Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2319 on Friday at the Television Academy in North Hollywood, creating a new California tax credit aimed at keeping post-production work — editing, sound, music and visual effects — inside the state.
The program will offer a 35% to 50% credit on qualified California post-production expenses. Unlike the state’s existing film and television incentive, productions won’t have to shoot in California to qualify for this credit. Under the current program, post-production costs only count if at least 75% of filming or the overall budget is spent in California.
Assemblyman Nick Schultz, a Burbank Democrat who wrote the bill, called it “a big victory in our fight to save California’s entertainment industry.”
“This program will literally save jobs here in Los Angeles and across the state. When California competes, we all win.”
The final program is a fraction of what was originally pitched. Schultz had sought $100 million for the credit, a figure also backed by the Motion Picture Editors Guild. Lawmakers cut that down to $10 million — one-tenth of the original ask.
The move comes as California’s grip on post-production work keeps slipping. According to CVL Economics data cited by the Los Angeles Times, the state’s share of US post-production employment fell from 53% to 42% over the past 13 years. The firm, tied to the California Post Alliance, put California’s post-production job count at roughly 12,000 last year.
Culver City resident Ben Urquhart, 51, knows the pain firsthand. He spent 18 years as a post-production executive at NBCUniversal before being laid off, and told the Times he still hasn’t found new work two and a half years later.
“It’s grim and it’s hard. There are jobs, but we have a large amount of extremely qualified people competing for every level of job.”
Urquhart said that back when he worked as a production assistant in the 1990s, landing a job took only a couple weeks. He said the new credit could help California “level the playing field” against other states and countries offering their own post-production incentives.
This is the latest expansion of California’s entertainment subsidy machine. The state recently boosted its overall Film and Television Tax Credit Program from $330 million to $750 million a year, with that funding authorized through June 30, 2030.
Newsom’s office claims 170 projects announced since that expansion are projected to generate more than $6.6 billion in economic activity and nearly 35,000 cast and crew jobs statewide.
Newsom also signed Senate Bill 186 on Friday, which alters the existing incentive program with enhanced refundability and relief for some independent productions from a tax credit limitation set to begin in 2027.
The subsidy push isn’t staying in Sacramento. President Trump has voiced support for a federal film tax credit, and Reps. Laura Friedman, D-Calif., and Brian Jack, R-Ga., are working on bipartisan legislation to create one, according to the Times.
Newsom closed out the day with a visit to the Burbank set of HBO Max’s “The Pitt.”
