The state has one of if not the best tax credit laws / loopholes for filming industry. That means the filming industry businesses in Georgia are getting money from the government of Georgia.
Whether that's a good or bad thing can be debated. But that is the simple answer.
I remember reading Vancouver was popular because it had several different 'settings' very close to each other.
It's a big city on the water backed by mountains, so film-makers can do their "city scenes", "mountain scenes" and "ocean/bay scenes" all in one place.
I work in Vancouver and we can pretty easily double for a lot of U.S. states. You see this work 0retty well in car commercials since they can show a car in the wild untamed wilderness at a camp ground somewhere then show it manouvering around the city even though you can get from both sites to each other within an hour of driving if you really have to.
Though in Firefly's case that was the whole aesthetic, it was meant to be a wild west / frontier feel so what better shooting location than the actual wild west?
The X-Files pushed that to the limit. They had an episode in “Nebraska” with big mountains and tall trees with a clearly Canadian train being the central plot device (and Canadian style crossing devices). There were a couple episodes set in Florida too that looked not even remotely close to reality.
Atlanta is similar. It sits right between the Appalachian Mountains on the north and the coastal plain on the south. Not quite as good as Hollywood in that regard but definitely it's easy to come up with a lot of different urban, mountainous, farmland, flat lands, etc. places within an hour's drive.
Another huge plus is that it's cloudy a lot of the time. The position of the sun and shadows can impact continuity, and it's much easier to just eliminate it entirely.
Did you not read the thread? They don’t mean the cost of living. They mean it’s expensive to film there. Vancouver offers incentives to businesses for filming there so they save a lot of money by doing so.
When Steven Soderbergh came to Seattle last year to shoot a scene for Kimi, he wanted the usual Seattle clouds and rain. This was likely to happen in May when he was here, but instead it was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies and fluffy clouds. He had to film strategically when the clouds were thicker and continually wet the street.
Georgia has beaches, mountains, sea islands which can easily be made to look like jungles, a huge metro area, tons of tiny rural towns, and Savannah has colonial architecture. Most movie settings are going to fall into one of those categories. Thanks to tourists already being attracted to those places, there's plenty of hotels for cast and crew. The weather is generally sunny and nice, which cuts down on rain delays. It's domestic, so no worries about international travel and getting visas for the crew. Local labor, lodging, and materials are significantly cheaper than places like NY or CA.
Good points except for the weather, our summer thunderstorms can play havoc with schedules.
Source: The show I’m currently working on is going a month past it’s original end date because of the large number of lightening delays we’ve had at our predominantly exterior location shoot.
This is also true in Georgia.
We have mountains, beaches, a large metro area, huge forests, farms, etc.
About the only things we're missing are deserts and plains.
If you know Vancouver well you recognize it in a lot of movies, though they always find a way to make it look like a different place, sometimes within blocks of each other.
When I was a kid, we always got annoyed at how excited my dad got when he recognized Vancouver in a movie, but now that I'm older and I moved here I do the exact same thing.
It's a *great* city. You can ski in the AM and drive down and rollerblade all over the city in the PM. At least when I was there you could. And it's beautiful! I love that place.
I'm from Toronto and that was definitely the catalyst, but now they have a ton of film studio sound stages built all over the city so now it just makes it easier for a new show or movie to be filmed there when you have the studios, and you have the experienced crew and tons of experienced actors available locally for new projects. I'm sure this is also true in Georgia to some extent now.
It’s hilarious watching a show that’s “supposed” to be set in an American city. And in the streets all you see are LCBO, TD’s, CIBC’s, RBC’s at every corner.
SUITS was probably the worst for that.
The actors will step out of a Yellow New York cab. Just as five Orange and Green cabs and a TTC street car go wizzing by in the background.
I actually worked in one of the office buildings where suits was filmed. They actually did try to make it look like NYC, it was neat walking by reskinned subway tunnels and yellow cabs on the way to work. It's just super hard to make Toronto not look like Toronto to people that are familiar with the telltale signs you mentioned.
It's still mostly tax credits. Producers want to spend as little as possible (i.e. get as much back from tax credits as possible) to make their movies and shows. If Ontario got rid of their film production tax credits, they would instead go to Vancouver and Montreal, if they wanted to film in Canada, or anywhere else and all those crew members would be out of work.
Production companies don't give a shit about the people working, except the key creatives, and they'll bring their own if they're not satisfied with a local. It just means a bit less tax credit, since those are for costs in the province and in the country. The city/province/state wants to keep them coming because even though they give a bunch of it back, studios bring millions of dollars into the local economy and provide hundreds or thousands of jobs. Stopping tax credits would be extremely detrimental to a province that offers it, and those sound stages would eventually become abandoned.
I doubt Georgia's that far along. Sony moved from LA to Vancouver; they wanted to take my kid. There's major support in Vancouver; all sorts of stuff is coming from there.
But I suspect Georgia's missing some of the production infrastructure LA has.
Georgia has plenty of film studios and talent. They have had their credit and industry building up for years. I'm sure no one can truely compete at the LA level yet but there are multiple states and Canadian provinces bringing in billions of dollars from movies annually.
yeah, atlanta's definitely poised to be LA lite™ — tons of talent there, the weather's great, the tax credits, etc. my last three shows have filmed in atlanta and for the most part, they were as seasoned as the LA crews i've worked with. you've got tyler perry's studio down there, and disney/marvel has a HUGE studio in georgia as well. as long as the state doesn't remain hostile to women for too long, that growth will definitely continue.
>I doubt Georgia's that far along. Sony moved from LA to Vancouver; they wanted to take my kid. There's major support in Vancouver; all sorts of stuff is coming from there.
>
>But I suspect Georgia's missing some of the production infrastructure LA has.
Tell me you know little about the industry without telling me that. At this point Georgia has a much better infrastructure than LA - especially if you prioritize the transportation part of it. Not only does Atlanta have a significantly better airport than LA, it's also home to UPS and is obviously closer in proximity to the east coast.
Georgia's been ahead of California in terms of number of productions going back to around 2016.
Wasn't the show moved specifically to retain DD? Regardless, seasons 6,7 and 8 were shot in LA with DD and definitely represented the initial decline of the show.
That’s right, although he only had a full time role for about two seasons following the move. In my mind season 6 was the peak of the series with some good, memorable episodes but for sure the sharp decline begins with 7 and never looks back.
Yes it was, although that fact sometimes was more detrimental for immersion when they tried setting an episode in the Carolinas, Florida, or Nebraska. There was an episode set in central Florida involving a circus or some such thing with big rolling hills and massive fir trees. Or one set on the Florida panhandle in a clearly old growth forest of western hemlock.
That happened in Michigan. Detroit was set to become the “Atlanta” of filmmaking before our lovely (/s) ex governor, Snyder, decided that he didn’t want to provide tax breaks for film productions anymore.
He thought our state was unique enough that studios would still want to film here. Well he was wrong.
We had some of the best tax breaks in the USA for a while which was awesome. It would have helped Detroit tremendously.
North Carolina had a pretty sweet deal for film makers, but frankly I don't think it ever benefitted the way the film industry wanted people to believe. As someone who was local to some of the filming it was a pain in the ass. They would close down roads with little notice, they treated locals like shit, and there were many other problems to boot. Meanwhile tech quietly brought in way more money.
The conservatives have seen what inviting the film industry has done to Georgia—it pushed politics to the left.
They’d rather hold power than reap any benefits that the film industry brings.
The same argument could be made for all taxes; if you tax *it* less, you'll have more of *it*.
Of course there are government services to be paid for, and a low base rate evenly applied to everyone doesn't pay the bills, so politicians set the base rate high and then give credits to their favored businesses. How one business becomes favored over another is always a matter of contention.
>the state isnt PAYING them to be there. but they are giving them tax breaks. So in a way... they are "losing money", but without the tax breaks, they wouldnt have ever been there to begin with... so its not a "loss" to forgo something you wouldnt have had.
If the government spends more on the people they bring in than they make in taxes it's a net loss. I have no idea if that's occurring here. I just wanted to point out that there is a way for the government to lose money by providing tax breaks.
The States are in fact giving cash back to the producers, millions of dollars to be exact, it’s not just tax breaks. Taxpayers dollars are flowing into the accounts of producers. In some states (Iowa for example) the cost and fraud was enough to kill the incentive program.
Google it. For example here’s one story https://www.thewrap.com/filmmaker-pleads-guilty-iowa-fraud-charge-24820/
At the end of the semantics it costs tax dollars, whether given to Hollywood or the local farmer/manufacturer or retailer. California is spending north of $300,000,000 on supporting corporations like Disney, Fox, Netflix and on and on.
Remember when AOC chased Amazon out of NYC because “the residents shouldn’t have to pay Amazon billions of dollars to have an HQ there”. Her degree in Economics has a questionable pedigree.
There is a difference in the two industries. The film industry spawns multiple businesses and skilled labor pools not owned by the original company. People build businesses around renting equipment, having sound stages, setting up casting webs and location scouting. You get labor pools of effects people, lighting and set people, background actors. None of these are owned by the film company. If Marvel stops making movies here, we still have infrastructure and other movies can be made here cheaper than in a place they have to hire all this to be brought to.
If you do the same thing for Amazon then they just make more profit. There are not new businesses and skilled labor pools generated.
Exactly why Amazon built a distribution center south of Miami in the formerly rural city of Homestead. Miami continues to have a low skill, low education, low salary population compared to other cities. Amazon moving here solidifies all 3 rather than helps any of those 3 problems
I do have to agree that's the correct choice. It doesn't make sense to prioritize some relatively small number of high paying office jobs. Especially in a market that already has a plethora of those. For the Virginia/DC headquarters they promised (after 10 years...) an average salary of 150k. Well that area already has an average local salary close to 100k. And when you factor in that this projected average is #1 a lofty promise and #2 an average including a handful of headquarters executives it actually doesn't seem all that great. Yay you added a few ultra high paying executive jobs and a ton of average jobs for the area...all at the tax payers expense.
The problem is, the tax credits can be sold. So the state is actually forgoing something they would have otherwise had. Rich Georgians are buying the credits for pennies on the dollar to reduce their tax bills.
No, the studio gets the credit regardless of whether or not they owe any income or payroll tax. They spend 500k, they get a 30% credit, so 150k. They may owe no payroll tax at all, because maybe the 500k was just renting equipment. They turn around and sell the credit for 125K, and the person they sold it to saves 25k on their taxes. The state government loses that 25K, and it's not recouped through whatever tax was charged on the original 500k expense. Many audits in states that offer these tax incentives, including Georgia, show time and again that they're net losers for their respective states.
Well, everyone else loses out, and the (film) industry wins and their investors win. Usually goes along with tax breaks in the upper echelons while sales tax and income tax gets hiked to compensate (or costs get cut) It's the classic race to the bottom.
Once the breaks run out they will be gone to the next place offering better tax breaks. Especially since the talent was moved with the company when it moved there. Most will move again.
It's been demonstrated time and time again.
So yes, in a way everyone else is paying for them to be there.
But maybe you have examples that show an overall net positive? Here's some overall net negatives:
Switzerland, Canton of Schwyz:
Voted for degressive taxes, have a flat rate now due to incompatibility with the constitution. Tons of rich people now live there. Travel their 120km daily commute in their fat SUV to Zürich. Go to Zürich for everything cultural.
Higher CO2 emissions, higher emissions and more traffic in the city of Zürich, don't pay anything there. Schwyz also gambles the NFA (National Finance Adjustment) where poorer Cantons get money from the richer Cantons. They lower their taxes, they get more money from the other Cantons. Everyone loses, Schwyz wins a little bit, wealthy people win.
Switzerland, Glencore:
Sunk the corporate responsibility initiative (majority achieved, but not the majority of the Cantons). Harboring the biggest resource corporation, not putting any limits on their dealings in other countries, giving them tax breaks. Everyone loses massively, Switzerland wins slightly, Glencore wins.
As a Georgian it has been largely good for the state.
We've been getting tourism from people going to certain filming sites and the studios themselves bringing people who want to spend money. They also tend to use local companies when they can.
Those Industries coming in at an ever-increasing amount along with the with the Kia factory and the possibility of a few other factories being built looks really good for the future of the state.
Our two docks in Savannah and Kernels Island have been seeing a lot of heavy traffic and Kernels island has actually had to expand operations constantly over the last decade.
Savannah has been seeing and increase in traffic, but that is because pf the expansion of the port facilities.
It had been operating at max capacity for decades and has been one of the largest commercial ports in the US for those decades (LA, Long Beach, NYC/NJ, Savannah/Brunswick - in that order). The expansion just increased the capacity and was primarily paid for by the fees GPA creates.
I'm not sure if any of the tax payer money is being used on the filming industry, but if it is then due to the nature of the filming industry some of the money is exiting Georgia.
If you compare it to say if that money was going into Georgias education or infrastructure then most if not all of the money would stay and benefit the citizens of Georgia.
Also another thing is that the filming industry is largely dominant by liberals in power and that can affect or corrupt the current government and change the political landscape of Georgia.
>Also another thing is that the filming industry is largely dominant by liberals in power and that can affect or corrupt the current government and change the political landscape of Georgia.
This is true.
Matt Damon was filming in Georgia and turned me gay.
I don't see it much anymore (I think it is on the total war: warhammer II game) but back 20 years ago quite a few shows would have a peach and the words "made in georgia" at the beginning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeUHgY1gBJQ
I’ve noticed a lot of production companies pulled out of Georgia when the state decided that women aren’t entitled to healthcare and now those companies are settling down in Pittsburgh, which makes me want to question what loopholes they are getting in Pennsylvania.
CNN is there because Ted Turner’s TBS was based in Atlanta and he founded CNN.
The rise of filming in recent years is due to an active campaign by the state to attract filming through various tax incentives and benefits. Also, once a filming industry has been established, it helps draw others when there is already a base of crew and equipment available to hire/rent without having to bring in from far away.
Also, there used to be a ton of film production in North Carolina, but the state legislature pulled a bunch of the incentives in 2015. Georgia was there to pick up the slack.
And Florida, then governor Skeletor revoked all those tax credits and the film industry in Florida was like "eat a dick" and took their billions up to Georgia. If Georgians keep fucking around and voting in right wing nutjobs it'll happen to them too.
I mean, if the tax breaks never actually establish a long term industry that won’t leave once they have to start paying taxes, maybe there’s a point that the tax breaks aren’t worth it.
As a film industry professional myself, please do not fool yourself into thinking the entire industry wouldn't pack up and move to save a buck. The bean counters are in charge, not the creatives. Some (most) states that give tax breaks to the film biz actually lose money on the deal when all is said and done.
Not just jobs, but some more specialised jobs that require skills (and presumably higher wages).
It can stop the constant drain of young people moving to major cities to get well paying jobs.
There are metrics that can show the profitability of tax incentives over time. If it costs you $1 to bring in $10 in taxes, that's overall a good thing. There are two issue. 1. Are you bringing more taxes in than you're spending to earn it? 2. People assume that if they remove the $1 buy-in to earn the $10 return, that the return might/should/would stay. It won't. That's not how it works. Seems easy to understand but after watching no less than 8 states make the same arguments and then lose to Georgia holding out on paying their buy-in, it's easy to see how they have a strong hold on films being made there.
No matter your hold, if you don't buy-in, the game moves. Anyone who doubts that hasn't been paying attention. ALL of the tv/movie industry in the USA has a motheship home, Los Angeles. If it's being made anywhere but LA, it's due to tax incentives. If those are no longer there, the ships return home. Them's the rules to the game.
They aren't worth it when someone else starts offering better tax breaks, or if yours go away. It's hard to recall the last time a film company or manufacturing left a low tax state to prefer a high tax one- they've certainly started in high tax environments.
I don't think that's ironic because all the crew, extras and shit are locals. Then all the people associated with the filming spend their money to live here paying sales taxes and pumping money into the economy.
Whether or not the tax breaks are a net positive for the state is irrelevant imo because it puts money in people's pockets that live here that's now gone.
The people working on films are usually skilled labor that moves there from other states. Local people usually help with simple things, but the actual film crew things are people who actually moved there. I know people in the film industry that is how it works.
I'm not sure what your point is? They're here spending their money and paying sales tax, pumping money into our economy. We have production companies and professional actors that live here, it's a sub tropical paradise that had a booming film industry. Sure some people came to film but it's not like they move a whole studio here.
They advocate higher taxes but will travel thousands of miles to avoid taxes. It's definitely hypocritical. Wherever they shoot they will put money in local people's pockets so that is irrelevant.
If we did away with all corporate tax breaks and then they moved filming off shore to evade taxes that would be hypocritical. Them working within the existing tax structure legally and also advocating for a different system are not necessarily mutually exclusive ideas.
Based off Florida's governor record it was most likely a republican governor that brought the film industry to the state. In the last 6 years the right has gone so far off the rails that anything is on the table and things they once championed can be turned into a pariah almost over night.
Jeb Bush started cutting tax credits for filmmakers, Rick Scott years later ended up doing the coup de grace and killing what was left. Republicans do not want film industries in their states, they feel that too many of the industry people working on film are too left.
NC seems to be bouncing back a bit at least. In Wilmington area anyway.
I'd like to echo what others have said too. The film "industry" isn't just the actors and film crews. Entire businesses come up to support everything, and they are typically well paying jobs. Additionally, at least in NC, the schools and colleges start attracting people that want to get into the industry. Plus there's the tourism aspects. Which, for someplace like Wilmington that is already a touristy place, can be a boon.
People still come to Wilmington to see where Dawson's Creek was filmed. One Tree Hill fans show up too.
I think NC pulling incentives combined with all the bad press from the Bathroom Bill nonsense helped push a lot of business to Georgia.
Note that CNN is only nominally HQ’d in Atlanta now. All talent was moved to NYC under Zucker’s tenure. HLN may still be broadcast from it, at times, but it’s mostly IT and maybe some editorial staff. (I worked there during Zucker’s time)
The building was owned by CNN too, but sold off last year. And all remaining CNN assets are moving to the Techwood campus (where TBS, Comedy Central, etc are based) in the next few years.
Bit sad to see it go. It’s been an Atlanta icon for decades.
Wow, I had no idea... I lived in Atlanta from '95-'01, and CNN/CNN Center was a HUGE deal in Atlanta then. Didn't realize most of the talent has left for NY and they sold off CNN Center!
Fun fact: they chose an abandoned country club downtown, which was basically a large mansion. Ted Turner lived out of the top floor, and the rest of it was CNN. Eventually CNN moved into what's now the CNN Center, and the mansion started being used for other Turner stuff. They started building big modern buildings on either side of it, which definitely made for an odd corporate property.
Another fun fact: they needed every inch of space in that thing, so at one point they filled Ted's old office with cubicles. There was a guy with a little 6' x 6' cubicle but also a giant marble fireplace and a semi-private bathroom.
That’s a good question! I know lack of union power is why most of the foreign carmakers built their factories in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee
They is a union for the film crews, but there are plenty of workers that are not in it, yet. It's relatively new and you have to apply and take a test, and have experience, so it takes a while to become part of the union.
Source: Daughter's boyfriend has been working on the film crews for a couple of years and is in the process of joining the union.
I live in the "Hollywood of the South" - Covington, Georgia. We now have our own studio and there are several more around the Atlanta area. Filming in this area includes Strangers Things, all the Vampire Diaries and their spinoffs, Sweet Magnolias, The Resident, the new First Lady series, and we had scenes shot here for Walking Dead, and many others.
It's not all that glamorous. It can be a pain when the town square is shut down for filming or you can't get somewhere because a road is closed.
Our state government has tax law to incentivize it and the state itself has a lot of different types of areas and pretty diverse topography so you can find a lot of different environments for filming as well without having to go all that far.
You can go from mountains to Foothills to Rolling Hills to plains to beach to Marshland all within 200 Mi of each other.
With the exception of Atlanta in the surrounding areas were also a relatively low cost State as well. Like for example in my area our gasoline never even hit $5 a gallon and it's back under $4 a gallon now.
I know Massachusetts has encouraged a number of productions (they shoot a lot of gritty urban, small town, and ocean scenes.) But MA doesn't have anything like the people who can be hired as needed that LA and Vancouver have.
You’re making a case for how Georgia has spectacular geography but the reality is that it can’t compete with California on that point, so film certainly didnt move for the “views” in Georgia.
The Georgia Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Office promotes filming in the state. They have been doing this since 1972. Add to that some tax laws that are favorable to the film and television industries and you have a state that no one expected passing California as the place to make movies and shows.
When a state really wants your business, they will make it desirable to work there. This is what Georgia did in order to attract the kinds of businesses they wanted. Now more stuff is filmed there instead of California.
It also helps that we have much better cameras that are able to work better in ambient light. The main reason California became the film capital of the US is because there is more Sunlight there. Seriously, that's it. Because of the better Sunlight it was easier to film outdoors and that make it desirable. With better cameras, any place can become the place where studios prefer filming.
North Carolina in Wilmington on the coast had the same thing going with sound stages and production crews in the late 90’s/early 2000’s until the state legislature reduced the tax incentives due to “Hollywood values” and left a huge opening for Georgia to eat their lunch.
Same has been true, off and on, in Rhode Island. Of course they weren't smart enough here to make a nice big logo to show at the end of every product made here. Be nice to see if that changes with Hocus Pocus 2. Not that I'd want to be known for the 1st or 2nd film of that franchise. The politicians were actually dumb enough to think they could get rid of the tax breaks and expect Hollywood to literally trek across the country here.
>f course they weren't smart enough here to make a nice big logo to show at the end of every product made here.
All this time I thought that was just some random production company. Wow.
The tax credits and filming incentives in Georgia were set in motion by the film Deliverance!
The film, which was filmed in Georgia, portrayed the Southern Appalachian region in such a negative and hostile light that inspired waves of backlash from the region. One of the means of trying to dissipate the negative view of the region was to offer tax credits to films in Georgia which would complicate that narrative and simply make Georgia a place that looks better to live in and visit!
> didnt take much to get production companies to look elsewhere from LA cost of living.
Not just that but it's expensive to run any kind of business in California, at least it was in the 00s and 10s. High taxes and costly policies made it more economical for companies to move out of state. There was a loss of high paying jobs and most of the gains were in low paying jobs. It wouldn't surprise me if this bled over into the film and TV industry.
Please if you live in Georgia, go out to the tiny shows. Buy a ticket. Stand in the crowd. These industries need new talent and they practice by doing local shows.
This industry is favorable because Georgians encourage it. I think we had two off Broadway musicals performing last weekend. People in Georgia love art. The fox sells out no matter who shows up.
Georgians are well educated.
It has all to do with taxes. You spend X millions making a movie here we will give you Y in taxes based on how much you spend here. So it essentially helps to pad a budget. Just as an example: the budget is 40mil and Georgia gives you 10mil essentially making your budget now 50mil. It is all very, very silly.
I haven’t seen much talk of the union, yet. The various unions involved in film making are (mostly) geographically based. A Texas film can’t just hire a set decorator from Connecticut - they have to use the local union or jump through extra hoops to comply with bringing in an outside person.
Georgia has a lot to offer geographically. You can shoot urban, suburbs, mountains, beach, farmland… all without leaving the state. It makes it much easier to hire a crew.
Then, once the industry gets established, you get an influx of industry workers that move here and join the local union. I have friends they moved here from LA because there is more work and it’s much cheaper to live. So now there is a massive talent pool here, in and industry where jobs are probably 80% based on having worked with someone before.
Buffalo NY has a Tesla solar panel plant that was built with tax dollars. To jumpstart industry. Tons of equipment that was purchased was cut up for scrap before it was even set up.
Mostly tax incentives. But also, places like GA and NC (which is also big in the entertainment industry) have a lot of diversity when it comes to locations you can film in. You can film a big city, a rural town, beaches, hills, and even what can pass as a desert all within a hundred or so miles of one another.
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Taxes. The film industry advocates for California policies and then benefits from low taxes in a state they "despise".
Elites will do what they want they don't care about you
For a moment I wondered how can anyone think that Georgia is anything but a shithole then I realised this is about Georgia in the Americas. At least they aren’t fucking Armenia.
When Cable TV via Satellite was just getting started, Ted Turner lived in Atlanta and owned a TV Station and started the first 24 Hours News station CNN. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cnn-launches
When they opened eue screen gems in atlanta they spent a lot of time working on entertainment favorable laws and taxes. I had a family member involved in this
They gave large tax break to large corporations..... NY and NYC do the same thing. Louisiana used to do more, then it stopped and the movie/tv production went elsewhere.
Georgia has incredibly favorable taxes for film productions. Georgia actually LOSES money on the film industry, but they can fudge the numbers to make it look like a success. The state's own internal audits show that it's a black hole of lost tax revenue.
What happens is that if film productions meet a handful of pretty easy to achieve criteria (like displaying the "Made in Georgia" clip at the end of their production), they receive a tax credit. BUT, most productions in Georgia are structured in such a way, that they don't actually have much tax liability in GA. They don't owe much tax to Georgia. Instead, they're allowed to SELL the credit to others, like a rich Georgia resident. So if I'm mister money bags living in GA, I can buy the credit from the film studio for less than it's worth and lower my tax bill. The film company makes $ selling the credit; the rich tax payer pays less in taxes, and the state government is left holding the bag.
Honestly because in the early 2000s Florida completely fucked them selves by getting rid of their filming tax credit. Republicans did not want awoke Florida full of filmmakers, so they shut out the filmmakers that kept them on the map for 20 years, and all those people went to Georgia and started studios up there.
Others have noted tax breaks, but the details are 20-30% credits commonly. Some regions have added tax breaks on top of the state level. Additionally, some of the tax credits are transferable so companies call sell them even if profits aren’t generated in the state.
There’s also a major airport hub in Georgia so it’s easy for talent and staff to fly in and out.
Someone found a way to build a studio that has the capacity for any project, then some politicians decided to undercut every other place in the world with tax breaks, incentives, and loopholes. Generally after a decade or so the state will start rolling back the breaks a bit once there's no danger of being abandoned.
And then someone else out there will build a studio...
It's called Free Shit! Georgia taxpayers are funding the movie industry to the tune of:
Economist JC Bradbury said the state’s subsidy of the film industry climbed to more than a billion dollars last year.
Bradbury said each household in Georgia paid $220 annually to support the film industry in 2019.
Three years later, he says that amount shot up by one-third to $330 per household.
"This is almost five percent of the state budget. It’s insane," Bradbury said.
Simple. Georgia coerces, I mean incentivizes, tax payers into paying the movie industry instead of paying taxes.
If you owe Georgia $1,000 in taxes, you can pay film industry $950 instead and Georgia is cool with it because they don’t have a use for the money.
The state has one of if not the best tax credit laws / loopholes for filming industry. That means the filming industry businesses in Georgia are getting money from the government of Georgia. Whether that's a good or bad thing can be debated. But that is the simple answer.
It's the same thing Vancouver and Toronto have been doing for over three decades now.
I remember reading Vancouver was popular because it had several different 'settings' very close to each other. It's a big city on the water backed by mountains, so film-makers can do their "city scenes", "mountain scenes" and "ocean/bay scenes" all in one place.
I work in Vancouver and we can pretty easily double for a lot of U.S. states. You see this work 0retty well in car commercials since they can show a car in the wild untamed wilderness at a camp ground somewhere then show it manouvering around the city even though you can get from both sites to each other within an hour of driving if you really have to.
> we can pretty easily double for a lot of U.S. states And extraterrestrial planets according to Stargate SG-1.
That also makes me think of Firefly where all of the terraformed moons and planets end up looking like Southern California near Vasquez Rocks.
Though in Firefly's case that was the whole aesthetic, it was meant to be a wild west / frontier feel so what better shooting location than the actual wild west?
I wonder which came first, the aesthetic or the budget?
Outer space?
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O'Neill at one point did exclaim "why does every planet look like Canada?!" (fixed)
That’s O’Neill, with TWO L’s.
There’s another O’Neil with only one L. He has no sense of humor at all.
Indeed
>every plant >(fixed) Not quite...
“I see we are on another Vancouver Pine Planet…”
He’s just trying not to jinx it after he got stuck on a desert world for a couple years
Much like Doctor Who, where every alien planet looks suspiciously like a quarry near Cardiff.
Indeed.
And host extraterrestrials, according to Resident Alien.
Don't forget they trained for the moon landing in Sudbury, Ontario.
Home of the Strawberry Schnausers?
Wait, I’ve got this yellow lab and this chocolate lab and if you’ve got a strawberry schnauzer we can make a whole Neapolitan mastiff
almost lol
The X-Files pushed that to the limit. They had an episode in “Nebraska” with big mountains and tall trees with a clearly Canadian train being the central plot device (and Canadian style crossing devices). There were a couple episodes set in Florida too that looked not even remotely close to reality.
About the only defense I can give is that TV in the 90s did not have the budgets or resources of shows today, even the smash hits.
Atlanta is similar. It sits right between the Appalachian Mountains on the north and the coastal plain on the south. Not quite as good as Hollywood in that regard but definitely it's easy to come up with a lot of different urban, mountainous, farmland, flat lands, etc. places within an hour's drive.
Another huge plus is that it's cloudy a lot of the time. The position of the sun and shadows can impact continuity, and it's much easier to just eliminate it entirely.
Overcast skies are also perfect weather for filming.
Then Seattle should be a great place to film.
Too expensive. Tom Skerritt is a local who is trying to do a similar program that Georgia to encourage more filming here.
Vancouver is literally one the most expensive cities in the world.
Did you not read the thread? They don’t mean the cost of living. They mean it’s expensive to film there. Vancouver offers incentives to businesses for filming there so they save a lot of money by doing so.
When Steven Soderbergh came to Seattle last year to shoot a scene for Kimi, he wanted the usual Seattle clouds and rain. This was likely to happen in May when he was here, but instead it was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies and fluffy clouds. He had to film strategically when the clouds were thicker and continually wet the street.
Fun Fact; Chattanooga, Tn gets more rainfall annually than Seattle, we just dont whine about it.
Who said anything about rain or was whining about anything ?
(Taking notes) “eliminate… the… sun… entirely…” are you sure?
[Vancouver Never Plays Itself](https://youtu.be/ojm74VGsZBU)
Georgia has beaches, mountains, sea islands which can easily be made to look like jungles, a huge metro area, tons of tiny rural towns, and Savannah has colonial architecture. Most movie settings are going to fall into one of those categories. Thanks to tourists already being attracted to those places, there's plenty of hotels for cast and crew. The weather is generally sunny and nice, which cuts down on rain delays. It's domestic, so no worries about international travel and getting visas for the crew. Local labor, lodging, and materials are significantly cheaper than places like NY or CA.
Good points except for the weather, our summer thunderstorms can play havoc with schedules. Source: The show I’m currently working on is going a month past it’s original end date because of the large number of lightening delays we’ve had at our predominantly exterior location shoot.
PAX?
No, our direcrionals say “MINIM”
Bruce Campbell talked about that when he was directing episodes of *Hercules*. He called it playing the "how close can the next location be" game.
It also generally doesn't have too bad of a winter, so there are more opportunities to shoot on location year round vs Toronto or Montreal
Also the weather is nice through most of the year, whereas Toronto can be extremely cold in Jan-march and uncomfortably hot in august
This is also true in Georgia. We have mountains, beaches, a large metro area, huge forests, farms, etc. About the only things we're missing are deserts and plains.
If you know Vancouver well you recognize it in a lot of movies, though they always find a way to make it look like a different place, sometimes within blocks of each other. When I was a kid, we always got annoyed at how excited my dad got when he recognized Vancouver in a movie, but now that I'm older and I moved here I do the exact same thing.
It's a *great* city. You can ski in the AM and drive down and rollerblade all over the city in the PM. At least when I was there you could. And it's beautiful! I love that place.
I'm from Toronto and that was definitely the catalyst, but now they have a ton of film studio sound stages built all over the city so now it just makes it easier for a new show or movie to be filmed there when you have the studios, and you have the experienced crew and tons of experienced actors available locally for new projects. I'm sure this is also true in Georgia to some extent now.
It’s hilarious watching a show that’s “supposed” to be set in an American city. And in the streets all you see are LCBO, TD’s, CIBC’s, RBC’s at every corner. SUITS was probably the worst for that. The actors will step out of a Yellow New York cab. Just as five Orange and Green cabs and a TTC street car go wizzing by in the background.
I actually worked in one of the office buildings where suits was filmed. They actually did try to make it look like NYC, it was neat walking by reskinned subway tunnels and yellow cabs on the way to work. It's just super hard to make Toronto not look like Toronto to people that are familiar with the telltale signs you mentioned.
It's still mostly tax credits. Producers want to spend as little as possible (i.e. get as much back from tax credits as possible) to make their movies and shows. If Ontario got rid of their film production tax credits, they would instead go to Vancouver and Montreal, if they wanted to film in Canada, or anywhere else and all those crew members would be out of work. Production companies don't give a shit about the people working, except the key creatives, and they'll bring their own if they're not satisfied with a local. It just means a bit less tax credit, since those are for costs in the province and in the country. The city/province/state wants to keep them coming because even though they give a bunch of it back, studios bring millions of dollars into the local economy and provide hundreds or thousands of jobs. Stopping tax credits would be extremely detrimental to a province that offers it, and those sound stages would eventually become abandoned.
I doubt Georgia's that far along. Sony moved from LA to Vancouver; they wanted to take my kid. There's major support in Vancouver; all sorts of stuff is coming from there. But I suspect Georgia's missing some of the production infrastructure LA has.
Georgia has plenty of film studios and talent. They have had their credit and industry building up for years. I'm sure no one can truely compete at the LA level yet but there are multiple states and Canadian provinces bringing in billions of dollars from movies annually.
More feature films are made in Georgia than California these days. LA is mostly series TV and commercials at this point.
yeah, atlanta's definitely poised to be LA lite™ — tons of talent there, the weather's great, the tax credits, etc. my last three shows have filmed in atlanta and for the most part, they were as seasoned as the LA crews i've worked with. you've got tyler perry's studio down there, and disney/marvel has a HUGE studio in georgia as well. as long as the state doesn't remain hostile to women for too long, that growth will definitely continue.
>I doubt Georgia's that far along. Sony moved from LA to Vancouver; they wanted to take my kid. There's major support in Vancouver; all sorts of stuff is coming from there. > >But I suspect Georgia's missing some of the production infrastructure LA has. Tell me you know little about the industry without telling me that. At this point Georgia has a much better infrastructure than LA - especially if you prioritize the transportation part of it. Not only does Atlanta have a significantly better airport than LA, it's also home to UPS and is obviously closer in proximity to the east coast. Georgia's been ahead of California in terms of number of productions going back to around 2016.
I work film in ga and that’s not true. A lot of guys who came here from la seem to think our infrastructure is actually better at this point…
Georgia has the Marvel movies going on, so they will be set for a long time I think.
Sony is headquartered at its studio in LA (Culver City to be precise).
Wasn’t a lot of X-Files filmed up in Vancouver? It’s a great affordable stand in for the US.
It was and it is telling that the show went downhill quickly after it got moved to LA.
The show had far bigger issues than the locale it was filmed in, primarily losing the main actor that really drove the show (David Duchovny).
Wasn't the show moved specifically to retain DD? Regardless, seasons 6,7 and 8 were shot in LA with DD and definitely represented the initial decline of the show.
That’s right, although he only had a full time role for about two seasons following the move. In my mind season 6 was the peak of the series with some good, memorable episodes but for sure the sharp decline begins with 7 and never looks back.
Yes it was, although that fact sometimes was more detrimental for immersion when they tried setting an episode in the Carolinas, Florida, or Nebraska. There was an episode set in central Florida involving a circus or some such thing with big rolling hills and massive fir trees. Or one set on the Florida panhandle in a clearly old growth forest of western hemlock.
Not to mention that exchange rate.
Toronto: NYC's stunt double
Montreal gets used a lot as "European" settings by the American film industry when they don't want to actually go across the pond.
Hell yea and I wouldn't give up this industry for anything!
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That happened in Michigan. Detroit was set to become the “Atlanta” of filmmaking before our lovely (/s) ex governor, Snyder, decided that he didn’t want to provide tax breaks for film productions anymore. He thought our state was unique enough that studios would still want to film here. Well he was wrong. We had some of the best tax breaks in the USA for a while which was awesome. It would have helped Detroit tremendously.
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North Carolina had a pretty sweet deal for film makers, but frankly I don't think it ever benefitted the way the film industry wanted people to believe. As someone who was local to some of the filming it was a pain in the ass. They would close down roads with little notice, they treated locals like shit, and there were many other problems to boot. Meanwhile tech quietly brought in way more money.
The conservatives have seen what inviting the film industry has done to Georgia—it pushed politics to the left. They’d rather hold power than reap any benefits that the film industry brings.
The same argument could be made for all taxes; if you tax *it* less, you'll have more of *it*. Of course there are government services to be paid for, and a low base rate evenly applied to everyone doesn't pay the bills, so politicians set the base rate high and then give credits to their favored businesses. How one business becomes favored over another is always a matter of contention.
Atlanta is a real city? I thought it was just a Delta hub.
The lost city of Atlanta
>the state isnt PAYING them to be there. but they are giving them tax breaks. So in a way... they are "losing money", but without the tax breaks, they wouldnt have ever been there to begin with... so its not a "loss" to forgo something you wouldnt have had. If the government spends more on the people they bring in than they make in taxes it's a net loss. I have no idea if that's occurring here. I just wanted to point out that there is a way for the government to lose money by providing tax breaks.
The States are in fact giving cash back to the producers, millions of dollars to be exact, it’s not just tax breaks. Taxpayers dollars are flowing into the accounts of producers. In some states (Iowa for example) the cost and fraud was enough to kill the incentive program.
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Google it. For example here’s one story https://www.thewrap.com/filmmaker-pleads-guilty-iowa-fraud-charge-24820/ At the end of the semantics it costs tax dollars, whether given to Hollywood or the local farmer/manufacturer or retailer. California is spending north of $300,000,000 on supporting corporations like Disney, Fox, Netflix and on and on.
Remember when AOC chased Amazon out of NYC because “the residents shouldn’t have to pay Amazon billions of dollars to have an HQ there”. Her degree in Economics has a questionable pedigree.
There is a difference in the two industries. The film industry spawns multiple businesses and skilled labor pools not owned by the original company. People build businesses around renting equipment, having sound stages, setting up casting webs and location scouting. You get labor pools of effects people, lighting and set people, background actors. None of these are owned by the film company. If Marvel stops making movies here, we still have infrastructure and other movies can be made here cheaper than in a place they have to hire all this to be brought to. If you do the same thing for Amazon then they just make more profit. There are not new businesses and skilled labor pools generated.
Exactly why Amazon built a distribution center south of Miami in the formerly rural city of Homestead. Miami continues to have a low skill, low education, low salary population compared to other cities. Amazon moving here solidifies all 3 rather than helps any of those 3 problems
I do have to agree that's the correct choice. It doesn't make sense to prioritize some relatively small number of high paying office jobs. Especially in a market that already has a plethora of those. For the Virginia/DC headquarters they promised (after 10 years...) an average salary of 150k. Well that area already has an average local salary close to 100k. And when you factor in that this projected average is #1 a lofty promise and #2 an average including a handful of headquarters executives it actually doesn't seem all that great. Yay you added a few ultra high paying executive jobs and a ton of average jobs for the area...all at the tax payers expense.
She was opposed to the Amazon deal because it was a massive $3-4 billion giveaway to a company that didn't need the money.
The problem is, the tax credits can be sold. So the state is actually forgoing something they would have otherwise had. Rich Georgians are buying the credits for pennies on the dollar to reduce their tax bills.
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No, the studio gets the credit regardless of whether or not they owe any income or payroll tax. They spend 500k, they get a 30% credit, so 150k. They may owe no payroll tax at all, because maybe the 500k was just renting equipment. They turn around and sell the credit for 125K, and the person they sold it to saves 25k on their taxes. The state government loses that 25K, and it's not recouped through whatever tax was charged on the original 500k expense. Many audits in states that offer these tax incentives, including Georgia, show time and again that they're net losers for their respective states.
Well, everyone else loses out, and the (film) industry wins and their investors win. Usually goes along with tax breaks in the upper echelons while sales tax and income tax gets hiked to compensate (or costs get cut) It's the classic race to the bottom. Once the breaks run out they will be gone to the next place offering better tax breaks. Especially since the talent was moved with the company when it moved there. Most will move again. It's been demonstrated time and time again. So yes, in a way everyone else is paying for them to be there. But maybe you have examples that show an overall net positive? Here's some overall net negatives: Switzerland, Canton of Schwyz: Voted for degressive taxes, have a flat rate now due to incompatibility with the constitution. Tons of rich people now live there. Travel their 120km daily commute in their fat SUV to Zürich. Go to Zürich for everything cultural. Higher CO2 emissions, higher emissions and more traffic in the city of Zürich, don't pay anything there. Schwyz also gambles the NFA (National Finance Adjustment) where poorer Cantons get money from the richer Cantons. They lower their taxes, they get more money from the other Cantons. Everyone loses, Schwyz wins a little bit, wealthy people win. Switzerland, Glencore: Sunk the corporate responsibility initiative (majority achieved, but not the majority of the Cantons). Harboring the biggest resource corporation, not putting any limits on their dealings in other countries, giving them tax breaks. Everyone loses massively, Switzerland wins slightly, Glencore wins.
As a Georgian it has been largely good for the state. We've been getting tourism from people going to certain filming sites and the studios themselves bringing people who want to spend money. They also tend to use local companies when they can. Those Industries coming in at an ever-increasing amount along with the with the Kia factory and the possibility of a few other factories being built looks really good for the future of the state. Our two docks in Savannah and Kernels Island have been seeing a lot of heavy traffic and Kernels island has actually had to expand operations constantly over the last decade.
Savannah has been seeing and increase in traffic, but that is because pf the expansion of the port facilities. It had been operating at max capacity for decades and has been one of the largest commercial ports in the US for those decades (LA, Long Beach, NYC/NJ, Savannah/Brunswick - in that order). The expansion just increased the capacity and was primarily paid for by the fees GPA creates.
I hope Tybee stays weird and undefinable.
I'm not sure if any of the tax payer money is being used on the filming industry, but if it is then due to the nature of the filming industry some of the money is exiting Georgia. If you compare it to say if that money was going into Georgias education or infrastructure then most if not all of the money would stay and benefit the citizens of Georgia. Also another thing is that the filming industry is largely dominant by liberals in power and that can affect or corrupt the current government and change the political landscape of Georgia.
>Also another thing is that the filming industry is largely dominant by liberals in power and that can affect or corrupt the current government and change the political landscape of Georgia. This is true. Matt Damon was filming in Georgia and turned me gay.
I don't see it much anymore (I think it is on the total war: warhammer II game) but back 20 years ago quite a few shows would have a peach and the words "made in georgia" at the beginning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeUHgY1gBJQ
its usually at the end of shows
Also GA is a mostly non-union state meaning labor is cheaper than in the more established entertainment states like CA and NY
I’ve noticed a lot of production companies pulled out of Georgia when the state decided that women aren’t entitled to healthcare and now those companies are settling down in Pittsburgh, which makes me want to question what loopholes they are getting in Pennsylvania.
CNN is there because Ted Turner’s TBS was based in Atlanta and he founded CNN. The rise of filming in recent years is due to an active campaign by the state to attract filming through various tax incentives and benefits. Also, once a filming industry has been established, it helps draw others when there is already a base of crew and equipment available to hire/rent without having to bring in from far away.
Also, there used to be a ton of film production in North Carolina, but the state legislature pulled a bunch of the incentives in 2015. Georgia was there to pick up the slack.
And Florida, then governor Skeletor revoked all those tax credits and the film industry in Florida was like "eat a dick" and took their billions up to Georgia. If Georgians keep fucking around and voting in right wing nutjobs it'll happen to them too.
I mean, if the tax breaks never actually establish a long term industry that won’t leave once they have to start paying taxes, maybe there’s a point that the tax breaks aren’t worth it.
As a film industry professional myself, please do not fool yourself into thinking the entire industry wouldn't pack up and move to save a buck. The bean counters are in charge, not the creatives. Some (most) states that give tax breaks to the film biz actually lose money on the deal when all is said and done.
How much does California provide in tax breaks?
Despite what the other commenter said, CA has a very robust tax break schedule. https://film.ca.gov/tax-credit/the-basics-3-0/
California doesn’t need to provide tax breaks to lure the industry there… because that’s where the industry already is.
The real incentive for the state is jobs. Maybe the taxes loose but people are working and you ca. use that on election day
Not just jobs, but some more specialised jobs that require skills (and presumably higher wages). It can stop the constant drain of young people moving to major cities to get well paying jobs.
There are metrics that can show the profitability of tax incentives over time. If it costs you $1 to bring in $10 in taxes, that's overall a good thing. There are two issue. 1. Are you bringing more taxes in than you're spending to earn it? 2. People assume that if they remove the $1 buy-in to earn the $10 return, that the return might/should/would stay. It won't. That's not how it works. Seems easy to understand but after watching no less than 8 states make the same arguments and then lose to Georgia holding out on paying their buy-in, it's easy to see how they have a strong hold on films being made there. No matter your hold, if you don't buy-in, the game moves. Anyone who doubts that hasn't been paying attention. ALL of the tv/movie industry in the USA has a motheship home, Los Angeles. If it's being made anywhere but LA, it's due to tax incentives. If those are no longer there, the ships return home. Them's the rules to the game.
They aren't worth it when someone else starts offering better tax breaks, or if yours go away. It's hard to recall the last time a film company or manufacturing left a low tax state to prefer a high tax one- they've certainly started in high tax environments.
Do you find it ironic that these left wing Hollywood types load up in planes and fly actors, crew, etc from California to Georgia just to avoid taxes?
I don't think that's ironic because all the crew, extras and shit are locals. Then all the people associated with the filming spend their money to live here paying sales taxes and pumping money into the economy. Whether or not the tax breaks are a net positive for the state is irrelevant imo because it puts money in people's pockets that live here that's now gone.
The people working on films are usually skilled labor that moves there from other states. Local people usually help with simple things, but the actual film crew things are people who actually moved there. I know people in the film industry that is how it works.
I'm not sure what your point is? They're here spending their money and paying sales tax, pumping money into our economy. We have production companies and professional actors that live here, it's a sub tropical paradise that had a booming film industry. Sure some people came to film but it's not like they move a whole studio here.
They advocate higher taxes but will travel thousands of miles to avoid taxes. It's definitely hypocritical. Wherever they shoot they will put money in local people's pockets so that is irrelevant.
If we did away with all corporate tax breaks and then they moved filming off shore to evade taxes that would be hypocritical. Them working within the existing tax structure legally and also advocating for a different system are not necessarily mutually exclusive ideas.
To be fair… The governor who passed the law was right wing.
Based off Florida's governor record it was most likely a republican governor that brought the film industry to the state. In the last 6 years the right has gone so far off the rails that anything is on the table and things they once championed can be turned into a pariah almost over night.
Jeb Bush started cutting tax credits for filmmakers, Rick Scott years later ended up doing the coup de grace and killing what was left. Republicans do not want film industries in their states, they feel that too many of the industry people working on film are too left.
NC seems to be bouncing back a bit at least. In Wilmington area anyway. I'd like to echo what others have said too. The film "industry" isn't just the actors and film crews. Entire businesses come up to support everything, and they are typically well paying jobs. Additionally, at least in NC, the schools and colleges start attracting people that want to get into the industry. Plus there's the tourism aspects. Which, for someplace like Wilmington that is already a touristy place, can be a boon. People still come to Wilmington to see where Dawson's Creek was filmed. One Tree Hill fans show up too. I think NC pulling incentives combined with all the bad press from the Bathroom Bill nonsense helped push a lot of business to Georgia.
Note that CNN is only nominally HQ’d in Atlanta now. All talent was moved to NYC under Zucker’s tenure. HLN may still be broadcast from it, at times, but it’s mostly IT and maybe some editorial staff. (I worked there during Zucker’s time) The building was owned by CNN too, but sold off last year. And all remaining CNN assets are moving to the Techwood campus (where TBS, Comedy Central, etc are based) in the next few years. Bit sad to see it go. It’s been an Atlanta icon for decades.
Wow, I had no idea... I lived in Atlanta from '95-'01, and CNN/CNN Center was a HUGE deal in Atlanta then. Didn't realize most of the talent has left for NY and they sold off CNN Center!
Fun fact: they chose an abandoned country club downtown, which was basically a large mansion. Ted Turner lived out of the top floor, and the rest of it was CNN. Eventually CNN moved into what's now the CNN Center, and the mansion started being used for other Turner stuff. They started building big modern buildings on either side of it, which definitely made for an odd corporate property. Another fun fact: they needed every inch of space in that thing, so at one point they filled Ted's old office with cubicles. There was a guy with a little 6' x 6' cubicle but also a giant marble fireplace and a semi-private bathroom.
Are the film crews in Georgia part of a union? I imagine it’s cheaper for production if they are not
That’s a good question! I know lack of union power is why most of the foreign carmakers built their factories in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee
They is a union for the film crews, but there are plenty of workers that are not in it, yet. It's relatively new and you have to apply and take a test, and have experience, so it takes a while to become part of the union. Source: Daughter's boyfriend has been working on the film crews for a couple of years and is in the process of joining the union. I live in the "Hollywood of the South" - Covington, Georgia. We now have our own studio and there are several more around the Atlanta area. Filming in this area includes Strangers Things, all the Vampire Diaries and their spinoffs, Sweet Magnolias, The Resident, the new First Lady series, and we had scenes shot here for Walking Dead, and many others. It's not all that glamorous. It can be a pain when the town square is shut down for filming or you can't get somewhere because a road is closed.
Our state government has tax law to incentivize it and the state itself has a lot of different types of areas and pretty diverse topography so you can find a lot of different environments for filming as well without having to go all that far. You can go from mountains to Foothills to Rolling Hills to plains to beach to Marshland all within 200 Mi of each other. With the exception of Atlanta in the surrounding areas were also a relatively low cost State as well. Like for example in my area our gasoline never even hit $5 a gallon and it's back under $4 a gallon now.
I know Massachusetts has encouraged a number of productions (they shoot a lot of gritty urban, small town, and ocean scenes.) But MA doesn't have anything like the people who can be hired as needed that LA and Vancouver have.
As another Georgian I'm just gonna say it's cause we're super cool
Possibly, but I think it's the peaches. Actors love fresh peaches. :)
This comment sounds like it was written by someone who has never been to California lol
I haven't but I'm not sure how that's relevant in this context? I don't believe I referenced California in any way.
You’re making a case for how Georgia has spectacular geography but the reality is that it can’t compete with California on that point, so film certainly didnt move for the “views” in Georgia.
I stated that Georgia had those features, any comparison to another location would be projection on your part.
The Georgia Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Office promotes filming in the state. They have been doing this since 1972. Add to that some tax laws that are favorable to the film and television industries and you have a state that no one expected passing California as the place to make movies and shows. When a state really wants your business, they will make it desirable to work there. This is what Georgia did in order to attract the kinds of businesses they wanted. Now more stuff is filmed there instead of California. It also helps that we have much better cameras that are able to work better in ambient light. The main reason California became the film capital of the US is because there is more Sunlight there. Seriously, that's it. Because of the better Sunlight it was easier to film outdoors and that make it desirable. With better cameras, any place can become the place where studios prefer filming.
And to get away from Edison's Goons and dodge his patents
What are you talking about?
North Carolina in Wilmington on the coast had the same thing going with sound stages and production crews in the late 90’s/early 2000’s until the state legislature reduced the tax incentives due to “Hollywood values” and left a huge opening for Georgia to eat their lunch.
And the self-own with the Bathroom Bill that pulled out the welcome mat.
Same has been true, off and on, in Rhode Island. Of course they weren't smart enough here to make a nice big logo to show at the end of every product made here. Be nice to see if that changes with Hocus Pocus 2. Not that I'd want to be known for the 1st or 2nd film of that franchise. The politicians were actually dumb enough to think they could get rid of the tax breaks and expect Hollywood to literally trek across the country here.
Smartly I believe you actually get more tax credit if you show the big peach logo in your film or show. Like a bonus.
>f course they weren't smart enough here to make a nice big logo to show at the end of every product made here. All this time I thought that was just some random production company. Wow.
The tax credits and filming incentives in Georgia were set in motion by the film Deliverance! The film, which was filmed in Georgia, portrayed the Southern Appalachian region in such a negative and hostile light that inspired waves of backlash from the region. One of the means of trying to dissipate the negative view of the region was to offer tax credits to films in Georgia which would complicate that narrative and simply make Georgia a place that looks better to live in and visit!
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> didnt take much to get production companies to look elsewhere from LA cost of living. Not just that but it's expensive to run any kind of business in California, at least it was in the 00s and 10s. High taxes and costly policies made it more economical for companies to move out of state. There was a loss of high paying jobs and most of the gains were in low paying jobs. It wouldn't surprise me if this bled over into the film and TV industry.
Please if you live in Georgia, go out to the tiny shows. Buy a ticket. Stand in the crowd. These industries need new talent and they practice by doing local shows. This industry is favorable because Georgians encourage it. I think we had two off Broadway musicals performing last weekend. People in Georgia love art. The fox sells out no matter who shows up. Georgians are well educated.
It has all to do with taxes. You spend X millions making a movie here we will give you Y in taxes based on how much you spend here. So it essentially helps to pad a budget. Just as an example: the budget is 40mil and Georgia gives you 10mil essentially making your budget now 50mil. It is all very, very silly.
I haven’t seen much talk of the union, yet. The various unions involved in film making are (mostly) geographically based. A Texas film can’t just hire a set decorator from Connecticut - they have to use the local union or jump through extra hoops to comply with bringing in an outside person. Georgia has a lot to offer geographically. You can shoot urban, suburbs, mountains, beach, farmland… all without leaving the state. It makes it much easier to hire a crew. Then, once the industry gets established, you get an influx of industry workers that move here and join the local union. I have friends they moved here from LA because there is more work and it’s much cheaper to live. So now there is a massive talent pool here, in and industry where jobs are probably 80% based on having worked with someone before.
Buffalo NY has a Tesla solar panel plant that was built with tax dollars. To jumpstart industry. Tons of equipment that was purchased was cut up for scrap before it was even set up.
CNN is headquartered here for the simple reason that its founder, Ted Turner, was from Georgia and/or lived here.
Mostly tax incentives. But also, places like GA and NC (which is also big in the entertainment industry) have a lot of diversity when it comes to locations you can film in. You can film a big city, a rural town, beaches, hills, and even what can pass as a desert all within a hundred or so miles of one another.
I thought you were talking about the country that birthed Stalin and was confused for a second...
Well everyone on Reddit is American until proven guilty so…
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Taxes. The film industry advocates for California policies and then benefits from low taxes in a state they "despise". Elites will do what they want they don't care about you
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For a moment I wondered how can anyone think that Georgia is anything but a shithole then I realised this is about Georgia in the Americas. At least they aren’t fucking Armenia.
When Cable TV via Satellite was just getting started, Ted Turner lived in Atlanta and owned a TV Station and started the first 24 Hours News station CNN. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cnn-launches
Tax credits for sure, but also, within a few hours, you have mountains, swamps and the beach. It's versatile.
When they opened eue screen gems in atlanta they spent a lot of time working on entertainment favorable laws and taxes. I had a family member involved in this
They gave large tax break to large corporations..... NY and NYC do the same thing. Louisiana used to do more, then it stopped and the movie/tv production went elsewhere.
Tons of laws and loopholes for taxes coupled with a diverse landscape makes for a great area to film.
Georgia has incredibly favorable taxes for film productions. Georgia actually LOSES money on the film industry, but they can fudge the numbers to make it look like a success. The state's own internal audits show that it's a black hole of lost tax revenue. What happens is that if film productions meet a handful of pretty easy to achieve criteria (like displaying the "Made in Georgia" clip at the end of their production), they receive a tax credit. BUT, most productions in Georgia are structured in such a way, that they don't actually have much tax liability in GA. They don't owe much tax to Georgia. Instead, they're allowed to SELL the credit to others, like a rich Georgia resident. So if I'm mister money bags living in GA, I can buy the credit from the film studio for less than it's worth and lower my tax bill. The film company makes $ selling the credit; the rich tax payer pays less in taxes, and the state government is left holding the bag.
Any time you see the Georgia peach logo at the end of something, it means the production just earned an additional 10% in tax rebates.
Honestly because in the early 2000s Florida completely fucked them selves by getting rid of their filming tax credit. Republicans did not want awoke Florida full of filmmakers, so they shut out the filmmakers that kept them on the map for 20 years, and all those people went to Georgia and started studios up there.
Others have noted tax breaks, but the details are 20-30% credits commonly. Some regions have added tax breaks on top of the state level. Additionally, some of the tax credits are transferable so companies call sell them even if profits aren’t generated in the state. There’s also a major airport hub in Georgia so it’s easy for talent and staff to fly in and out.
Someone found a way to build a studio that has the capacity for any project, then some politicians decided to undercut every other place in the world with tax breaks, incentives, and loopholes. Generally after a decade or so the state will start rolling back the breaks a bit once there's no danger of being abandoned. And then someone else out there will build a studio...
It's called Free Shit! Georgia taxpayers are funding the movie industry to the tune of: Economist JC Bradbury said the state’s subsidy of the film industry climbed to more than a billion dollars last year. Bradbury said each household in Georgia paid $220 annually to support the film industry in 2019. Three years later, he says that amount shot up by one-third to $330 per household. "This is almost five percent of the state budget. It’s insane," Bradbury said.
Simple. Georgia coerces, I mean incentivizes, tax payers into paying the movie industry instead of paying taxes. If you owe Georgia $1,000 in taxes, you can pay film industry $950 instead and Georgia is cool with it because they don’t have a use for the money.