Atlanta stealing L.A.’s thunder? (real estate market, credit)

[tonygeorgia]

Here’s an interesting blog post from the L.A. Times, detailing how filming projects “continue to fall” in Los Angeles:
“The holiday season is bringing little cheer to the local production economy: location shoots on the streets of Los Angeles fell across all categories last week, reflecting a continued slowdown in film activity during the fourth quarter.”

Why? Simple. Taxes. California does offer tax credits but other locales appear to be offering sweeter deals.
Here in Georgia, of course, you can scarcely traverse a city block without running into a television or movie project underway. Feature films including “Parental Guidance” and “Neighborhood Watch” are wrapping up after months of shooting; television projects including “Local Talent,” starring Nathan Lane and “Coma,” with Geena Davis, have gotten cranked up recently and a slew of made-in-Atlanta films are due for 2012 release.

Generous tax incentives passed by the state legislature in 2008 explain the booming film industry, putting scads of people to work. Here is an article from today’s AJC about local real estate professionals who are doing quite a bit of business helping production companies locate places to film, warehouse or office space, or temporary housing for their stars.

Explained commercial real estate veteran John Raulet: “The real estate market has been battered and all of a sudden these movie people roll into town. It’s helping a lot of people.”


Let the Atlanta hate begin....

[roadtrip75]

It's not Atlanta, it's the whole country. In the digital wired age, the studios no longer need to have everything filmed near the production offices. And since they can easily go around the country and find cheap filming accommodations (for example, Burn Notice gets its studio space free of charge from Miami), they are doing exactly that.

Plus, who wants to live in L.A. anymore, given how crowded it is now with illegal immigrants? Affordable middle class neighborhoods have vanished from the map in the last 20 years. This doesn't affect studio moguls and A-list actors, but it hits the rank & file.

[muxBuppie]

Originally Posted by tonygeorgia

Let the Atlanta hate begin....

It's coming.

[ATLTJL]

I just wish they could foster a bigger local industry in Atlanta.

Production companies are still headquartered in LA, and maybe New York. When they shoot in Atlanta, they may hire out low paying jobs like craft services, production assitants, etc., but I think they still bring along their own cinematographer, lighting director, costume people, and most of the other decent paying positions.

It would be nice if Atlanta not only became a location, but also a provider of talent for the productions to use.

Maybe when the "big one" hits LA!

[hatgirl007]

Georgia is cheaper and offers tax breaks to stimulate their economy by encouraging entertainment revenue. Good thinking.
Good for the little guy.

[AcidSnake]

Atlanta is coming up in the film industry true enough, but it's still no Vancouver. The biggest personnel cost is healthcare and Canada took that issue right off the table with its public healthcare option. Our neighborhood up north had the good sense to realize that it's better to spread this huge expense across the whole of Canadian society rather than allow it to be concentrated in pockets, i.e., private employers.

Atlanta and Georgia in general can't top that. And unfortunately our elected officials in this state won't even try to.

Once those tax breaks are gone and our state officials decides that that we actually need some money to fix our ever deteriorating roads and bridges? Bye-bye film industry.

Originally Posted by tonygeorgia

Here’s an interesting blog post from the L.A. Times, detailing how filming projects “continue to fall” in Los Angeles:
“The holiday season is bringing little cheer to the local production economy: location shoots on the streets of Los Angeles fell across all categories last week, reflecting a continued slowdown in film activity during the fourth quarter.”

Why? Simple. Taxes. California does offer tax credits but other locales appear to be offering sweeter deals.
Here in Georgia, of course, you can scarcely traverse a city block without running into a television or movie project underway. Feature films including “Parental Guidance” and “Neighborhood Watch” are wrapping up after months of shooting; television projects including “Local Talent,” starring Nathan Lane and “Coma,” with Geena Davis, have gotten cranked up recently and a slew of made-in-Atlanta films are due for 2012 release.

Generous tax incentives passed by the state legislature in 2008 explain the booming film industry, putting scads of people to work. Here is an article from today’s AJC about local real estate professionals who are doing quite a bit of business helping production companies locate places to film, warehouse or office space, or temporary housing for their stars.

Explained commercial real estate veteran John Raulet: “The real estate market has been battered and all of a sudden these movie people roll into town. It’s helping a lot of people.”


Let the Atlanta hate begin....

[ATLTJL]

The biggest personnel cost is healthcare and Canada took that issue right off the table with its public healthcare option

You don't know many people in the film industry, do you?

I don't think in all my life I have ever heard of a film project that offers health benefits for its staff. Maybe in the golden days of Hollywood when studios had full-time employees, but everything nowadays is freelance for the particular project and then you are on your own. Healthcare benefits are not part of the equation, that's why the jobs are still union jobs.

[Adric]

The thing with the local industry here is the talent pool.

When our production company was scouting for talent and especially DP's (cameramen), we came across people who were wanting to charge ridiculous rates considering how amature the reel looked. We had one guy submit who was wanting to charge $2,700 per DAY and his reel looked like something I could shoot on any old handycam. It was the same issue with actors. Lots of people who thought they were all that but really weren't. After thousands of submission reviews we ended up finding a number of diamonds in the rough here but I won't lie, we ended up having to fly in approx five of our actors in from Los Angeles because there simply was just no one in Atlanta who could fill the roll.

Let me tell you though, all five actors were incredibly excited to get out of LA for a while and see Atlanta!

Locations were much more generous though. Specifically, the city of Carollton was so gracious enough to give us all sorts of locations free of charge including a two night shoot in the intensive care ward at Tanner Medical Center! Good luck finding something like that in LA for free.