“We are on the cusp of our program blossoming into a world-class film school, blazing a trail with our exceptionally dedicated faculty, customized curriculum, and setting up the infrastructure to operate our program on a studio pipeline model,” said Neil Landau, executive director for the UGA MFA Film program.
Smile, the film that was originally planned to go straight to streaming, is grinning its way to the bank. The film made for $17 million – a measly sum by Hollywood standards – has now hit the $200 million mark globally.
Out today, the Digital Discovery Report offers insights on how music, film, television, books and periodicals, photography, news media, sports and more not only drive culture, but also, a thriving society with millions of American creators and trillions of dollars into the U.S. economy.
The festival was founded by Stacy Cunningham and Scott Phillips. Stacy is a B.F.A. graduate from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and over 25-year veteran in the media industry.
Georgia has become a filmmaking center since lawmakers enacted the tax credit. The number of film production jobs in the Peach State rose from 10,900 in 2016 to 16,500 in 2019, an increase of 51%, according to a state Department of Audits & Accounts review released Monday.
Despite horror films flooding the theaters in time for the Halloween season, Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam still topped the box office charts in its second week.
The festival features international films and showcases its signature 168 Film Project, the short filmmaking competition in which participants create an 11-min short film during a (168-hour) week, based on foundational scriptures. Two days of festivities will be hosted at the Town Stage at Trilith.
The strategic combination grows Aprio’s team to more than 1,400 team members internationally. Aronson’s 350 team members, including 42 partners, will join Aprio effective January 1, 2023.
After a two year pause due to the pandemic, the Georgia Entertainment 100 event is set for November 16th in Atlanta. The popular evening affair will host the who’s who of entertainment including directors, producers, and studio executives. Local and statewide political leaders will be honored and recognized at the event acknowledging their role in creating a business friendly environment for filmmakers.
Georgia Council for the Arts, a strategic arm of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, today announced the recipients of fiscal year 2023 Vibrant Communities and Cultural Facilities grant awards.
Johnson’s Black Adam scooped up $67 million, which was bigger than predicted and ended up being his strongest North American debut as a solo star. Those figures were more than enough to make The Rock’s bow in a DC superhero flick numero uno at the charts.
“We’re seeing an expected slowdown taking shape,” noted FilmLA President Paul Audley. “To that point we note that the COVID-19 Delta wave forced an out of season production shift last year. That shift led to record-breaking filming levels in the latter half of 2021, so in light of that, this is a modest decline.”
Savannah, Georgia, is home to the largest university-run film festival in the country. The aspiring directors, producers and below-the-line techs at the Savannah College of Art and Design have shown that they can draw big-name films and awards contenders to their corner of the South, and this year marks a quarter-century of the fest.
This is the fourth “Captain America” movie. The first three movies, released between 2011 and 2016, have generated more than $2.2 billion in box office gross. The third film “Captain America: Civil War” was shot largely in metro Atlanta and was the most successful one to date.
Hotel Dunsmuir competed for best thriller at the Atlanta Horror Film Festival and was on the big screen at the RoleCall Theater at Ponce City Market Oct. 14th. It won Best Director at the Festival.
RiseImpact Capital and North Star Incentives are pleased to announce a strategic partnership to pursue film and entertainment industry tax credit brokerage, syndication, and finance opportunities.
Women In Film and Television Atlanta (WIFTA) is thrilled to announce that scholarships are available for currently enrolled female college students in the Atlanta Metro Area who are seeking a career in the entertainment industry.
The Telly Awards, the world’s largest award honoring excellence in video and television across all screens, is embracing the idea of standing out above the rest across the creative landscape by launching its 44th annual call for entries with a simple, yet profound call-to-action: “Break Through the Static.”
A VR executive and a seasoned Olympics broadcaster have unveiled BlueStar Studios, a $180 million, 53-acre campus in Forest Park, GA, the latest in a stream of projects to address booming demand for production space in the state.
Charles “Bo” Bowen, partner at The Bowen Law Firm in Savannah, talks about the evolution of the firm from their…
RoadShow Africa announced today sponsors and partners for their event, The Africa Film Showcase. RoadShow Africa, a subsidiary of RoadShow Equity Partners, is the first platform to offer investors an opportunity to participate in a diverse portfolio of risk-mitigated media projects involving filmmakers from Africa engaging with Georgia.
The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the Entertainment Industry College Outreach Program (EICOP) this week announced Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures as the first member studios to participate in the MPA-EICOP Entertainment Law and Policy Fellowship.
She became instantly enamored with the movie as she watched the fantastical world filled with spaceships and lightsabers play out across the screen in their living room, sparking a sudden interest in film that soon turned into her passion.
Governor Brian P. Kemp announced that Georgia has been named by Area Development magazine as the No. 1 state for business for the ninth consecutive year. No other state has earned this distinction for so many years.
In addition to a separate $100 million pool of incentives, the Studio Partner designation will allow a production company to capture additional above-the-line salaries and wages as part of its tax credit award calculation, a key feature of the plan.
Coppola has ruminated over Megalopolis for over two decades. He is financing almost all of it himself. A maverick who has always bet on his vision — mostly to great success — he has put up the majority of the nearly $100 million.
The meeting was held at the Columbus Georgia Convention and Trade Center and facilitated by Visit Columbus GA and the Columbus Film Commission. “It was great to gather again in person after so long conducting these quarterly meetings virtually,” said Joel Slocumb, Columbus Film Commissioner.
The Tubman Museum is proud to announce an exhibit featuring the work and life of Tyler Perry that will be displayed in Feb. 2023. The exhibit will offer a one-of-kind glimpse into Perry’s life, going all the way back to the time he watched an Oprah Winfrey show that inspired him to write.
Nelson, who has served as Executive Director for the past seven years and spearheaded the phenomenal growth of the entertainment production industry in the Savannah region, is ready for the next challenge in her career.
Smile, a horror film that was originally headed for a streaming-only release, grinned its way to the bank as it topped the domestic box office and earned way more than predicted.
One Columbus native made her dancing debut this past weekend in Tyler Perry’s most recent release A Jazzman’s Blues which features a storyline of forbidden love back in the 30’s.
APX Group has announced an important add to its growing North American team. Bailey MB, an actress, producer and highly experienced business executive joins the North America Team of APX as a special consultant on film packaging and the integration of Georgia into APX’s Network.
Esports Summit will connect global business leaders and educators across the esports ecosystem across the two-day event with the goal of connecting play with learning. The conference event is followed by the three-day, immersive, gaming lifestyle festival DreamHack Atlanta.
SIEGE is hybrid this year, with most of the presentations occurring on the GGDA YouTube channel, with in-person events like the Silv-E awards ceremony, happening again at the Doraville Digital Studios.
Now in its fifth year, the Silver Award for Excellence in Indie Game Development offers a $1,500 prize pool plus recognition for great new games.
You might not be aware of the Palomino Duck concept. It’s unique. 3 albums, 32 original compositions. It all started with “The Swan,” composed and performed by Atlanta musician, Beth Michaels. More on Beth later in the newsletter.
Peter Bowden, president and CEO of Visit Columbus GA and the Columbus Film Commission, and Randy Davidson, president of Georgia Entertainment, discuss some factors that make Columbus an appealing locale for filmmakers and production companies.
Aprio, LLP, a nationally recognized business advisory and CPA firm, is proud to announce the firm has received multiple recognitions by INSIDE Public Accounting based on their 2022 annual Survey and Analysis of Firms.
“Legislators have agreed in principle on the tax credit. It’s based on state initiatives in places like Massachusetts and Georgia. There’s still work to be done – tailoring the program to Arizona, getting the film office ready – but it’s going to be law as of January 2023.”
Level 77 Music, a leading, independent production music company, has launched a new division called Sonic Score that will provide original scoring for film, television, documentaries, games, and other entertainment projects.
In the end, all that drama may have helped Don’t Worry Darling. No one needed to have worried, darlings: Olivia Wilde’s second directing feature after her well-received Booksmart topped the box office with $19.2 million.
Catalyst Productions, a creative-focused film and production studio company, announced today their plans to establish their headquarters in Columbus, Georgia. Launched earlier this year, the company is currently based in Pennsylvania.
RoadShow Africa’s first annual event for African filmmakers – The Africa Film Showcase will feature several talented panelists at the October 20th affair. The event offers directors, producers, investors and other industry participants the opportunity to network around the theme of engaging African filmmakers and their projects.
The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the live event industry. For the greater part of two years, in-person concerts, theatrical performances, film festivals, and public gatherings were postponed and canceled due to legal mandates stemming from the public health emergency.
The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is proud to announce the opening of the university’s second state-of-the art extended reality (XR) stage for virtual productions at SCAD Atlanta’s recently expanded SCAD Digital Media Center.
The Columbus Film Commission has announced that Brennen Dicker will be the featured speaker at the next quarterly meeting. The event will be at the Columbus Georgia Convention and Trade Center on October 12th.
The meeting will be facilitated by VisitColumbusGA’s Film Commission. The purpose of the meeting is to gather those interested in the entertainment industry in one place to hear about Columbus’ film and entertainment business and learn from industry experts.
What do Dustin Hoffman, the tiger from The Hangover, and the musician Machine Gun Kelly all have in common? If this sounds like the setup for a six-degrees-of-Kevin Bacon story, you should know he’s actually involved too.
Howard said in the app’s initial beta run, a significant amount of activity came out of Atlanta, unsurprising considering the city – and the state of Georgia at large has become such a booming Mecca for film and TV production.
Can you hear those sleigh bells ringing? If you’re in LaGrange, the answer is YES! Hallmark is filming a new Christmas movie in the heart of the city.
In September 2022, not even one year into the project, Athena Studios announced that it had purchased an additional 65 acres of land adjacent to the original site currently under construction at 900 Athena Dr. The move was made in anticipation of demand for its initial 200,000-sq.-ft., purpose-built production space.
Viola Davis and her Agojie all-female warriors shook the box office out of its doldrums and reigned supreme. The Woman King predicted to earn from $16 million to $18 million, made $19 million instead, catapulting the action-drama-history to the top.
The ME Film Festival, focused on international collections of story-driven films with unique voices, is created by filmmakers for filmmakers from 70+ countries.
Join us noon-6 pm Oct. 9 at the Doraville Digital Studios (5999 New Peachtree Rd, Doraville, across from the Doraville MARTA station) for networking, playtesting, boardgaming, a portfolio review, and our annual Silver Excellence in Indie Game Development (Silv-E) award ceremony.
Since 2007, the Georgia Game Developers Association has produced the largest video game industry trade show in the southeastern United States. This event is known as the Southern Interactive Entertainment and Games Expo, or SIEGE.As the South’s leading gaming and interactive conference, SIEGE brings together professionals, academics, executives, government officials and more from across the region to celebrate the world of gaming.
Briarcliff Entertainment has acquired North American distribution rights to the gripping historical drama Kent State from writer, director Karen Slade. The film will star Dermot Mulroney, Clancy Brown, Aksel Hennie, Christopher Backus, Christopher Ammanuel, Andrew Ortenberg and Jacqueline Emerson.
This weekend marks the debut of another Kendrick brothers film called “Lifemark.” It was shot in Columbus. The seed for this latest movie was planted in their minds three years ago. Alex recalls, “We had just finished “Overcomer” in 2019 and we got a call from Kirk Cameron.
A Hollywood production team is setting up temporary offices in downtown Macon to film a major motion picture backed by big names and benefactors that bankrolled the $8.5 million project.
Georgia’s film industry took off after the General Assembly significantly strengthened the state income tax credit for movie and TV productions in 2008. The industry’s annual economic impact has soared from a relatively paltry $242 million the year before lawmakers upped the ante on the credit to $4.4 billion last year.
“We have this cancel culture now that if someone does something you don’t like or says something you don’t like, they’re canceled. If the state makes a law you don’t like, you don’t go there. The reason I take issue with all of it is every four years there’s an election, or every two years with the midterms.”
The “American Pickers” are excited to return to Georgia. They plan to film episodes of The History Channel’s hit television series throughout the state in December 2022.
Thousands of Georgians already work in the video game industry, and with the continued worldwide growth of esports, many more are hoping to get in on the action.
Top-billed by Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt, and Deepika Padukone, the film chronicles how a deejay named Shiva discovers his strange connection to fire and that he has a supernatural weapon.
Now in its fifth year, the Silver Award for Excellence in Indie Game Development offers a $1,500 prize pool plus recognition for great new games.
What if I told you that a single creative studio was behind the marketing for the PGA of America, the Smithsonian Institution raising $1.88 billion (the most in history for a cultural institution), the capture of stories in 28 countries in one day forStarbucks,, and Disney’s Women in Film program in addition to dozens of other diverse, top-line global brands?
Growing up in Savannah, Lawson Bruen loved two things: the movies and the outdoors. He dreamed of working in the film industry and of becoming an environmental scientist.
Georgia Council for the Arts, a strategic arm of the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD), today announced the recipients of its Bridge, Project, and Arts Education grants as part of its initial disbursement of grants for fiscal year 2023, which began on July 1.
So in 2019 when the abortion ban was put in place, a number of industry leaders called the governor and did not receive a return phone call. It was so egregious and urgent that I was asked to fly out to California, and I met with studio heads. I met CEOs for a number of not only the largest studios but deepest investors in the state of Georgia.
The 2022 Georgia Film Festival will be held this fall on the University of North Georgia’s (UNG) Gainesville Campus. It will highlight films made in Georgia and/or produced by Georgia-based filmmakers.
In Esports lore, the first competition, in 1972 at Stanford University, drew five participants, with the winner receiving a “Rolling Stone” magazine subscription.
It was déjà vu time as Spider-Man: No Way Home, released in December last year, went back home to the top spot with $6 million. Spidey’s resurgence was thanks to additional footage.
Hi Friends and Family, greetings once again. Can you believe that we’re fast approaching Autumn? This year is “Zooming” by. To quote Johnny Nash, “I Can See Clearly Now.” We’ve made a great deal of progress in so many ways.
Prior to hitting the big screen, Jordan Peele’s Nope generated 1,550 local jobs and tens of millions to the state’s economy, according to new data from NBCUniversal’s Universal Filmed Entertainment Group (UFEG).
The state’s $330 million tax credit for Hollywood is currently set to expire in 2025. Sen. Anthony Portantino has worked on a bill, SB 485, that would add another five years to the program.
The entertainment industry in Georgia has exploded, and DeKalb County is at the epicenter of that continuing growth. On this week’s episode of The Playbook, host Mark Collier, area director for the UGA Small Business Development Center, sits down with Shelbia Jackson, Director of the DeKalb Entertainment Commission.
A horror thriller, The Invitation, directed by Jessica M. Thompson, took its inspiration from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Nathalie Emmanuel, Thomas Doherty, Stephanie Corneliussen, Alana Boden, and Sean Pertwee star.
The next Savannah Film Alliance meeting is scheduled. Savannah Tech has once again graciously allowed us to meet in the Eckburg Auditorium at 4:00 p.m. on September 29, 2022.
August just ended, but Augusta has already seen Christmas come and go. Feature film “Christmas Party Crashers” for BET+ was filmed in Augusta during late spring/early summer. This project, in addition to a few smaller commercial productions, have kept the film industry going in Augusta this year.
The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is thrilled to announce SCADFILM’s signature SCAD AnimationFest returns Sept. 22–24, 2022, on-ground at SCAD Atlanta with select sessions livestreamed for global audiences and animation enthusiasts.
Georgia’s film industry now has a new resource for fast, reliable, and inexpensive Covid testing. Drakos Clinical Laboratories has launched its CineMedics division in Georgia with a mobile lab and a testing facility in Peachtree Corners.
Beast was no match for Dragon Ball. In an unusual development, an anime film, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero topped the domestic box office and beat Idris Elba’s Beast.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign a bill, SB 485, that will extend the tax credit through 2030. On Wednesday night, the bill was amended to require productions that receive the credit to set hiring goals that are “broadly reflective of California’s population, in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender.”
Lonnie Bedwell is a 57-year-old blind veteran from Indiana. He was in the Chattahoochee River Friday morning as part of the Nature Now Environmental Film Festival.
DreamHack is back! The three-day, immersive, gaming lifestyle festival will return to Atlanta for the ultimate weekend experience for the first time since before the pandemic in 2019.
After two years of going virtual, the ME Film Festival, now in its 9th season, will be held in person Thursday, Sept. 22 – Sunday, Sept. 25th, 2022.
The “May Madness” of college esports also supported 358 jobs and nearly 900 total hotel room nights for the region while welcoming more than 2,600 ticket holders.
Skillshot Media, a leading esports production company, and Ghost Gaming, the Atlanta-based professional esports and lifestyle organization, today announced a partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Georgia Film Academy, and founding partner universities across Georgia to launch the Georgia Esports League (GEL).
Georgia is celebrating continued growth and investment from the film and television industry. Numbers announced earlier this month show productions spent a record-breaking $4.4 billion in the state during fiscal year 2022.
The festival starts today, August 18 and continues through Sunday, August 21 with film screenings and events in multiple venues throughout the city.
Film crews set up at an old farmhouse in Grant this summer to work on the Signature Films production “Marmalade.” The romantic heist features Camila Morrone, Aldis Hodge, and “Stranger Things” star Joe Keery.
Em Fergusson, the Marketing & Communications Chair with the Georgia Production Partnership, said GPP’s focus will stay behind the lens. “People are going to say things and have been saying things for years but our goal and our focus is to really encourage folks in the industry to keep pressing on,” said Fergusson.
Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) once again advances creative education with the formation of four schools: the School of Creative Technology, School of Animation and Motion, School of Film and Acting, and School of Visual Communication.
Located just under 10 miles from downtown Savannah sits one of the state’s most popular historic sites with one of the longest filmographies of any location in our area.
After three years of fundraising and planning, Savannah Jazz has set the grand opening date for its Savannah Jazz History and Hall of Fame Exhibit for September 17 in the Savannah History Museum.
Early response to Athena Studios’ purpose-built, state-of-the-art space for TV and film production prompted the purchase of 65 acres adjacent to the original 45-acre site for additional stage, support and vendor space.
Attorney Matthew Wilson of Arnall Golden Gregory LLP is among those who say the issue of whether promoters can continue to use public property to host live events after the 2019 gun ruling is real and could lead to a significant economic hit for the state.
Content Talent South (CTS) will identify, represent, and produce the work of Georgia-based writers and content creators. In addition, the company will provide consulting services to brands, businesses, and education initiatives in Georgia and beyond.
“We’ve put together a fantastic Board here at PC&E with great industry experience,” said Mark Wofford President & CEO of PC&E. “I’m looking forward to working with them as PC&E continues to serve our industry.”
Former GFA Executive Director Jeffrey Stepakoff stepped down from his position effective July 23 to form a new talent management and production company. He will assist in the process of finding a successor to ensure a smooth transition.
In all, 11 students and six alumni represented Columbus State through a variety of internship and crew roles, according to Dr. Danna Gibson, chair of the Department of Communication.