Film industry in Columbus requires infrastructure, local workforce. Why it slowed down

Editor’s note: This is part three of a three-part series on the film industry in Columbus. Read part one and part two on ledger-enquirer.com.

Making Columbus the third leg of Georgia’s film industry became a goal in 2019, but the pandemic — followed by strikes — made building a local workforce and bringing in productions difficult.

The goal was for Columbus to utilize a $5 million film fund, a studio, an annual film festival and workforce development to lure more productions to Muscogee County and develop a sustainable industry, Peter Bowden, president and CEO of VisitColumbusGA, said in a 2019 statement .

“This is still a goal,” Joel Slocumb, commissioner of the Columbus Film Office, told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email. “But as the industry changes, we have to be flexible and adapt our strategy to maintain focus for success.”

The film industry is different from other industries like manufacturing or retail, Slocumb said. It’s about building relationships, he said, which Columbus is working on.

“It ebbs and flows and changes with every project being unique with its own set of challenges and opportunities,” Slocumb said.

Filming in Columbus

Film and television productions spent $4.1 billion in Georgia during fiscal year 2023, according to the Georgia Film Office, with the state hosting 390 productions.

This included 31 feature films, 55 independent films, 241 television and episodic productions, 40 commercials and 23 music videos.

Over the past 10 years, around 14 projects have been filmed in Muscogee County, according to the Georgia Film Office, and most of them were independent projects. The budgets for these projects ranged from $2 million to $10 million, Slocumb said.

Around 45 to 75 people were hired as crew and cast on the projects, he said, and 25 to 100 people were background extras.

Projects spent between 5 and 20 days filming in Columbus..

Productions using Columbus as a location can impact service-related businesses in the region to fill needs including material for building sets, wardrobes, food, transportation, lodging and entertainment, Slocumb said.

The direct spending in Columbus ranges from about 3% to 3.25% of the total project budget, he said.

Kane recently had 85 crew members in Columbus for almost a month working on two films, he said.

“(The crew) spent, on average, $40 to $50 a day on gas, cigarettes, food, clothing, hairspray and toothpaste,” Kane said. “...They spent about $100,000 of their own income while they were there just on (daily living).”

Building a labor force in Columbus

Typically, when a producer brings a project into Columbus they bring in their own crew, said Marc Womack, owner of the Columbus-based media production company Sub7 .

“That’s just the way feature films work,” Womack said. “A director’s not going to ‘Hey, I need a camera guy that’s in Columbus’ because he already works with somebody — or she already works with somebody — that they’re comfortable with.”

Since many productions bring workers in from outside of Columbus, the film commission is taking steps to help local crewmembers find work, Slocumb said.

“We are launching a database in the near future to give locals the opportunity to create a listing of services, talent (and more),” he said. “So, filmmakers or producers can research what is available on the local level.”

If building awareness of Columbus as a good location is phase one, Womack said, then creating an infrastructure and growing the local workforce is phase two.

Other Georgia cities, like Savannah, have good incentives for productions, said Caleb Money, co-owner of Columbus-based Village Film. But more importantly, other cities have a robust labor force and a union.

Students are coming out of Columbus State University with some training in the film industry, Money said, but the real training is working on a film set.

“It’s like the chicken or the egg,” Money said. “We can’t build this labor force without the productions operating here, but we can’t have the productions operating here without that labor force.”

CSU students trained in lighting, set building and graphic art, and electricians, are graduating with few options for them to use the skills on a film set in Columbus, Womack said. The recent grads move away.

Womack believes film studios can help create an infrastructure where Columbus can operate from the start of the project to post-production.

Flat Rock Studio

John Mock co-founded Story Mill Entertainment and manages Flat Rock Studio in Columbus with his wife, Alayna.

Flat Rock Studio is a production campus with almost 80 gated and fenced acres and houses CSU’s Virtual Communication Certificate program and Nexus in film production.

The studio helps provide CSU students with internship opportunities, while Story Mill Entertainment helps local talent and crewmembers find work through the production company.

“In terms of the crew, we’ve had a really great response from the local community who are crewmembers,” Mock told the Ledger-Enquirer.

This includes people from Columbus who moved away to cities like Atlanta, he said, but want to come back to Muscogee County. They are looking for predictability and a work schedule that full-time productions in Columbus could support.

Mock prioritizes working with homegrown filmmakers, like Trey Walker , because it helps the crew and the producers.

“(It) helps elevate them and get them to the next level, so that they’re able to access more money and bigger budgets,” Mock said. “It just kind of snowballs.”

And having local crews on homegrown productions helps workers get in more experience working on a film set, he said. The more experience the crew has, the better they’ll get.

Strikes and an empty studio

The past couple of years have been really challenging for Flat Rock Studio and the industry in general, Mock said.

This is not just a Columbus problem, but a nationwide issue in the film industry.

At the start of 2023, a lot of productions were stalled because of COVID-19. Projects began moving forward for a short period until people got concerned about strikes, Mock said.

Leading up to the strike, many productions didn’t get off the ground, he said. Actors didn’t want to get attached to projects that could get stopped, Mock said. And financiers and studios didn’t want to invest in projects that weren’t going to be finished.

“They didn’t want money tied up for an indefinite amount of time,” he said. “And so not a lot of projects got off the ground.”

Last year, both the Writers Guild of America strike and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists went on strike. The situation wasn’t resolved until November last year, Mock said.

“The way the entertainment industry works, it’s like these sprints in between holidays and major festivals,” he said.

The strike was resolved around Thanksgiving with very little time to work before Christmas, Mock said, so people were hopeful that the industry would get back to work in January.

But in January, the Teamsters contract was almost up and there were rumors of another strike.

“A lot of productions that wanted to come film here in Columbus, that wanted to film at Flat Rock, put things on hold,” Mock said.

Everything wasn’t resolved until July 31 this year, he said.

Making Columbus the third leg in the film industry may not be the best goal the city should aim for, Womack said.

It may be better to become the niche for certain aspects of feature films, he said, whether it be outdoor locations, car process, visual effects, graphic effects, post-production or pre-production.

“I feel like Columbus has an opportunity for that,” Womack said.

Despite the recent challenges, Mock still has optimism for the future of the film industry nationally and in Columbus.

“We are excited that the contracts are signed and there’s not going to be a strike for the next three years,” Mock said. “Financiers are anxious to put their money to work. And a lot of crew and actors want to get back to work.”