Kind-Of Sort-Of Yes
by Bob Walsh
Pinewood
Atlanta Studios is the largest purpose-built studio operation in
America outside of Los Angeles. They are now building a not-so-small
neighborhood to be called Pinewood Forest to house the creative types
who will work there. Sort of a movie studio company town.
The
long term plan calls for 1,300 residents with their own movie theatre,
fitness center, pocket parks and similar amenities. Georgia offers very
generous tax incentives for such creative endeavours in their state and
they do a lot of this business there. Production budgets for a big
movie can exceed $250 million dollars over many months.
The
attempt is to keep the rural feel of the 234 acre operation The town
to be borders on an old growth forest and has geothermal power. A three
mile walking trail circles the mini-city. Housing runs from $300K to
$2 mil.
The city is only
30 miles south of Atlanta so there will still be access to certain
city-type infrastructure, such as doctors and hospitals and specialty
retail.
Besides Pinewood,
which has 360,000 square feet of studio space, EUE/Screen Gems has
about 250,000 square feet with ten sound stages (NetFlix shoots there)
and Tyler Perry Studios is currently being constructed.
Both
current candidates for Governor support continuation of the tax credits
so this business is unlikely to disappear any time soon. The Georgia
Film Academy has a major technical training operation under way at
Pinewood and has trained several thousand film crew workers.
You don't have to live in Hollyweird to be in the movie business any more.
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