CFC Interactive Map – Release Notes

30-Mile Studio Zone and Secondary Studio Zone Interactive Map

Welcome to the California Film Commission’s new interactive 30-Mile Studio Zone Map.

The 30-Mile Studio Zone, a geographic area within a 30-mile radius of the intersection of Beverly and La Cienega Boulevards, is used by producers and entertainment industry labor unions to determine work and per diem rates, driving distances and various rules for crew members. Some locations that lie outside the 30-mile radius boundary are generally recognized as being within the 30-Mile Studio Zone. Locations so deemed are Agua Dulce, Castaic (including Castaic Lake), Leo Carrillo State Beach, Ontario International Airport, Piru, Pomona (including the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds) and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Ranch property now known as the Conejo Recreation and Park District / Wildwood Park.

The more-recently added Secondary Zone Extension adds locations and jurisdictions within an additional 10 miles of the traditional 30-Mile Studio Zone radius. Locations via Union wavier also include Lake Hughes, Elizabeth Lake, the Masimo Corporation Building in Irvine, the entirety of the City of Huntington Beach and John Wayne Airport. These locations outside the thirty (30) mile Studio Zone and the Secondary Studio Zone are treated as within the Secondary Studio Zone.

The new map streamlines and enhances the process of determining if a location lies within the primary or expanded zone. It’s packed with advanced features and is super-easy to use. Features include: searches by street address, GPS coordinates, name of location; distance-from-zone-center calculator; location markers with zoom capability that can be dragged on screen; location popup info to determine placement within/beyond zones and optimization for all major web browsers (desktop and mobile).

The CFC does not administer the 30-Mile and Secondary Studio Zone boundaries. For information on locations near the edge of the Zone, please consult the CSATF map provided by Contract Services Administration Trust Fund as well as specific union agreements to confirm whether they fall within the Zone.

For more information regarding the map and related resources, please contact Brandy Davis, Location Resource Advisor, at 1-800-858-4749.

Please review our Browser Compatibility Statement.

Release 1.0 – CFC Interactive Map

July 20, 2018

Features in this Release

Users may click directly on the map or enter street addresses, GPS coordinates, or well-known place names to display location GPS coordinates and distance from the center of the zone.
Location markers may be dragged to new locations to display updated location and distance information.
Location markers are clickable to zoom in / out.
For locations outside the 30-Mile Studio Zone, location marker popups specify whether the location is within or outside the Secondary Studio Zone.

Incorporated Cities in the Zones

Incorporated cities that fall within the Secondary Studio Zone include: Anaheim*, Brea*, Camarillo, Chino, Chino Hills, City of Industry*, Claremont, Costa Mesa, Covina*, Diamond Bar, Fillmore, Fountain Valley, Fullerton*, Garden Grove, Glendora*, Huntington Beach*, Irvine, La Verne, Lancaster, Malibu*, Montclair, Moorpark, Newport Beach, Ontario, Orange, Palmdale, Placentia, Pomona, San Dimas, Santa Ana, Seal Beach*, Stanton*, Thousand Oaks*, Tustin, Upland, Villa Park, Walnut*, Westminster*, and Yorba Linda.

*These cities also fall partially within the 30-Mile Studio Zone.

Counties in the Zones

Los Angeles County, Orange County, and Ventura County – along with San Bernardino County, which falls within the Secondary Studio Zone.

Center of the 30-Mile Studio Zone

The center of the 30-Mile Studio Zone is the center of the Beverly Boulevard and North La Cienega Boulevard intersection.

GPS coordinates used for the center are: 34.07604329999999, -118.37661700000001

Displayed Circumferences for the 30- and 40-Mile Studio Zones

The studio zone circumferences displayed are circles with radii of 30.04 and 40.055 miles, respectively, to visually approximate 30 and 40 miles when calculated by the distance calculation used.

Distance Calculation

The distance is calculated using Google Maps Javascript API’s spherical geometry utilities, specifically Google Maps Geometry Library. This calculation uses the haversine formula to calculate the distance between two sets of coordinates.

The default Earth radius used by this calculation is Earth’s radius at the equator. We instead used Earth’s mean radius of 6371 km. After this modification, distances calculated match those of Google Maps’ measure distance tool to two decimal places.

Accuracy Near the Edge of the Zone

The distance calculation used takes into account that the Earth is a sphere but not that it is an oblate spheroid. This introduces errors as you approach the edge of the zone.

Spherical earth computations result in “underestimates of real world distances measured in the direction of the equator … and overestimates for those measured in the direction of the poles.” [Source: cs.nyu.edu] As a result, calculated distances are off by the following amounts:

At 30 miles –
- In directions due north / south, distances are overestimated by approximately 380 feet.
- In directions due east / west, distances are underestimated by approximately 350 feet.
At 40 miles –
- In directions due north / south, distances are overestimated by approximately 500 feet.
- In directions due east / west, distances are underestimated by approximately 460 feet.

The above amounts were determined by comparing the distances calculated using Google Maps Javascript API’s spherical geometry utilities with those calculated using Vincenty’s formulae. Vincenty’s formulae are more accurate for calculating the distance between two points on the Earth’s surface as they assume the Earth is an oblate spheroid. For this exercise, distances between the same sets of coordinates were calculated using both the CFC Interactive Map and Vincenty’s formulae, Inverse Method at Geoscience Australia.