Regional Assets, Industrial Growth, Global Reach

Abstract

Within the US motion picture industry, Hollywood is a (big) tree that hides the forest. Indeed, in this industry, besides this powerful and dominating industrial cluster, there are other — though minor — clusters, particularly in New York and San Francisco. The paper focuses on the latter and argues that the development of the film industry in the San Francisco Bay Area relies on specific regional assets: (1) a unique urban context and experience, (2) a unique alternative culture, and (3) a world-class technological cluster. The paper starts by briefly describing the path dependency of the film industry in the Bay Area, and how the city of San Francisco has started (in the 1980s) to implement a dedicated policy aimed at promoting the development of this industry. In this context, the paper explores the way that the San Francisco Bay Area became an attractive place for filmmakers and the fact that the 1970s marked the beginning of a new regime of film shootings. The paper then describes how, since then, the Bay Area asserted itself as a place for film production, and that has resulted in a multisite and smoothly expanding industrial cluster with a quite dynamic local labor market. Finally, the paper questions the mechanics of the film industry cluster in the Bay Area, its connections with Hollywood, and its impacts on the global influence of San Francisco.