LA lawmakers push sweeping film-permitting reforms amid production slowdown

When filmmaker and screenwriter Austin James Wolff was scouting locations for a recent movie, Los Angeles should have been the obvious choice. Instead, navigating different permit rules, fees and public safety requirements across multiple cities made shooting locally difficult—and in some cases unaffordable.

“L.A. as a metro area is made up of many different municipalities, and they don’t all talk to each other,” he said. “The permitting process for one can be different from L.A. itself...