Manny Shaw vividly remembers the first time he saw his name come across a television screen.
A Hollywood post-production assistant at the time, he was on a phone call with his mom as they watched the credits roll at the end of an episode of the fifth season of the NBC show "This Is Us."
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WATCH HERE"My mom back in Michigan," Shaw said. "We waited and waited and waited. It popped up for like two seconds, but it popped up and I remember hearing her scream."
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SIGN UP Those two seconds of were enough to tell Shaw that he'd finally made it in Hollywood, turning a dream into reality through hard work, training and networking. The youngest of 11 kids, Shaw learned early on the importance of speaking up to find opportunities and began his career as a graphic designer in Detroit.
His first television job was as a production assistant on NBC's "America’s Got Talent." His reputation and tenacity with networking led him to thrive, even during one of the entertainment industry's hard times, earning a position as an assistant editor.
"From the pandemic, I was actually bombarded with work," he said. "I was turning down jobs."
But the path to his dream career has veered into uncertain territory, Shaw said. There are no major strikes in Hollywood and the industry emerged from the pandemic, but work can still be difficult to find for many in TV and film.
"Everything was going well, and then the strikes happened," Shaw said. "I've reached out to people I've worked with in the past, from editors to supervisors to even people within the studios, and everyone is saying there's nothing. There's no work."
The industry has been through several shakeups in recent years with strikes, layoffs. runaway production and other matters that impacted workers.
On-location production in greater Los Angeles was down 22% for the first quarter of the year, January through March, according to Film LA, the official film office for the city and county of Los Angeles. Television production peaked in greater Los Angeles in 2021 at 18,560 annual shoot days, according to Film LA. There were just 7,716 shoot days logged in 2024.
The California Production Coalition estimates that the average location shoot adds $670,000 and 1,500 jobs a day to a local economy, illustrating the broader impact of a severe dip.
"Right now, we've just come out of the worst year on record, excluding COVID in 2024 for the amount of on-location filming happening," said Paul Audley, president of Film LA. "And, in the first quarter, as we come to a close, it looks like 2025 is doing even worse.
"Are there fewer productions in general or are there just fewer productions in LA? So there's a combination of factors. Globally, everybody is talking about not getting enough work anymore, even the major centers. Because the streamers and others have pulled back, the networks have shortened the seasons, the number of episodes, and so there's a lot less work to be had. And, then you come back to LA, and California is just not competing with the tax credits."
Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for an expansion of the California Film & Television Tax Credit Program. In the fall, Newsom said he'd like to see the annual tax incentive cap doubled to $750 million a year. Several bills have been introduced in an effort to make the program more globally competitive.
Audley said California is now sixth in the world for filming behind Toronto, the United Kingdom, Vancouver, central Europe, and Australia. Some emerging film production hubs also have built up their own worker base, he said.
"And, so the local folks in Georgia and New York and Toronto are now filling all the positions, and they don't have to import people anymore," Audley said.
Shaw said he's worked a variety of jobs during the downturn, from cutting podcasts to janitorial work at his church.
"Going through all the schooling, going through all the trainings, doing all the networking, doing all the shows, feeling like I'd finally done it, I have the background, I have the skills, I have the qualifications. I'm being told you're such a good assistant editor, you know, hearing all those things, and then coming to where we're at now, where I can't find a job," Shaw said. "We can do what we can and pray that this thing comes back really soon."
