“Palm Royale” creator Abe Sylvia and “High Potential” producers Drew Goddard and Sarah Esber accepted Commitment to California Awards at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce 2025 Entertainment Industry Conference, presented by Variety. In celebrating their shows, which both shoot in Los Angeles, Sylvia remarked to the room full of executives: “Do not underestimate the power of telling an A-List actor that they get to sleep in their own bed when they wrap.”
The conference, which took place in Hollywood on the morning of Dec. 4, brought producers, stakeholders and government liaisons together to champion and discuss the entertainment industry in California. The Commitment to California Awards honored its recipients, whose productions have remained loyal to the Golden State as the filmmaking capital of the world.
Though “Palm Royale” is set in Florida, it embraces the old Hollywood style of using studio soundstages and Los Angeles’ diverse scenery to recreate Palm Beach circa 1969. The Apple TV series’ star Josh Lucas presented Sylvia with the award, stating that “One of the most magical elements of our show is the walk to set, wandering through the legendary back lots of Warner Brothers and Paramount. As you approach our stages, you often find yourself surrounded by gaggles of extras, extravagantly dressed as jellyfish astronauts and even Richard Nixon lookalikes, hanging around in amazing period costumes. The walk to Stage 30 is how I always imagined Hollywood: dancers stretch and rehearse; a golf cart zips by stuffed with glittering, jeweled costumes; a lone trumpeter warms up quietly as Kristen Wiig and Ricky Martin run lines standing outside; and there at the craft service table, you often find Carol Burnett grazing on carrots.”
Sylvia echoed Lucas’ sense of nostalgia and wonder at the show, but expanded it to stress that the greatest benefit of working in Hollywood is the people. Shooting in the heart of the entertainment industry, Sylvia said, “You get to hire your favorite makeup and hair people who are deeply integral to your process, because you don’t have to beg the studio to pay for their travel. You get your favorite costumer who’s probably your BFF. Your life doesn’t have to be completely disrupted by your work. So as much as the thrill of this business is about running away with the circus, the beauty of our show is that we are a family and I owe that to the fact that we shoot here in Hollywood, home to the greatest artists in the world of entertainment.”
Goddard and Esber also gave California its flowers, as “High Potential” is an Hollywood production through and through. The ABC crime dramedy focuses on a cleaning woman (Kaitlin Olson) who becomes a consultant for the LAPD. The plots unfold on the streets of Los Angeles, literally, as Goddard said the city is “like 50 cities put together and its unique from street to street. That’s what we wanted to show with ‘High Potential.’ We wanted to show the diverse amount of resources we have. It’s not just in the locations. It’s not just in the businesses. It’s in the streets and the people. That’s what Los Angeles is.”
The conference also included remarks from Hollywood Chamber of Commerce CEO Steve Nissen and legislative action committee head Pamela Marcello, a keynote conversation with Michelle Khare of the YouTube series “Challenge Accepted” and a panel on the future of the entertainment industry with Warner Bros Discovery president of development and production Jesse Ehrman, Blumhouse president of Television Melissa Aouate, UTA Independent Film Group Partner Rena Ronson, 3 Arts Entertainment Partner Jermaine Johnson and Roku Head of Content Lisa Holme.
FilmLA‘s vice president of integrated communications Philip Sokoloski also presented a production report, sharing sobering statistics on the decline Los Angeles-based production in recent years. This shortage of production is a result of the pandemic, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and the outsourcing of work to Canada, the U.K. or other U.S. states like New York, New Jersey and Georgia for their generous tax incentives. The result has hurt California’s economy and its status as the industry’s epicenter
“If you were to speak to my counterparts in Vancouver, the U.K., Georgia or New York, they would all tell you they’ve seen production declines over that same period,” Sokoloski reassured, but candidly added that “our portion of the overall pie has also been shrinking.”
He provided some beacons of hope, citing Governor Gavin Newsome’s 2025 legislation that put $750 million into state tax incentives for California production. “Optimistically, we think 2026 is going to be a really different looking year,” he said. “The first evidence you’ll see of this program working is going to be in the stories of your friends, family and neighbors who have work again.”
For now, shows like “Palm Royale” and “High Potential” remain a bit anomalous as major productions shot entirely in Los Angeles, but as Marcello emphatically stated, “Hollywood is open for business.” From the filmmaker advocates in L.A. and Sacramento and D.C. to the creative professionals on sets, there is an appetite for production to return to Los Angeles and the event suggested that it’s incumbent on those with interests in the city’s cultural and economic prosperity to protect it.
