Monday, September 2, 2013

Atlanta Is On The Map Now For Movie & TV Production

NEW STUDIO COMPLEX FOR ATLANTA

Well, the latest news this past week that EUE/Screen Gems will lease the old Lakewood Fairgrounds near downtown Atlanta as motion picture and television production facilities is GREAT news.

We in the movie production community heard about this months ago but the news is only just recently becoming public.

More jobs (an estimated 1,000) are foreseen for the production industry here and this will be a further cementing of Atlanta and Georgia's growing pivotal role in movie and network TV series production.

VCGTV shot EPK promotional material for Screen Gems at the 2008 BET Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta.
The focus of this production was the cast of the motion picture NOTORIOUS who attended the event and the after party at an Atlanta mansion.

Now, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is claiming that the Screen Gems facility will be "state-of-the-art". Whoa there AJC. Not quite. Not YET.

http://www.ajc.com/business/ready-for-your-close-528580.html

Uh, this is NOT the first Atlanta-area "state-of-the-art studio complex".

Riverwood Studios was built years ago south of Atlanta in Senoia, Georgia and still operates. Tyler Perry opened his studio and backlot complex in November 2008.

Screen Gem's studio facility will be the latest. But it won't be state-of-the-art for a while. Word on the street is the first movie shooting there - FAST AND FURIOUS IV - will use existing, upgraded Lakewood Fairgrounds buildings. New construction will occur at some point in the future.

Every week we receive job applicants from veteran Los Angeles production people who are moving to Atlanta. This is, after all, where much of the work is going. Atlanta hosted more than two dozen major movie productions to LA's nine in 2009 is my understanding.

Let's hope we Atlanta-based folks who worked and lobbied hard for the state tax incentives for movie and TV production, honed our craft and lived in the shadow of LA for so long will get many of these new jobs.

MUSIC LIBRARY FIND

Last night I stumbled upon a great spin-off web site from Wikipedia that offers free, high-quality, downloadable music of many genres. Wikimedia Commons.

Wikimedia Commons offers public domain, high-quality and downloadable photos. They also offer music as well.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Music_sound

Many of these music cuts are public domain. These photos and especially the music will be a huge low-cost public service to those of us editing finished product for TV and movies.

Copyright 2014, Porter Versfelt III

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