TV Academy Is Training L.A. Teens as PAs. Local Filming Keeps Falling.

The free 10-week course, paid for by Best Buy, runs at YMCAs in Boyle Heights and North Long Beach while L.A. shoot days fell 4.8%.

On Saturday, Boyle Heights high school students spent part of their weekend at a taping of "America's Funniest Home Videos" in Manhattan Beach, with the show's creator and executive producer, Vin Di Bona. It was a field trip for a class built around the job most crew careers start with: production assistant.

The Television Academy Foundation launched the free after-school program with a grant from Best Buy, TheWrap reported Tuesday. The foundation's announcement calls it its first PA training for high schoolers. It runs 10 weeks out of Best Buy Teen Tech Centers at two YMCAs: Weingart East Los Angeles in Boyle Heights and North Stars in North Long Beach.

Students hear from the people a PA actually answers to, including production coordinators, assistant directors, location managers and production accountants, and they visit scripted and unscripted sets. The course wraps on the Academy's North Hollywood campus with a certificate and a room of Academy members to meet. Neither the announcement nor TheWrap gave the grant's size, the number of students or how to apply.

The teacher isn't a guidance counselor. Donny Hugo Herran, an Academy board governor and Paramount's onetime senior vice president over physical production, was executive in charge of production on "Yellowstone" and "Landman," according to the announcement. He said in it that he wants to prepare "aspiring crew members to help them thrive behind the scenes."

The catch is how much behind-the-scenes work L.A. has left. Cameras rolled on location around the region for 4,171 days in the third quarter, 4.8% fewer than a year before, MyNewsLA reported from figures kept by FilmLA, the nonprofit that runs local film permits. Television, the very work this class trains for, logged 1,400 days, down 2.8%.

The state's expanded tax credit helps where it reaches. Credit-backed film and TV projects more than doubled their local days, to 505 from 242, while overall filming still slid. FilmLA CEO Denise Gutches said production remains far below what the city needs and "crews and businesses across the region are feeling it." FilmLA's count covers on-location shoots only, not certified soundstages.

The line these students might want to keep came from a showrunner. Elwood Reid moved CBS's "Tracker" from British Columbia to L.A. for its fourth season on the state credit, and he said a 22-episode season means "a lot of steady jobs." The California Film Commission has awarded credits to 214 projects since July 2025, and Gutches said the effect could grow as more of them start shooting.

Herran's students will get their certificates in North Hollywood. Whether a call sheet follows depends on how many of those 214 projects actually roll cameras here.

Source: TheWrap, retrieved October 27, 2026. Other sources: financialcontent.com, mynewsla.com.