Cobb Opens Its Doors to Hollywood

Whether it is a large plantation, scenic mountain views, a coastal swamp or busy city sidewalks, Georgia has it all for television or movie crews to choose from.

A wide variety of shooting possibilities combined with attractive tax incentives, great weather and a large airport nearby have led to increased production of movies and TV shows in the state in the last five years or so. There were more than 348 productions shot in Georgia last year.

“Georgia can stand in for just about any place,” said Craig Dominey with the Georgia Film, Music & Digital Entertainment Office.

And now Cobb County wants to jump on the bandwagon.  This week, the Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted to submit an application to become a Camera Ready Community.

The special designation is reserved for counties in the state that want to attract film and TV production. It is a way to streamline the ability to respond to production companies that might be looking at the state, said Dominey, who is the program manager.

“If they say they want an antebellum house and a swamp,” he said. The film office will be able to type in those key words and various spots in the state will pop up with pictures to be sent to location scouts.

The program was started last year with 16 original counties including Carroll, DeKalb and Fulton locally. The counties may have been working with the film office previously on productions, or just applied early, Dominey said. But 70 more counties have since applied for the designation and will be announced in the next month or so, he said.

The application process involves answering all kinds of questions about the county including what kind of hotels and restaurants are available for film crews, and sending in pictures of specific locations that might interest Hollywood.

DeKalb County has pictures of the Fernbank Museum, Agnes Scott College and its historic courthouse among several shooting locations featured on its site with the film office.

Fulton has pictures of Turner Field and the Georgia Aquarium. Atlanta has been home to many movies.  Driving Miss Daisy was shot predominately there and more recently, The Blind Side used various schools in the area for filming.

And Cobb has had its fair share of films shot there as well. Recently the new Footloose movie used spots in Acworth, and Marietta has had several filmmakers seek it out including officials with Remember the Titans and the prequel to Dumb and Dumber.

During the hard economic times that have stretched budgets of all counties across the state, the financial boost that production crews can bring to an area can only be a plus, said Tim Lee, chairman of the Cobb County commissioners, at a recent meeting.

The film and television industry’s economic impact in the state last year was $1.33 billion, up from $1.1 billion the previous year, according to the state film office.

With the camera ready designation, a point person is designated with the county to head up dealings with film and television officials. Cobb hasn’t officially appointed anyone yet, said Terrilyn Hannah, economic development coordinator for the county. She made a recent presentation to the county commissioners.

Right now the county is working on getting a film permit in place and contacting the six cities within the county for help in getting locations for shooting. Hannah said she was unsure how long it would take to get the application submitted.

For years the state had an unofficial way of helping film crews select location sites in the state. But with a vast database at the film office’s fingertips, the process has been much easier, Dominey said.

“We’ve had stuff come in,” he said of site locations submitted by counties, “that I never even knew was out there.”