Hollywood Hired Hands See Greener Pastures Outside California

As film and TV production scatters around the country, more workers are packing up from California and moving to where the jobs are. Driving this exodus of lower-wage workers -- stunt doubles, makeup artists, production assistants and others who keep movie sets humming -- are successful efforts by a host of states to use tax incentives to poach production business from California.

The changing economics affect many major movies seen today. Only two movies with production budgets higher than $100 million filmed in Los Angeles in 2013, according to Film L.A. Inc., the city's movie office. In 1997, the year "Titanic" was released, every big-budget film but one filmed at least partially in the city. The number of feature-film production days in Los Angeles peaked in 1996 and fell by 50% through 2013, according to Film L.A. Projects such as reality television and student films have picked up some of the slack. But overall entertainment-industry employment has slid. About 120,000 Californians worked in the industry in 2012, down from 136,000 in 2004, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.