Cultivating Their Combined Passions – LA North Studios

When John Prabhu and Anthony Syracuse first met in 2018, they could see a great partnership between two unlikely allies. While Prabhu had spent the majority of his life working in real estate, Syracuse had two decades of experience in the film industry. The budding friendship would soon create a unique business opportunity for both in the coming months.
Anthony Syracuse’s film career started on the 1996 film Hard Rain as a Prop Maker. Having been raised in Burbank, the film industry had a fascinating stranglehold on his young life. His passions eventually led to steady work as a Construction Coordinator on some of the most well-known films of the last few decades, including Captain Marvel (2019), Divergent (2014), and Fast & Furious (2009).
John Prabhu, on the other hand, had thirty years of experience in commercial real estate. Having also been raised in Southern California, he attended UC San Diego and earned his degree in Quantitative Economics and Decision Sciences in 1990.
When the two met and began cultivating a friendship in 2018, a business idea struck. What if they established a partnership and tackled the entertainment industry from a different perspective? In order to keep jobs local and in California, the duo founded LA North Studios and hit the ground running with the Showtime’s Penny Dreadful in June of 2019.
Standard Hollywood entertainment productions use a 30-mile zone for determining employee benefits and wages, one which the Santa Clarita Valley falls directly inside. Deciding where to locate the new studio production hub was not exactly the hardest decision to make. And while 2019 was not the greatest year for filmmaking, the events on the horizon would cast a long shadow over the entertainment industry. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, streaming services were firing on all cylinders in order to produce and film new content for captive audiences while abiding by local and state health regulations, and the Santa Clarita Valley was made even more attractive for production due to the relative privacy and better affordability. LA North considers one of its’ best assets to be the lack of paparazzi and onlookers one usually finds lingering around film sets in Hollywood. While shutting down streets and businesses in Los Angeles can be incredibly expensive and time- consuming, filming in the Santa Clarita Valley is much more convenient.
As of 2023, LA North has accumulated 14 soundstages on 5 campuses, including some of the largest F-1 certified stages in California. Some of their most recent films include King Richard (2021), Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021), Don’t Worry Darling (2022), Emancipation (2022), The Fabelmans (2022), Creed III (2023), and Air (2023). In early 2022, the firm teamed up with production firms Cinelease and Herc Entertainment Studios in order to provide heavy equipment as well as lighting and grip for rental uses.
The City of Santa Clarita is proud to be film-friendly, and encourages productions as a way to increase jobs, spending, and tourism. For John Prabhu and Anthony Syracuse, the city is the perfect spot to cultivate their combined passions. Since 2019 they have succeeded in bringing good-paying jobs back to local Californians and increasing box-office success. LA North Studios continue to work closely with the SCV Film Office to produce the biggest blockbusters you’ll see over the next seasons. Lips are tightly sealed, but they assure audiences they are working with some of the biggest and best talent the entertainment industry has to offer. You can find them at their website at www.lanorthstudios.com

 photos by Joie de Vivre photographie

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