With over 60 TV directing credits to her name and counting, DGA President Lesli Linka Glatter knows a thing or two about how the entertainment industry works. After getting her start on Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories,” she went on to work on shows such as “Twin Peaks,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Homeland,” and more recently the Robert De Niro-led “Zero Day” on Netflix. Her work has brought her all over the world, but as she puts it in a recent interview in The Hollywood Reporter, there’s nothing quite like making art in Los Angeles.
However, following costs rising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and consolidation in the wake of the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, production has declined severely in the City of Angels. Many put the blame on the meager tax credits offered by the California government, and while there are efforts underway to raise these figures, Glatter believes entertainment executives also need to do their part.
“I get that the studios and networks are trying to make their shows for a cost. But America, our storytelling industry, the icon of ‘Hollywood,’ we cannot lose that,” Glatter said. “We cannot lose and not support the labor that has built Hollywood.”
What Glatter is pointing to is the growing trend of production costs being offset by shooting in places that provide better tax incentives or where labor is generally cheaper and less protected by union rules. As appealing as this is for people in charge of keeping costs down, Glatter doesn’t believe the entertainment industry should be defined by cheapness. She thinks if production is to return to Los Angeles, “studios and networks need to be part of that solution.”
“I understand if you’re doing a show that based in Paris that you’re not going to be shooting in the Midwest,” said Glatter. “But, let’s try to keep things that are based in America in America. Let’s not go shoot Los Angeles in Australia.”
Another huge reason production needs to be bolstered in Los Angeles specifically right now, Glatter told THR, is because of the what the city has recently gone through in the wake of the SoCal wildfires that destroyed the communities of Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Glatter herself lost her home, but is moving forward with more zeal than ever.
“Because of what’s been so damaging with the fires in L.A., we have got to keep production here,” she said. “We have the best crew in New York, in L.A. and now in Atlanta. We have an amazing production center in Chicago. We have to keep our storytelling business in America.”
