David E. Kelley’s Commitment to California Film Production
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)
Commitment to California Production
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.
