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Comment by bsenftner | Hacker News Reader

I worked in Los Angeles doing animation and VFX software for 33 years, and left 5 years ago as the cost of living there made no sense, and my prospects for work became nomadic global chasing of work now taking place in countries with no or ignored labor laws. (As if labor laws are respected in the US anyway.)

Interesting in relation to the article, the author describes working out of the empty Warner Bros. lot; I lived across the street, right next to "The Starlite" (the author will recognize.)

Los Angeles and the entertainment industry's economics are brutal. My wife is exponentially more successful than I, a film she was the VFX producer for won an Oscar, she's an industry player, and still LA is too expensive.

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My state, like many others, offers rather large tax credits to make films inside this state.

> the entertainment industry's economics are brutal

A large part of those economics are self-inflicted. The money is "loaned" to the production company at credit card rates with repayment from the receipts from theater viewing years later. Depending on how "big" the movie is, 95-100% of the box office receipts for the first 2 weeks of a theater run go back to the studio (so the movie theater survives on selling popcorn and stuff). This tapers down until the theaters get 100% of ticket sales about 2 months later. The last movie that theaters made profits from displaying was The Full Monty - it got a small release in 1997 but those theaters played the movie for months.

I worked with some guys who did special effects for movies & TV shows.

>so the movie theater survives on selling popcorn and stuff)

Apparently some of those profits now go to the studio too? Some of the deals being made sound borderline criminal to me.

This sounds like the "360 contracts" that record companies require bands to sign. When bands are touring and getting an audience, they frequently sell CDs and T-shirts. The "360 contracts" require the band to give a percentage of that income to the record company and frequently require them to purchase CDs from the company at a higher-than-wholesale prices.

Super interesting, do you feel this is death by 1000 cuts or can you point at the economics no longer working as small handful of causes (i.e. rise of cost of living in LA, move towards direct to streaming rather than theater releases, AI workflows)?

I think the economics of a global entertainment and wealthy persons' playground is what is "ruining" Los Angeles. Earlier in my time there, I spent time in an uber-wealthy circle and basically encountered Epstein-class people doing what they do with the children of their own staff, and that is when I noped out of that entire social circle. There is not much that can be done when you see such wealth pursuing such agendas and you also see them with celebrities, as well as senior city and state officials. Such people are untouchable as far as the law is concerned. Los Angeles is sick with treating others as disposable, with sexual aspects included. And it is not "Los Angeles", this is human nature without boundaries.

> encountered Epstein-class people doing what they do with the children of their own staff

kind of glossing over something pretty major

yeah this is what I heard from pretty much everyone in the business down there. since production has gone international LA can't compete with, say, Romania. You can ship out your must-haves and rely on locals for the rest, the savings are enormous.

There's some stuff you can still do in LA but a huge amount of actual shoot days are in countries with lower costs and fewer labor restrictions.

Obsession was shot entirely in Burbank for chump change.

Makes me wonder who actually lives in LA now. Or rather who can live there and afford to pay bills.

Besides millionaires from Santa Monica and homeless from downtown.

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