A sheep ranch in 1867 that turned into two industries
David Burbank was a dentist who bought ranch land here in 1867 and ran sheep on it. Town development started on 1 May 1887, and on 8 July 1911 this became the first independent city in the San Fernando Valley. Two industries then arrived within two years of each other and never left. First National bought a 78 acre site in 1926 and Warner Bros. took it over in 1928. Lockheed opened its plant the same year. Disney finished its Buena Vista Street studio in 1939 and NBC put its west coast headquarters here in 1952.
The wartime detail says everything about the place. Lockheed employed up to 98,000 people and the entire facility was camouflaged from the air with a fake rural landscape, painted fields and streets laid over the roofs of the factory. A city that has been building illusions at that scale for eighty years does not blink at a camera on the sidewalk.
Burbank covers 17.35 square miles at 607 feet, ranging from about 500 to 800 feet, with the Verdugo Mountains along the north, Glendale east, Toluca Lake west and Griffith Park south. Casablanca was shot on Stage 1 here in 1942, High Noon at the Columbia Ranch in 1952, and the Safari Inn on Olive Avenue has carried Apollo 13 and Coach Carter. The practical result for a client is a crew base with a working culture: commercial and corporate video for studio and post adjacent businesses, and a mid century motel and diner stock that photographs period without a build.
A studio town where the locations are the buildings
Burbank has more production infrastructure per square mile than anywhere in the county, and most of it is not a backlot.
Warner Bros. has been here since 1928, Disney since 1939 and NBC since 1952, and the mid century commercial architecture built around them is the real location inventory. Casablanca was shot on Stage 1 in 1942. High Noon used the Columbia Ranch in 1952. Bonnie and Clyde worked the Burbank lot in 1967. Back to the Future used the McCambridge Park Recreation Center in 1985. The Safari Inn on Olive Avenue has carried Apollo 13 and Coach Carter, and Memento shot across the city in 2000.
That stock is why a period or Americana brief can be covered without a build. Motel frontage, diners, a 1940s airport terminal silhouette, hangar interiors from the Lockheed era and a downtown that has not been over-modernised all sit within a few minutes of each other.
The city runs 17.35 square miles between 500 and 800 feet, with the Verdugo Mountains along the north edge and Griffith Park to the south. Heat is the scheduling factor, not rain: the Valley side runs hot from June through September, which pushes exteriors to the first three hours of the day.
Entertainment accounts for 66,014 jobs out of a 166,000 workforce here and the daytime population reaches 250,000, so the buyers are studios, post houses and the businesses that serve them. That makes this a corporate video and commercial town.
Entertainment is 66,014 jobs of a 166,000 workforce
The city's economic development site publishes a Top 10 Industries table sourced to EMSI for 2025. Entertainment sits at 66,014 jobs. Health Care Services follows at 23,410, Information Technology at 17,521, Professional, Scientific and Technical Services at 11,096, Retail and Wholesale at 8,255, Administrative and Support Services at 7,989 and Food Service and Drinking Places at 7,593. The same table gives a total workforce population of 166,000.
Read the top two lines together. Entertainment employs roughly three times as many people here as health care, the next largest sector, and close to four in every ten jobs in the table sit in one industry.
The city supports it structurally. Burbank operates a Fire Film Safety Office dedicated to filming, reachable at [email protected], a permanent municipal function rather than a desk somebody covers when a request arrives.
A daytime population of 250,000
Burbank's published demographics, sourced to The Nielsen Company and EMSI, give a resident population of 104,000, a workforce population of 167,000 and a daytime population of 250,000. Median age is 43, average household income is $151,000, and there are 42,727 households.
The city more than doubles on a weekday. That is a load-in fact before it is a demographic one. Street parking, lane availability and crew travel between two Burbank addresses at 4pm all behave like a city of a quarter of a million people.
Quarterly economic indicators as of Second Quarter 2026, sourced to HdL, EDD and CoStar, report a citywide office vacancy rate of 23.9 percent, retail vacancy at 7.3 percent, unemployment at 6.4 percent and a median home price of $1,235,000. That office vacancy rate matters if you want a practical interior rather than a stage.
Studios, Downtown, and who is buying
The city publishes that Burbank has more than 1,000 media and entertainment companies including Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, Netflix and Nickelodeon. The Walt Disney Company reports its principal executive offices to the Securities and Exchange Commission at 500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, CA 91521. Burbank also maintains a Community Development page for the Warner Brothers Studio Tour Center.
That is the obvious client base, and it is not the only one. The city's economic development office publishes that Downtown Burbank holds more than 600 shops, the largest IKEA in the United States, Flappers Comedy Club and the AMC movie theaters. Brand and marketing managers get a walkable retail district for product and lifestyle work. Event organisers get a comedy club and a theatre complex with real audiences on a Saturday night, plus a city that publishes 19 hotels and 2,712 rooms for out-of-town talent and crew. Artists and labels get music video work in a city where the crew base already lives. Listing agents work a market with a $1,235,000 median home price, where a property film competes against studio-grade imagery down the street.
Hollywood Burbank Airport is served by 11 carriers offering 33 US and Canadian destinations, and the airport authority publishes that commercial airlines, cargo planes, general aviation and military aircraft all operate out of BUR.
Valley heat, and the route east
Burbank sits in the eastern San Fernando Valley, in the Valley heat regime rather than the coastal one. The nearest long-record Western Regional Climate Center station, Burbank Valley Pump, averages a maximum of 89.8 F in July and 90.2 F in August. The Santa Monica Pier station averages 69.1 F and 71.1 F over the same two months. Roughly twenty degrees separates a Burbank exterior from a coastal one in midsummer, which decides wardrobe, makeup turnaround and how much usable shade a location has.
From Westlake Village the route runs US-101 east to SR-134 east, roughly 28 miles and 35 to 55 minutes. Treat that as a routing estimate rather than a published figure.
Neighbouring cities do not share the process. Glendale is permitted through FilmLA with two extra city permits layered on top, and Pasadena runs its own Film Office under its own municipal code sections. The Los Angeles County overview covers which authority holds which city. For brand work here the anchor is usually a commercial production built around a single permitted day, because a second day on a flat-rate schedule costs less than a second application.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a permit to film in Burbank?
Yes, from the City of Burbank Film Permit Office, which is hosted under the Police Department as Film Burbank rather than through FilmLA. We file it. The scheduling quirk worth knowing is that the permit office is dark on Fridays, so a Monday shoot needs its paperwork moving earlier in the week than you would expect.
What are the best filming locations in Burbank?
Mid century commercial architecture, mostly. The Safari Inn on Olive Avenue has carried Apollo 13 and Coach Carter. McCambridge Park Recreation Center appeared in Back to the Future. Downtown Burbank has not been over-modernised, so diner, motel and storefront frontage still reads period. Add hangar interiors from the Lockheed era and a studio-adjacent street grid where crews are routine.
What has filmed in Burbank?
A century of it. Casablanca was shot on Stage 1 at Warner Bros. in 1942, High Noon at the Columbia Ranch in 1952, Bonnie and Clyde on the Burbank lot in 1967. Batman was filmed entirely on the Warner lot from 1966 to 1968. Memento shot across the city in 2000, and Laugh-In made beautiful downtown Burbank a running joke in the 1960s.
How much does a videographer cost in Burbank?
Crew size, number of locations, shoot days and editing depth set the price, not the runtime of the finished cut. Burbank adds one local lever worth planning around: the flat $707.00 permit rate covers three to seven days, so a second shoot day costs less than a second application. Studio 47 scopes against those drivers and quotes from the brief.
Who is the best video production company near Burbank?
Judge it on relevant work at your scale, a written process with named deliverables, and whether the company already knows the local permit desk. Burbank proves the point, because its Monday to Thursday permit week catches out crews who assume FilmLA runs the city. Studio 47 works Burbank from Westlake Village, roughly 28 miles east via US-101 and SR-134.
What kinds of businesses in Burbank use video production?
Entertainment leads by a wide margin. The city's own economic development table puts the sector at 66,014 jobs inside a 166,000-person workforce, with Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, Netflix and Nickelodeon among more than 1,000 media companies. Health care follows at 23,410 jobs, and Downtown Burbank's 600-plus shops drive retail, hospitality and listing work.
What is the best time of day to film in Burbank?
Morning, through most of the year. Burbank sits in the San Fernando Valley heat regime: the Burbank Valley Pump climate station averages maximums of 89.8 F in July and 90.2 F in August, roughly twenty degrees above the Santa Monica coast. Early calls also beat the traffic load of a city whose daytime population reaches 250,000.