaisons – A Community Dialogue
Community leaders representing 57 Neighborhood Councils met with Public Works Commission President Kevin James and FilmLA President Paul Aubrey in LA’s first Neighborhood Council Film Liaison Town Hall.
James opened with an overview of Mayoral Directive #6 which establishes the city’s commitment to supporting the film industry, establishing positive relationships, and creating opportunities for communication.
Aubrey initiated a community dialogue, giving an overview of FilmLA and how it strives to coordinate location filming for then City of LA, support the Industry with location support, and serve the communities of LA to create win-win partnerships.
Joining James and Aubrey were Production Manager Richard Prince and Location Manager Duffy Taylor who shared “how things work” from their perspective and offered some best practices on how they work with communities during location filming.
James and Aubrey both laid down the significant economic impact of location filming in LA, including this factoid; for every Starbucks in the City of LA, there are three film industry related businesses.
Prince and Taylor took the dialogue from big-picture to hyper-local, providing personal anecdotes of the positive impact of location filming on them, their families, and their neighborhoods. This point was driven home during introductions when several location managers introduced themselves by the neighborhood they lived in, ranging from Studio City to Silver Lake to Mar Vista.
Aubrey brought several members of his team, including FilmLA’s Community Outreach Liaisons, Arturo Pina and Guy Langman, who shared FilmLA’s strategies and commotion to ensuring that neighborhoods are well represented. Both Arturo and Guy offered examples of community partnerships and production solutions that support filming and serve neighborhoods.
Representing Neighborhood Councils was Linda Alexander, past-President of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council, past-FilmLA Board Member, and as the Film Liaison for the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce for the last several years. Alexander stressed the importance of communication and education.
Council District 3’s Michael Owens wrapped the dialogue with a success story that started with a tour of his district for location managers that resulted in “a double digit increase in location funding.”
Each of LA’s 96 Neighborhood Councils can designate one Film Liaison who can be a Board Member or a stakeholder. The President can appoint it the Board can select the Film Liaison. Some councils have more than one liaison but there must be a lead who is the single point of contact for FilmLA.
For more information on serving, please contact Stephen Box at [email protected] or (213) 978-1551.