Hollywood Workers Protest Runaway Production
from The Hollywood Reporter
July 7, 1999


SACRAMENTO -- Hundreds of Hollywood production workers chanting "Film American" and "bring Hollywood home" rallied at the Capitol seeking tax credits for movies and television programs produced in California. Sound, lighting and camera men and women, costume and set designers, truck drivers and other behind-the-scenes workers waved signs saying "Bring Runaway Production Home" and "Pass the Tax Rebates" Tuesday as more than 100 production trucks circled the Capitol honking their horns. "This is about our lives, our jobs, our survival," said Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, a former actress sponsoring one of the two tax credit measures. "People think the industry is going great, but we've got a higher rate of unemployment than at any time in the past 25 years." Kuehl's bill would give movie and TV producers a 6 percent tax credit for their California production costs, a tax break worth about $100 million annually. Th e other bill, by Assemblyman Scott Wildman, D-Los Angeles, would use a different formula to give about $100 million in tax credits.