Last year, the City of Santa Monica inked an agreement with FilmL.A., establishing the nonprofit as the film permit coordinator for the City and providing local filmmakers increased access to a variety of unique locations.
To date, FilmL.A. has coordinated several hundred permits for filming in Santa Monica. City permit approvers, community groups like the Downtown Santa Monica PBAD, and FilmL.A. staff share effective working relationships, holding the standard turnaround time for film permit approval to five business days, or less.
In addition to many public parks and residential properties, the City is home to the iconic Santa Monica Pier, the Third Street Promenade and the Annenberg Community Beach House. Each year the City of Santa Monica also hosts to the American Film Market & Conferences.
“Among the 10 cities served by FilmL.A., Santa Monica is easily among the most sought after for filming,” observed FilmL.A. Production Planning Coordinator Tim Overbeck. “Filmmakers come to Santa Monica to shoot at iconic, highly-recognizable properties. Ironically, they sometimes stand in for other places around the world – but the attraction’s been clear for films like Jersey Boys, reality shows like The People’s Court and television dramas like Revenge.”
A selection of publicly-owned Santa Monica area properties can be freely browsed online via FilmL.A.’s online location library, LocoScout (www.LocoScout.com). Photos of some of the City’s most interesting locations appear also in the gallery below, as well as on the pages of FilmL.A.’s website (www.filmla.com) for the next 30 days.
For more information about filming in the City of Santa Monica, or in any of the other jurisdictions served by FilmL.A., we invite you to contact FilmL.A.’s Production Planning Department at 213.977.8600.
