Far be it for us to start our look inside the lead-up to the 2025 Emmys on a depressing note, but much like how the Los Angeles wildfires were the elephant in the room during Oscar season, if a series was shot in LA has become a major talking point at for your consideration events.
Even before the fires, the organization FilmLA reported that filming in the city was at the lowest it had been in three decades (not counting the time the world was in lockdown due to COVID-19). And the number of productions has continued to plummet, even with the natural disasters only having a minimal impact on regional filming.
Keep in mind, even more so than the increasingly global Academy Awards, the Primetime Emmys are awards voted on by industry peers, with these FYC events happening mostly in Los Angeles and almost daily from March through June. So when a panelist representing a show like “Mid-Century Modern” on Hulu or “Matlock” on CBS casually drops that they shot the season locally, it elicits cheers.
For some major Emmy contenders, shooting in Los Angeles is already interwoven into the narrative of the series. For example, the FYC event for “Hacks” spent part of the discussion on Season 4 being set mostly in LA, rather than Las Vegas, like previous seasons. “Even though people think we shoot in Vegas, we’ve shot here in LA for the majority of all four seasons, and we’re very proud to do that,” said co-showrunner Jen Statsky to applause.
When moderator Susie Essman suggested the new season was a love letter to Los Angeles, director and fellow showrunner Lucia Aniello singled out one of the neighborhoods most affected by the fires, saying “We were so welcomed by the people of Altadena, because we’ve been shooting there a lot … because we like how it was, like funky and unique and different.” One of the most recent episodes also ended with a title card dedicated to the city.
The factor of whether or not a show shot in Los Angeles impacts the Outstanding Comedy Series the most, as many of the newer contenders, like “Nobody Wants This” on Netflix, and “The Studio” and “Shrinking” on Apple TV+, which are also set in LA, can more transparently boast that they are participating in the local economy.
But there are series that are set elsewhere that still have shooting in Los Angeles as a major part of their awards narrative. A fun fact that has popped up often is how Emmy-winning ABC comedy “Abbott Elementary” shot its fourth season next door to Max’s “The Pitt,” one of the buzziest new shows this year, on the Warner Bros. lot.
And at the FYC event for “Paradise,” Hulu’s latest hit drama, star Sterling K. Brown joked that their production toured through just about every studio lot in the city, contributing to its initially nondescript setting.
Ultimately, bringing production back to Los Angeles falls more on California lawmakers to create better incentives, so that shooting in what is supposed to be the heart of the film and television industries isn’t so cost-prohibitive, but in a standout moment at the aforementioned FYC event, “Paradise” creator Dan Fogelman offered his explanation for how and why his sci-fi action series shot in the city. “We have an incredible studio that has been supportive since the beginning, and they said, ‘To make it in Los Angeles, this is the number you get to make it.’ And then just really smart people that work with us figure out how to make it for that number, and that’s what you have to do,” he said.
“It’s challenging on every front, but you get the best crafts people in every part of the business,” Fogelman continued. “And I think it’s a commitment that everybody has to make right now. People in my position, studios need to keep making stuff. Actors in positions like Sterling need to keep saying, ‘I want to stay here and work with people that work here.’ And if we all continue to do it, it’s not going to change. It is cheaper to shoot elsewhere, but we have to keep a modicum of work going here, to keep the business going here.”
The sentiment is completely genuine, but in an environment where the people evaluating all the work these creators and artisans put in are among the many still looking to continue working in the city themselves, it plays like gangbusters. And it’s worth noting that a good chunk of the most recent season of another Fogelman-produced series, “Only Murders in the Building,” shot in Los Angeles as well, and went on to win the show’s first ever SAG Award for Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series — another award voted on by those industry peers.
