Sound Stages Georgia: The Brand New Hollywood In The East Of The United States

By George Harris


Sound stages Georgia's most recent sign of the state's rising movie enterprise: a vast 30-acre studio area that has opened in the former Lakewood Fairgrounds place near downtown Atlanta. The fairgrounds, managed by the city of Atlanta and until not too long ago utilized as a location for a flea market, are a local landmark as well as presently a popular filming site, home for such motion pictures as Burt Reynolds' 1977 trucker film "Smokey and the Bandit."

EUE/Screen Gems, a New York City company that also manages studios in Manhattan and Wilmington, N.C., stated that it will spend $6 million in order to convert the fairgrounds and its Spanish colonial-style exhibition halls into Georgia's largest studio. Although it was formerly managed by Columbia Pictures, the company will not be associated with the Screen Gems production label now run by Sony Pictures. The company intends to build a 37,500-square-foot soundstage, as well as renovate four other buildings on the property that date to the turn of the last century. When the project is completed in March 2011, the complex is going to cover more than 100,000 sq. ft. of sound stages as well as office space, as well as a set of construction shop and lighting as well as grip facilities.

Hollywood has been working in the state in the last several years in a very major way, yet the state of Georgia has a real shortage of viable services. The nearest large-scale studio to Atlanta is RiverWood Studios, approximately 45 minutes away from the city, which is operated by Raleigh Studios of Hollywood. Those include four sound stages ranging from 7,500-15,000 square feet and with 2,400-amp capacity to all stages, a 10,000 square-foot mill as well as production space, a 140x24-foot Cyc (Cyclorama) wall, 18,000 sq. ft. of work space, make-up and dressing rooms, over 100 acres of back lot which includes a six-acre lake and two streams and close distance to Hartsfield Airport.

Movie makers, directors and studios requested the company to open a facility in Atlanta, given its central location and the allure of the state's film tax credit, one of the highest in the nation. Among the ventures anticipated to film at the Lakewood facility will be an adaptation of the Broadway play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf" from Atlanta-based filmmaker Tyler Perry. Under the program, movie makers could receive a credit equivalent to 30% of their in-state production costs, which they could apply toward any tax liability they have with the state. At the same time, movie makers could sell the credit to a third party as well as pocket the cash, thus minimizing production expenses. The credit is broad, applying not just to motion pictures and television shows but also commercials, music videos, video game development as well as animation.

Sound stages Georgia have an upswing ever since the credit was increased to 30% from 20% in 2008, production has influxed into the state. Film and TV production expenditure tripled to $770 million in 2009, according to the Georgia Film Office. In the last two years, twenty-six motion pictures have been shot in the state. During the last two years they have had a really, really good run as stated by the Georgia Film Office.




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