production company

Filming was about to start on David E. Kelley’s Apple TV+ series “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” in early January when the wildfires hit the Los Angeles area, devastating Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

Crew members lost their homes or were dealing with severe smoke damage. Others on the show took people who were displaced into their houses.

To add to the uncertainty, the series was still waiting to hear whether it would receive a state film and television tax credit.

It was time for a decision, Kelley and his fellow producers thought. Should they play it safe and relocate to a cheaper filming locale, such as New Mexico or Vancouver, to ensure they had the budget to film the pivotal mid-season finale in Las Vegas?

They took a gamble and decided to stay in California. The bet paid off. “Margo” got a tax credit of about $1.2 million per episode, and the show was able to shoot both in the Los Angeles area and travel to Las Vegas for four days of filming.

“The rest of the story is a California story,” said Matthew Tinker, president of David E. Kelley Productions. “It’s really magical to leave L.A., go to Vegas and then come back, and it gives the show a huge production value that otherwise, we wouldn’t have had.”

Matthew Tinker, president of David E. Kelley Productions, stands on the rooftop of producer David E. Kelley’s new production office in Santa Monica.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

As film and TV projects have increasingly moved out of state in search of better tax incentives and cheaper costs — moves that have culled the number of Hollywood jobs — Kelley’s production company is doubling down on California. The former attorney turned writer-producer is one of the biggest names in TV behind such legal dramas as “Ally McBeal” and “The Practice.”

All of his current projects will shoot in L.A., including the third season of HBO series “Big Little Lies,” the legal drama “The Lincoln Lawyer,” a new HBO Max series based on a Michael Connelly book called “Nightshade” that takes place on Santa Catalina Island, and the thriller “Presumed Innocent.”

Post-production work for his shows also is done in L.A. Kelley’s company, known as David E. Kelley Productions, also recently moved into a new headquarters in Santa Monica, where it plans to make a home for the foreseeable future.

“It just feels wrong to me that L.A. is not continuing to be the epicenter for film and television series,” Kelley said via Zoom in August. “This town has been very good to me for many, many years, so I have an inclination not to abandon it, to cling to the community that has been so rewarding for me.”

The sentiment is shared by his second-in-command.

From the concrete rooftop garden atop the Santa Monica building that houses Kelley’s production office, Tinker looked out at the hills, remembering the wall of smoke that lingered for days.

The January wildfires also encouraged the decision to keep Kelley’s production company in L.A., despite some pitches to move out of state. At the time, there had been industry chatter that the state’s incentive program would be bolstered, giving some optimism for the future of production in the state. But after the fires, there was no question. The company saw the need to rebuild and reinvest in L.A. and Hollywood. The eventual boost to the state’s film and TV tax credit program approved this summer solidified their decision.

“The fires challenged our resilience and sense of community, but the people of L.A. rallied,” Tinker said. “There simply wasn’t a thought beyond this moment to plant roots anywhere else.”

The 2,900-square-foot office, which is a new build that replaced an older building in Santa Monica, is sleek and modern, with concrete walls and flooring, dark wood details, two arcade game machines and a shelving unit holding dozens of awards right at the heart of the space. Inside Tinker’s office is an homage to Hollywood history.

A wall showcases trophies at producer David E. Kelley’s new production office in Santa Monica.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

An old sign from Kelley’s previous offices at the Fox lot hangs on the wall, next to the title page for the first episode of “Margo,” addressed to David and signed by actor Elle Fanning. A photo of Ronald Reagan with Matthew Tinker’s late grandfather Grant Tinker, former chief executive of NBC, sits near a bobblehead from Kelley’s “Boston Legal” days and a black-and-white group shot of Matthew’s father, John Tinker, winning a writing Emmy for the drama “St. Elsewhere” in 1986.

When looking back at his own career, Matthew Tinker has done “pretty much every job under the sun,” which was only possible in a city that consistently had multiple productions running.

That concern for the future of industry employment was a major part of Hollywood and state legislators’ push to increase the annual funding for California’s film and TV tax credit program to $750 million and expand eligibility criteria to allow more projects to apply.

Memorabilia in the office of Matthew Tinker, president of David E. Kelley Productions.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Those changes, which were approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom this summer, have now largely gone into effect and are starting to produce results.

In the first round of TV show tax credits since the program was revamped, the California Film Commission saw a nearly 400% increase in applications and awarded tax credits to a total of 22 shows.

“There was a lot of pent-up demand,” said Colleen Bell, executive director of the California Film Commission. “There’s a lot of momentum here, and these improvements to the program have helped to drive that momentum.”

The new activity is much needed. Production activity in L.A. so far this year is down 9% compared with last year, according to the nonprofit FilmLA, which tracks shoot days in Greater L.A. 2024 was the second-worst year on record for production in the area after 2020, when the industry shut down due to the pandemic.

But there is hope on the horizon — of the 22 new TV projects that received a California tax credit this past round, 18 are slated to film largely in Greater L.A., including Kelley’s “Presumed Innocent.”

“The more that people have hope in the future of California as a production destination, I think you will continue to see entrepreneurs and others make their careers here,” said Philip Sokoloski, spokesman for FilmLA.

Because Los Angeles is more costly than other locations, filmmakers must make certain adjustments, such as shooting a TV series in 85 days instead of 100, or reducing daily filming hours.

But that’s very doable with experienced crews in L.A., said Caroline James, co-executive producer of “Presumed Innocent” and “Margo,” which employed about 500 people.

“There’s such an infrastructure in L.A.,” she said. “There’s no learning curve.”

Kelley’s production company, which has six employees including the veteran writer and producer, may not always be able to shoot everything in L.A., but executives intend to keep L.A. first and foremost in their decision-making and hopes that mentality will catch on around town.

“The goal is to always look at California first,” Tinker said.

Apparently, love is blind to a healthy work environment. That’s what’s alleged in a new class-action lawsuit filed this week.

Stephen Richardson, a contestant on Season 7 of the Netflix dating show “Love Is Blind,” is suing the streaming service and the production companies behind the series, alleging they failed to pay overtime and minimum wages and didn’t provide accurate and itemized wage statements and uninterrupted meal periods. The class action was filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Richardson alleges in the lawsuit that producers wrongly classified him and the rest of the cast, who he says regularly worked 20-hour shifts, in order to pay them less. The lawsuit lists Kinetic Content, Delirium TV and Netflix as defendants.

Producers exerted “complete domination over [participants’] time, schedule, and their ability to eat, drink, and sleep, and communicate with the outside world during the period of employment” and further restricted participants’ actions after the show wrapped, the complaint says. The conditions were “unsafe and inhumane,” the lawsuit says.

“Love Is Blind” follows a group of single men and women searching for love the old-fashioned way, by communicating blindly through a wall. Couples are kept from each other until they establish an engagement, which pays off with unexpected facial reactions that express emotions including great dissatisfaction, confusion or a sigh of relief.

In recent years, the show has been hit with similar lawsuits from other former cast members. Last year, Season 5 participant Renee Poche and Season 2 veteran Nick Thompson filed a lawsuit against the production companies after she was penalized for breaching her contract by publicly discussing her experience on the show.

“I am now being sued for $4 million despite earning $8,000 for my participation on the show,” Poche told USA Today.

Poche alleged the production companies were retaliating against her for speaking about the working conditions she endured. After feeling “like a prisoner” while working on the show, she says, she was cut from the final version of the series.

Season 2 cast member Jeremy Hartwell sued Kinetic Content and Netflix in 2022 for allegedly violating labor laws and creating an “unsafe and inhumane” work environment. Then a number of unnamed former cast members spoke to Insider in April 2023, alleging producers subjected them to 20-hour production days, rarely allowed them to go outside, failed to provide adequate food and mental-health services and ignored their pleas for help.

Throughout the years, reality TV has tried to protect itself from real-life lawyers with nondisclosure agreements and provisions requiring disputes be taken to arbitration. The new complaint has Richardson as the named defendant along with “all others similarly situated.”

The accuser is looking for unspecified damages. Richardson, Netflix, Kinetic Content and Delirium TV did not immediately respond Wednesday to The Times’ request for comment.

Paramount on Friday sharply denounced a proposed boycott of Israeli film institutions by a group that calls itself Film Workers for Palestine and is supported by dozens of Hollywood luminaries.

Earlier this week, the group launched an open letter pledging to withhold support for Israeli film festivals, production companies and other organizations that the group said were involved in “genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”

The letter has been signed by hundreds of individuals, including filmmakers Jonathan Glazer, Ava DuVernay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Olivia Colman and Mark Ruffalo.

“As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions,” the group wrote. “In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.”

The group pledged “not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions — including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies,” which have been “implicated” in attacks on Palestinians. The group described its effort as being inspired by filmmakers joining the South African boycott over apartheid, a global campaign decades ago that proved influential in helping overturn the nation’s government.

Paramount, which was acquired last month by the Larry Ellison family and private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, made clear its opposition to the filmmakers’ campaign.

“We believe in the power of storytelling to connect and inspire people, promote mutual understanding, and preserve the moments, ideas, and events that shape the world we share,” said an emailed statement attributed to the company. “We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers. Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”

Paramount is the first studio to state a position on the divisive issue. An insider who was not authorized to speak about the internal debate said Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison and the company’s leadership team felt strongly about the need to speak out in opposition, believing that individuals should not be boycotted based on their nationality.

“The global entertainment industry should be encouraging artists to tell their stories and share their ideas with audiences throughout the world,” Paramount said. “We need more engagement and communication — not less.”