The Georgia State University’s new Media Industries Working Group composed an expert panel of personnel involved in the media industry to discuss Atlanta’s emerging role as a media capital.
The emergence of the film industry in Atlanta as a rise in the amount of movies and television shows being filmed continues. Recently, “Catching Fire,” the second movie in “The Hunger Games” Trilogy was filmed in Atlanta.
The panel featured three professors, who study media and the film industry, as well as three media industry workers who are located in Atlanta.
The media industry workers on the panel involved senior Vice President of TNT’s programming and scheduling Phil Oppenheim, comic book creator and writer Paul Jenkins, and casting director Alpha Taylor. Each focused on their own personal experiences and observations on how they have seen Atlanta’s prominence in the media industry evolve and grow.
“I feel very optimistic about what’s happening in Atlanta,” said Paul Jenkins, a creator and writer for Marvel. “There’s a lot of talent here [and] with the tax credits that have been available for film…I want to [film] here.”
This notion of truly wanting to work in Atlanta was expressed by Alpha Tyler, as well. Tyler is a casting director who previously worked for Tyler Perry Studios and is now casting Atlanta based projects for BET Network.
Tyler, like Jenkins, stressed the importance of the Georgia film tax credit by bringing the industry’s attention to Atlanta. At one point in the discussion, Tyler drew the audience’s attention to Shay Griffon who was seated amongst the crowd. Griffon is another casting director located in Atlanta who, according to Tyler, worked hard pushing for and getting the Georgia Congress to adopt the tax incentives for the media industry.
“Its about the tax incentive,” Tyler said. “More productions will be here and people will see that actors coming from Los Angeles are coming to stay.”
While media industries such as BET and Tyler Perry Studios are focusing on shooting in Atlanta and bringing in local talent, majority of the work in the industry is still coming from casting directors and producers located in Los Angeles. Tyler, on the contrary, focuses on just the local talent needed for extras and cameo roles.
Tyler revealed instances where she has experienced producers and media industry workers hesitant to work with her because she’s located in Georgia.
“People don’t trust that the talent here in Atlanta can do it,” Tyler said. She said the creation of film projects and by the time they eventually come to Atlanta, they have been “marinated in L.A.”
Another issue discussed was the majority of pre- and post-production that still residing in L.A. Behind the scenes work, such as sound engineering, editing and casting still takes place in Los Angeles. This potentially creates a barrier for any other city, such as Atlanta, to be a full contender in the media industry.
According to Jenkins, Atlanta has the location, the infrastructure and the talent to get the media industry to set up here in the peach state.
“A very conservative effort [and] collaboration [is needed]… we could come together and find a way to collaborate from the ground up so productions are generated here,” Jenkins said.
The topic of rejection was brought up amongst the panel and the connection it has in respect to Atlanta developing as a media hub. They disputed whether rejection is really part of a so-called learning experience.
“You have to be inspired by failure,” Jennifer Hold, an associate professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbra, said. “Because [Los Angeles] is a city of failure.”
Jenkins denounced the notion of constant rejection in the media industry stating that the business could move away from cruel rejection if the industry moved outside of Hollywood.
“Why crush perfectly good talent?” Jenkins revoked at Hold, claiming that the industry wastes perfectly good talent.
Jenkins said failure is not a result of actors and writers not being able to rise above required standards, but because they “ran into some difficult situations and people…we can change that by doing [business] in Atlanta.”
Atlanta could be the place to improve and perfect movie industry potential that Hollywood does not work with. If Atlanta took the initiative to improve talent, it could get the industry rolling and growing in the city.
