Business & Tech

Georgia Film Expert Says North Fulton is Camera Ready for Entertainment Industry

The Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce expects 1,400 business people to attend its Business Expo in Alpharetta.

North Fulton is a Camera Ready community, according to Craig Dominey of the Georgia Film, Music & Digital Entertainment division, and has gotten film business. Dominey was the speaker at the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce's Eggs & Enterprise Breakfast, which kicked off a day of business at the Marriott in Alpharetta.

Today the chamber holds its Business Expo, with 85 exhibitors and more than, 1,400 attendees. The event is open to non-chamber members. Advance tickets were free, but now it costs $20 at the door.

With a staff of four, Dominey's office decided to have an official program that would create a network of people whom Dominey can call when he needs to find a location for a film crew. He can pick up the phone, send out an e-mail blast or call up a photo database with information on every county in the state.

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To do that, the Camera Ready program sets up liaisons in every county so the state can provide detailed answers, such as who to call to close a road, get a permit or any other local question.

North Fulton already has been designated a Camera Ready community, with the chambers Tedra Cheatham as the liaison.

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Cheatham said she has worked to create that photo database, coordinating with the cities in North Fulton, including Alpharetta, Milton, Roswell, Sandy Springs and Johns Creek.

Dottie Etris of the Roswell Convention and Visitors Bureau said the city thought they had plenty of photos.

"But the location scouts really need more specific information, and we found that we need a lot more photos," Etris said.

Roswell is getting its permitting perfected so it's film friendly. She said long delays will cost a city the film's business.

Since Cheatham was named the liaison, Roswell is getting a lot more calls for locations on a regular basis, Etris said.

"But if we can't find it in our area, then we are going to refer to Sandy Springs, Johns Creek or Alpharetta. Each of us wants it in our own city, but we want to keep it in North Fulton," Etris said.

Dominey said North Fulton and the other 15 counties that kicked off as Camera Ready communities will be joined by another 70 counties in two weeks.

"We are the oldest film office in the world, founded in 1972 when they filmed a move called Deliverance up in Rabun County," Dominey said.

"It created a lot of economic impact in that part of the world, but there was no way to track it at that time," he said.

Then Gov. Jimmy Carter at the time thought it would be good to create a film office.

"We've been one of the busiest states ever since," Dominey said, with "well over 800 projects that have shot in the state since then."

The past couple of years have been tremendously busy, with more than 300 projects shot in the state in 2010 that had an economic impact close to $1.5 billion.

"It was great timing for the industry to pick up here," Dominey said.

The industry picked up at a time when the economy was swiftly going downhill, he said.

Dominey likes to tell the story of a horror film shot in south Georgia called The Crazies that was shot around Perry because it could double for Iowa, which didn't have tax incentives at the time. The film crews came to town when everybody was running around scared as the economy sank.

"They showed up, they basically rented the town," Dominey said, turning the main street into their back lot.

It was a tremendous shot in the arm for the community's economy.

His office continually takes calls from people who want to visit movie and TV locations, such as Covington, site of the TV show The Vampire Diaries. People still call asking where In the Heat of the Night, the Dukes of Hazzard and Forrest Gump were shot. Some couples even spend their honeymoon traveling to these locations.

Georgia's tax incentives, which provide up to 30 percent tax credits, are a big draw for the industry, which then spends a lot of money in the state, he said. The next movie you watch, check out the end credits and you might see the Georgia peach logo, signifying it was shot at least in part in Georgia. That's a requirement to get the tax credits.

"I think with our industry, the perception is, you are subsidizing Tom Cruise. But it's not about that, it's really about the business getting here in the first place," Dominey said.

Once the business is here, they spend money on equipment, supplies and on the people they hire.

Dominey said it's safe to say there are 25,000 people working in the industry right now in the state.


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