if you've ever stuck around until the
end credits of a movie or tv show then
you've probably seen this
this small logo can potentially save
productions millions of dollars
georgia is one of the few states in the
u.s with a production friendly tax
incentive program and a lot gets filmed
in the peach state right now we have
black panther in the works
you know we have become you know a
second home to marvel projects
throughout the years
a lot of television is produced here
ozark they were just breaking down the
sets for ozark um you know for the
season four um but we have doom patrol
and dynasty the walking dead stranger
things
having um
marvel's ant-man as our first project
before we even finish painting you know
the stages
in 2020 amid a pandemic georgia was home
to an estimated 242 film productions in
fiscal year 2020 that added 2.2 billion
dollars to the state's economy in fiscal
year 2019 georgia was home to 399
productions raking in 2.9 billion
dollars for the state since 2008 georgia
has made an effort to surpass hollywood
as the production capital of the us the
state has one of the largest sound
stages in north america its cityscape
doubles for new york and los angeles and
it has seen an influx of skilled workers
from lighting contractors designers and
prop makers take robert ludemann he and
his wife move their prop making business
from new york city to georgia it looked
like the one that was putting the most
into actually building their facilities
that looked like they had every
intention of staying here for a while
and that was kind of a big factor is
making such a
large-scale move and investment into
coming down here we wanted to make sure
this was not going to be a quick thing
and then run back up to new york a few
years later you know worrying what we
were going to do but it hasn't always
been easy going in the state of georgia
some productions threatened to boycott
the state entirely after years of
controversial bills proposed by the
state's government some more fallout
this morning uh for the george for a
fallout for georgia following the
passage of its controversial voting law
will smith and the director antoine fuka
is saying that they are now pulling uh
their film their upcoming film
production of emancipation out of the
state moving it to louisiana instead
and georgia is seeing more states
adopting similar and competitive tax
credits for productions
the rebate is everything and
moving companies
are going to go
wherever they get
the most money back it's it's it's
there's no
mystery
so how vital are productions for
georgia's economy
what happens when other states offer
better incentives and how exactly did
georgia become the new home for
hollywood
this is the 30 mile zone or tmz it's a
30 mile radius of land in southern
california where big studios set up shop
nearly a century ago
initially it began as a small six mile
radius and it grew to 30 miles
establishing the hollywood as we know it
today
los angeles area an area now famous as
the 30 mile zone that was covered by the
local union agreements
almost all hollywood studios did almost
all of their production shooting when
they would go somewhere else when they
would go on location it was always a big
deal and it was almost always to get to
a very specific kind of landscape
whether it was john ford and monument
valley or some of the great western
locales in
new mexico or maybe you know a very
special trip to say niagara falls
or a landmark location like that during
the blockbuster era of the mid-90s from
1995 to 1999 california accounted for
53.6 of all u.s film productions
generating 72 billion dollars for the
u.s film industry in the face of ongoing
risks high interest rates that they we
had high inflation that we had studios
wanted to guard their downside in order
to do that they looked for projects that
would be the least risky those least
risky projects oddly enough are almost
always the very largest projects so
studios end up releasing many fewer many
larger movies
movies that are brandable movies that
can be capitalized upon movies that
consist the basis for ip empires but as
the film industry was exploding so were
production costs big blockbuster movies
had no issues being made in california
but for smaller productions they had to
look elsewhere to save money
everybody wanted to be able to produce
sort of locally wherever they were and
that meant that it was much more likely
that people would want to do their
production outside los angeles countries
abroad saw the u.s film industry as an
attractive partnership to help better
offset production costs governments
worldwide gave the u.s film industry
subsidies and tax incentives to give
much needed breathing room for
production's budget for shooting in
their country
runnery productions or productions
outside of the us began cropping up more
and more in the early 2000s toronto
started regularly doubling as new york
city and los angeles as it was cheaper
shooting in toronto than it was in the
actual cities themselves it was so much
cheaper canadian wages were lower and
there was a massive 20 30 even 40 tax
credit if you were paying people the
same amount of money and at the end of
the day the government cut you a check
for 40 of what you paid them you would
be foolish not to head there at the same
time
there were
complications to shooting in some of the
very unionized very central cities to
the american film industry as runaway
productions were becoming more
ubiquitous in the late 90s and early
2000s hollywood enacted plans to get
productions back stateside
by 2004 the us film industry and the
mpaa lobbied with congress to curb
productions outside of the u.s an
addendum in the american jobs creation
act of 2004 established immediate
write-off of domestic film production
expenditures this addendum accelerated
more states establishing their tax
incentive programs by 2005 georgia
adopted the georgia entertainment
industry investment act
so in 2005 the legislators passed um one
incentive to try to get us back on the
equal playing field with canada and
other domestic states that were passing
incentives the investment act created a
10 tax credit for film and tv
productions that spent money within the
state's borders however in 2008 the act
was amended to increase the tax credit
to 20
with an additional 10 for productions
that added a now famous made in georgia
promotional logo in the credits
basically a 20 tax credit with an
additional 10 for doing something of
promotional value for the state and that
could be you know putting the peach logo
and the enroll credits above the below
the line or you you might do other
things you know make
videos promotional videos for the state
while georgia's 30 tax credit isn't out
of the ordinary it's structured in a way
that benefits productions a bit more
than states like new york new jersey and
louisiana that offer up to 35 percent
in order to get georgia's tax credit a
production must have an annual direct
spend of 500 000
meaning smaller production companies can
get the same tax credit as mass
productions as long as they directly
spend 500 thousand dollars in georgia
over 12 months well it's a 500 000 per
year spend so you can aggregate smaller
projects you may have you know a handful
of commercials that are smaller and they
can aggregate them over the course of
the filing party's fiscal year and get
to 500 000
most of the time you know it's one
feature film or one television series
and they pass that threshold on
qualified spend georgia also doesn't
have an end date to their tax credit so
theoretically these tax breaks can
continue for a long time
offering companies stability for years
to come the way they created it the
legislature passed it is there is not a
sunset on this program which you know i
think contributed to the fact that we
have this kind of infrastructure
so it's not like every two years you
have to go fight to get an incentive put
back in place
stability was key for productions to
begin moving to georgia essentially
setting up permanent routes in the state
from 2009 to 2018 georgia issued over 4
billion in tax credits to productions
and for nearly a decade the film
industry in georgia has been a massive
impact on the state's economy
that infrastructure moved here as a
result of the work that was here and the
work that was here came from
the incentive
program and with
with that amount of work not only was
the crew base but the infrastructure you
have more equipment some of the stuff
that you classically would have had to
have brought in from california or new
york now
they have equipment houses here that
have things like technic grains of all
different sizes um
you know so that one little thing just
trickles down to you know everything and
then of course all the people that moved
here needed places to live and food to
eat and band-aids to buy
from 2012 to 2021 the direct spending
from film and television productions has
only benefited georgia's bottom line
in fiscal year 2012 an estimated 175
productions directly spent
879.8 million dollars within georgia
generating an overall economic impact of
3.1 billion dollars for the state direct
spending and the resulting economic
impact exploded in the fiscal year of
2018.
in that year an estimated 455
productions directly spent 2.7 billion
dollars within georgia
generating an overall economic impact of
9.5 billion dollars in fiscal year 2019
while the number of productions dropped
from 455 to 399 those 399 productions
directly spent 2.9 billion dollars
generating an economic impact of 7.4
billion dollars
amid the pandemic film productions were
delayed for months initially 234
productions were slated to shoot in
georgia spending 2.2 billion dollars at
the start of 2020.
but by june 12th only 20 productions
were greenlit to begin shooting in 2021
productions ramped up again with 366
productions spending 4 billion dollars
in georgia
when the tax incentive came it really
was building on top of a very fertile
ground
for storytelling and so
atlanta as a marketplace didn't pop up
overnight right it's been kind of 25 30
years in the making
and so
what we were missing was the kind of
deep infrastructure that we now have
here at trilith and tyler perry studios
and black hall and kind of we have over
100 stages here in the atlanta
marketplace now
with the kind of expertise to operate
those stages
the depth of crews that we needed to
really support the film industry and
when those all came together including
by the way the tax incentive that helped
incentivize all that private investment
into the industry we all of a sudden
became a major competitor on the global
stage permanent solutions to filming
locations were needed to meet the demand
for the film industry and in 2014 the
second largest production studio in
north america opened just 20 minutes
from downtown atlanta
in the quaint countryside of bucolic
georgia is one of the largest production
studios in north america the studio has
been in georgia since 2014 originally
named after a majority owned by pinewood
studios in 2020 pinewood atlanta
rebranded as triloth studios during a
year-long separation process from its
former ownership establishing trilith as
a local business in georgia today
triloth is home to the biggest movies
and tv shows we were created with by the
pinewood group
this brand that has an 85 year old
history of building some of the most
amazing facilities in the world
and we're very proud of the stages and
the production facilities that uh we
created here with with pinewood
when we were founded and it was a
success right away and if you look at
the growth across you know the entire
lot our facility expansion now up to 24
stages the entire ecosystem of all of
our production support vendors we're
building our own town across the street
what triloth is today versus where we
were eight years ago is there's nothing
in comparison
trillleth is just one example in the
greater atlanta area but it's not just
home to film and tv shows it's also a
company that established retail shops
along with residential living
yeah it's kind of important if you're
going to have a town that you've got
places both to live work and play and so
we have 750 single-family homes
we have 600 multi-family so those are
apartments that are above ground floor
retail and then almost 300 000 square
feet of restaurants and retail and
spaces
that would be commercial in nature
triloth is home to 24 sound stages
nearly a thousand acres of land and home
to bleeding edge filmmaking technology
that you wouldn't normally see outside
of los angeles
we were
at a unique season
where there's been a lot of advancement
over the last two or three years
and the pace has been
exponential especially when it comes to
the use of led screens and led volumes
so
as you see in what was done in
mandalorian
is becoming more widespread
and we really see that at triloth as the
future
not in a way that eclipses
what's been done in the past but just as
an addition to that the company has seen
an influx of reductions in skilled labor
over the years now if you just take a
data from our unions the ia
and our workforce here as we've grown in
recent years we're up approaching a
hundred thousand jobs right we we
haven't quite hit that market i think
it's like 96. but these are jobs for
georgians
who have different backgrounds i mean
carpenters who were building houses are
now carpenters building sets the film
and studio industry in the state of
georgia is vital to the economics of the
state of georgia so here at toilet
studios on any given day we can see up
to 3 000 people on the lot
having the studio here in fayette county
has been one of the largest revenue
generation generators in the area
triloth tyler perry studios third rail
studios and more allow for skilled labor
to grow organically establish a pipeline
of work
and offer opportunities of entry into
the film industry
atlanta has become this global center
for production it has created a
almost five-fold in jobs new jobs for
the state in the last uh six seven eight
years
no longer do you have to be in
la or california to create your content
to shoot your movie
you can now spread out to more places
and georgia is one of those places that
people have really spread out to
and i think a lot of that has to do with
the history we have in atlanta while
production sound stages in georgia have
been booming more and more states are
planning to ramp up new tax incentives
and some just as competitive as
georgia's
georgia is at the heart of the film
industry but it's just 1 out of 31
states with production incentive
programs
some states want to draw productions
away from georgia due to ongoing
controversies from proposed bills
relating to women's reproductive rights
and to voting laws these issues are why
some productions have threatened to
boycott producing films or tv shows in
georgia productions in the state have
employed an estimated 96 000 people the
threat of leaving the states by
production companies saw both governor
kemp and former georgia representative
stacey abrams make efforts to prevent
these boycotts
since 2019 there has been a growing
movement among other states legislators
to establish a film tax law that
replicates georgia's
effectively drawing away from the
state's once 9.5 billion film industry
new jersey governor phil murphy
announced that the state would enact a
30 tax credit for film projects similar
to georgia's governor murphy added an
additional 40 percent to any brick and
mortar studio development in the state
in october of 2021 the new jersey
government confirmed a bid from netflix
to purchase a 289 acre parcel of land
that was a former military base the
streaming giant has also established
routes in new mexico and moving its
biggest shows stranger things from
georgia to abq studios located in
albuquerque's mesa del sol area
but as a result of all this work i mean
the state of georgia and particularly
atlanta metro
is oversaturated you know i mean you can
watch a movie and recognize a lot of the
locations at this point so if there was
a state around
that
got their act together you know um
they would be
you know they would be serious
contenders if they could just get close
i see uh i think the growth still
entirely hinges on a tax credit
uh the way these companies work where
they can kind of set up shop wherever
you need to give them some sort of
incentive because if georgia doesn't do
it then another state will do it which
is what has happened in the past as more
states increase the tax benefits for
film productions the competition for
becoming the next film capital for major
studios is heating up
so what happens if other states offer
better incentives well the great thing
about georgia is we have kind of the
complete package that producers need
when they come to film here
you know we've seen other markets like
michigan they did a 42 tax incentive
but they didn't have a lot of crew or
equipment so producers had to bring
those things in which lowered their
savings by bringing everything in also
you think about the the climate you're
probably not shooting outside in
february in michigan we also have
diverse locations and we have you know
mountains and coastline and big cities
and small towns again we compete
head-to-head with some place like
albuquerque but you're probably not
pulling off new york city and
albuquerque we have a very diverse look
if you didn't have the infrastructure
the commitment from private capital and
the education system the tax incentive
doesn't make it work what we have in
georgia is the combination of all that
firing literally you know at 10 the
level 10 across the board right
and there are other states that are
doing that well
there are also a number of states that
are trying to do it through just a tax
incentive and it's not working
once the capital of all film production
hollywood was the source of
entertainment within the 30-mile zone
where hopefuls worldwide would flock to
take a chance on their dreams
since 2008 georgia has created a billion
dollar industry establishing job
creation for locals in an industry that
is typically tough to break into
talented writers directors actors and
hard-working crew members are now
setting up shop down south
you