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March 18, 2024

From The Cutting Room Floor

The Night The (Gaffer’s) Lights went out in Georgia

Money in, money out. Georgia, like most states, spends a lot of effort to bring new money into the state. One way has been to offer tax incentives and rebates for projects, like movie and TV show productions, that will increase tourism, bring in crews and talent, and generally increase the money spent in the state, at least for a short time. Not only do film productions leave salaries and catering money behind, they spur new attractions for local folks to promote. Want to live the life of Tony Stark/Ironman? The Georgia lakeside house where he lived in Avengers: Endgame is available for rent through AirBnB—and only $800/night!

In 2008, Georgia instituted a 30 percent tax credit for productions shot in the state, leading to a gold rush level surge of filming there. Over 90,000 people work in the industry and in 2018, 455 productions took place in Georgia, according to figures from the state. Hits such as Avengers: Endgame, Stranger Things (Netflix), and The Walking Dead found a home in Georgia but recent productions that were scheduled there have been pulled, relocated, or put on hiatus awaiting the court cases spawned by the “Heartbeat bill.”

The editor has more in The  Cutting Room and another point of view can be found here .

 

Films Fading Away

We tend to take for granted the storage media we use today, hard drives, SSD drives, camera cards and the like. Shoot and save, that’s the theme. Overshoot, just in case, since storage is sooooo cheap these days! Hey, TB is the common denominator, long overshadowing the “old” MB and GB monikers. PB (petaBytes) is being seen more today, especially in media asset management concepts. And the drive manufacturers are pushing product to extremes not imagined as little as a decade ago. Quality control is improving along with density but….
Lots more in The Cutting Room

 

Documentaries: Virtual or Real?

I come at filmmaking from the documentary tradition, specifically educational films. I worked with some of the best documentary film directors in that genre while working for Encyclopedia Britannica Films (EBF) in the late 1960s-early 1970s.

Because of that experience, I was looking forward to reading, and reviewing here, a new book titled: How to Film Truth. The author, Justin Wells, has a background in both film and theology so when he talks of “Truth” it has a slight religious flavor.

First, I do recommend the book to those thinking about doing documentary work or those just interested in what constitutes documentaries. It doesn’t get into the how, the what, or even the why so much as it looks at the philosophy behind the approaches to the genre.

Check it out in The Cutting Room

 

In the News

Georgia on our mind

Nine prominent Hollywood studios have said they will reconsider filming their projects in Georgia if the “Heartbeat Law” is implimented. “The state of Georgia is already seeing indications that this will have significant economic impact,” says author Meredith Jordan, whose book, Below The Line: Anatomy of a Successful Movie, provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at the making of an A-list Hollywood film that was shot in Georgia. “It’s anecdotal at this point, but there are many, many anecdotes.” 

Hollywood was drawn to Georgia largely by tax credits the state provided. The Georgia Department of Economic Development reported that the 455 film and television productions that were filmed in Georgia yielded a total economic impact of $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2018. But that could fall off drastically; nine major studios have issued statements suggesting that if the “Heartbeat Law” is upheld, it would impact whether they did business in the state. 

More in the Studios folder.

TV at RBV in CA

One of three high schools in the Vista (CA) Unified School District, Rancho Buena Vista (RBV), has used a portion of a state grant to become the only one with a TV studio. The production space, which students began using last November, was built in three adjoining classrooms. See what they are doing in Education.

Scary in Post

St. Agatha is a horror film that was shot in the town of Madison, Georgia.  The producer chose Georgia because of the tax incentive,  but they also knew Georgia had an infrastructure that could handle the production.  See more at News to Use/Post-Production.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Tom

Tom started in media as a DJ in 1959, moved to audio producer/engineer at Encyclopedia Britannica Films in 1968. He's had 6 Grammy nominations, worked on 37 Film Festival Award winners...and one Oscar nominee. Tom is a life member of the Recording Academy and a member of SAG-AFTRA since 1974. He switched to magazine writing/editing in 1979 and has been in print and digital ever since.

About Andy

Andy is Owner and President of Marken Communications Inc. a Marketing and Communications Consultant, located in the San Francisco area since 1977. In addition to his marketing/consulting activities he is also a frequent author of trend and application articles on the Internet, storage and video content production/distribution.

Trailers

Making a music video used to be confined to shooting a concert or studio session. Today, as the video above shows, a lot happens behind the scenes and in the post-production chain. See the full feature in the Spring-2019 issue.

Spring Markee also features ways to Maintain your digital assets’ viability, adapting to new trends in metadata and identification, and managing the myriad of distribution versions required to maximize the return on your investment. These are of key importance to a successful media business in 2019 and beyond. More…

The issue features a look at digital storage and restoration of data.  Digital footage can disappear in a second and be lost forever. Or maybe not. Check it out.