Spring Hope Studios Founder Devin Keaton used the microphone at the weekly Tuesday luncheon gathering of the Rocky Mount Rotary Club to, in part, advocate for approval of pending state legislation to provide greater incentives for film producers to be able to operate in North Carolina’s less prosperous counties.
Spring Hope is in the far western part of Nash County, which the N.C. Commerce Department currently ranks as a Tier 1 county. A Tier 1 ranking is the lowest of the three tiers among the state’s 100 counties.
That means the county is economically distressed, but one positive is that the ranking gives the county advantages when seeking incentives from the state.
Keaton also shared with Rotarians how he ended up establishing a car dealership as well as a studio in the Spring Hope area. Keaton and his partners have made clear they intend to make Spring Hope the home of a permanent world-class studio.
Keaton, 33, was born and raised in Georgia, but he spent his teenage years in Los Angeles and became an actor who wanted to establish a movie studio.
Keaton, who also has a passion for vehicles, decided to take the money he had earned as an actor and establish a car dealership in Newnan, Ga., which is along the Interstate 85 corridor southwest of Atlanta.
Keaton spoke of that dealership growing from a small warehouse with three or four vehicles to a location with more than 130 vehicles, including Ferraris and Lamborghinis.
Keaton spoke of he and his team wanting to establish a second location and having pulled a report to find out where the out-of-state customers were coming from — and the data showed that most of them were coming from North Carolina.
Keaton also said that in Georgia and at the time he was establishing the dealership in Newnan, just to the east of Newnan, in the economically struggling small town of Senoia, “The Walking Dead” television series was being produced.
Also, not long after that, Pinewood Atlanta Studios, which today is Trilith Studios, was opened southwest of Atlanta.
Keaton spoke of seeing what happened in that area, particularly in Senoia because of the infusion of movie-production money, massive outside attention and an inflow of tourists.
“It was a game-changer on every level,” Keaton said. “All of a sudden, job opportunities were everywhere.”
Keaton said he saw the development that happened first-hand.
“No advertisement can do the justice that a film can do, period,” Keaton said. “People could pay tons of money on commercials, but a film, that’s something special — and that’s something that people really resonate with.”
Keaton’s parents live in Cary in the Research Triangle area and were looking to start a wedding venue venture. The couple enlisted their son’s help.
What happened next was the finding of a ranch northwest of Spring Hope.
Keaton said the Seven Paths Manor wedding venue is booked out all the way until the end of 2026.
Keaton also said that he was awestruck when he got to Spring Hope and saw the town’s potential because he believed the town resembled Senoia prior to the arrival of the filmmaking industry there.
Keaton also said that he began researching and found out North Carolina had been called the “Hollywood of the East,” with the filmmaking industry in the state mainly being concentrated in Wilmington and aided statewide by an offer of a 25 percent tax credit for certain expenses.
Keaton spoke of the majority of North Carolina’s lawmakers allowing the tax credit for the filmmaking industry to come to an end in 2014, with the tax credit replaced by a grant program.
Keaton said that consequently, film producers did not want to make movies in North Carolina.
Instead, he said, “They all went to Georgia.”
He spoke of North Carolina having relented and allowing a 25 percent rebate via a grant system for certain expenses, but putting a $30 million cap in place.
That cap has hampered the ability of filmmakers to engage in more massive productions in Wilmington, Keaton said.
He made clear that he is not interested in having such large productions in the Spring Hope area, but he emphasized the region being in a prime location and, particularly, being less than an hour’s drive from Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Not only that, he said, one can book direct flights from RDU to and from Los Angeles and New York.
And he said that is a big deal.
“When people are filming projects, they want to fly in, get their stuff done, fly back home to their families for the weekend — and fly back on Monday and continue their work,” he said.
Currently, he is advocating for the passage of N.C. House Bill 301, which would increase the 25 percent rebate to 35 percent for filmmakers who engage in production in Tier 1 and Tier 2 counties.
Although he would like the $30 million cap to be lifted, he said of the bill, “If that goes through, we’d have that extra 10 percent, which would really be enticing to filmmakers.”
Keaton, in speaking to the Rocky Mount Rotarians, also gave a slideshow-like presentation.
He briefly referred to and showed a rendering of the future permanent studio in the Spring Hope area. The plan is for that studio to have at least 170,000 square feet of studio space and six soundstages.
In an interview afterward, Keaton said of the progress of that project that the grading work has been done but that a lot goes into such construction, including having a power grid, sewage and plumbing.
Asked about a timetable to complete that project, Keaton said he and his partners are hoping at least two of the soundstages could be built by the end of the year.
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