If you've ever stuck around to
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 US
with a production friendly tax incentive program. And a lot
gets filmed in a 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 are just breaking down the sets for
Ozark you know, for the season four. But we have Doom Patrol
and dynasty The Walking Dead Stranger Things are having Marvel's Ant Man is
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 to the state's economy. In fiscal
year 2019. Georgia was home to 399 Productions, raking in $2.9
billion 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 soundstages in North America. It
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 lunamon He and his wife
moved their printmaking business from New York City to Georgia. They look like the one that was
putting the most into actually building their facilities that
look 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 want
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
for the joy for Fallout for Georgia following the passage of
its controversial voting law. Will Smith and the director
Antoine Fuqua is saying that they are now pulling their film
their upcoming film production of emancipation out of the state
moving into Louisiana instead, in Georgia is seeing more states
adopting similar and competitive tax credits for productions. The rebate is everything and
movie companies are going to go wherever they get the most money
back. 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 to 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 at 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 US film productions, generating $72
billion for the US film industry in the face of ongoing risks,
high interest rates that 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 can be the basis for IP
empires. But as the film industry was
exploding, soar 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 US film
industry as an attractive partnership. To help better
offset production costs. governments worldwide gave the
US film industry subsidies and tax incentives to give much
needed breathing room for productions budget for shooting
in their country. Runaway productions or productions
outside of 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 2030 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
2000 for the US film industry in the MPAA lobbied with Congress
to curb reductions outside of the US and 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 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 credits 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 know,
you might do other things, you know, make videos promotional
videos for the state? Well, 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%, in order to get
Georgia's tax credit, 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 $500,000 in GA 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 spent, 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 roots 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 this stuff that you classically
would have had to abroad in from California or New York. Now they
have equipment houses here that have things like technic cranes
of all different sizes, 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 bandaids to buy from 2012 to 2021. The direct
spending from film and television productions has only
benefited George's bottom line in fiscal year 2012 and
estimated 175 Productions directly spent $879.8 million
within Georgia, generating an overall economic impact of $3.1
billion 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 within Georgia, generating an overall economic
impact of $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2019. While the number of
productions dropped from 455 to 399. Those 399 Productions
directly spent $2.9 billion, generating an economic impact of
$7.4 billion. Amid the pandemic film productions were delayed
for months. Initially 234 productions were slated to shoot
in Georgia, spending $2.2 billion at the start of 2020.
But by June 12, only 20 productions were greenlit to
begin shooting in 2021. productions ramped up again,
with 366 Productions spending $4 billion 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 2530 years in the making. And
so what we were missing was the kind of deep infrastructure that
we now have here at trellis. 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 incentives that help 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. In 2014, the second largest production studio in
North America opened just 20 minutes from downtown Atlanta,
and 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 trillest Studios during a year long
separation process from its former ownership establishing
trilogy as a local business in Georgia today, trilogy 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, building some of the
most amazing facilities in the world. And we're very proud of
the stages and the production facilities that 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
to 24 stages, the entire ecosystem of all of our
production support vendors, we're building our own town
across the street. What trilogy is today versus where we were
eight years ago is there's nothing in comparison trilogy 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 gonna 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 multifamily, so those are apartments that are above ground
floor retail, and that almost 300,000 square feet of
restaurants and retail and spaces that would be commercial
in nature, truth is home to 24 soundstages
nearly 1000 acres of land and home to Bleeding Edge filmmaking
technology that you wouldn't normally see outside of Los
Angeles, they were at a unique season, where there has 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 a
Mandalorian is becoming more widespread. And we really see
that a trilogy 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 data from our unions, the
IA and our workforce here as we've grown in recent years,
we're up approaching 100,000 jobs, right? We haven't quite
hit that mark. 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 toilet studios on any given day, we can see up
to 3000 people on a lot. Having the studio here in Fayette
County has been one of the largest revenue generation
generators in the area trilogy, 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 almost five fold in
jobs, new jobs for the state in the last 678 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 are really spread out to. And I
think a lot of that has to do with the history we have in
Atlanta. My production soundstages 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 one 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 two
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.
So both Governor Kemp and former Georgia representative Stacey
Abrams make efforts to prevent these boycotts since 2019.
There's 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 add an additional 40% 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 roots in New Mexico
and moving its biggest show Stranger Things from Georgia to
a BBQ studios located in Albuquerque, Mesa Del Sol area. But as a result of all this
work, I mean, in 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, they would be, you know, they would be serious contenders
if they could just get close. I see, I think the growth still
entirely hinges on a tax credit, 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 capitol 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
in coastline and big cities and small towns. Again, we compete
head to head with someplace 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.
But 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 will flock to take a
chance on their dreams. Since 2008. Georgia has created a
billion dollar industry establishing job creation for
locals and 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
Taxes incentives, good weather and longer shooting days
TL:DW Tax incentives
Way to go Tyler Perry!