Georgia Sound Stages – The Brand New Hollywood In The Eastern Side Of America

Georgia sound stages' most recent sign of the state's growing motion picture business: a vast 30-acre studio complex that has launched in the former Lakewood Fairgrounds spot in close proximity to downtown Atlanta. The fairgrounds, owned by the city of Atlanta and until recently used as a place for a flea market, are a local landmark and currently a favorite filming site, home for such motion pictures like Burt Reynolds' 1977 trucker film "Smokey and the Bandit."

EUE/Screen Gems, a New York firm which likewise operates studios in Manhattan and Wilmington, N.C., said that it would invest $6 million in order to transform the fairgrounds as well as its Spanish colonial-style exhibition halls directly into Georgia's biggest studio. Even though it was formerly managed by Columbia Pictures, the company isn't associated with the Screen Gems production label now owned by Sony Pictures. The firm intends to construct a 37,500-square-foot soundstage, and renovate four other buildings on the property which date to the turn of the last century. Once the project is done in March 2011, the complex will encompass over 100,000 square feet 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 doing work in the stae of Georgia over the last several years in a really significant way, yet Georgia has a real dearth of viable amenities. The closest large-scale studio to Atlanta is RiverWood Studios, about 45 minutes outside the city, which is managed by Raleigh Studios of Hollywood. Those include four sound stages which range from 7,500-15,000 square feet and with 2,400-amp power to all stages, a 10,000 square-foot mill as well as production space, a 140x24-foot Cyc (Cyclorama) wall, 18,000 square feet of office space, make-up and dressing rooms, over 100 acres of back lot that includes a six-acre lake and two streams and close proximity to Hartsfield Airport.

Movie makers, directors as well as studios asked the company to start a center in Atlanta, considering its central location and the appeal of the state's film tax credit, one of the highest in the country. One of the projects anticipated to film at the Lakewood facility is 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 expenditures, which they could apply toward any tax liability they've got with the state. Alternately, movie makers can sell the credit to a third party and pocket the cash, hence reducing production costs. The credit is broad, applying not just to films as well as TV shows but also commercials, music videos, video game development as well as animation.

Georgia sound stages have an upswing ever since the credit was increased to 30% from 20% in 2008, production has flooded into the state. Movie as well as television production spending tripled to $770 million in 2009, according to the Georgia Film Office. In the last two years, 26 motion pictures have been filmed in the state of Georgia. For the last two years they've had a really, really good run according to the Georgia Film Office.

Click here are actually soundproof, hangar-like structures used for film and TV productions. Aside from that, euescreengems.com/ help make it easier for the production crew to design and also construct the sets to be utilized.