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Georgia film incentives hit sweet note for The Last Song

Atlanta, GA (Vocus) April 2, 2010

At least five high-profile productions filmed in Georgia are slated to hit movie theaters in the next few months, including Why Did I Get Married Too?, Get Low, Five Killers and Due Date. The Last Song, a Miley Cyrus vehicle, opened March 31. In addition, The Blind Side and The Crazies, both still in theaters, were filmed in Georgia and have grossed a combined total of more than $ 292 million at the box office.

In fact, entertainment productions in Georgia have increased 400 percent since the state introduced an aggressive tax credit package in 2008. More than 100 feature films, television series, specials and pilots have been produced in Georgia since then, helping catapult the state into the top five in the nation for film and TV production in 2009, and landing it in the top spot in the Southeast.

“Our ability to provide a variety of astounding locations, a highly-skilled workforce, significant infrastructure and cutting-edge tax incentives makes Georgia an extremely desirable place to film,” said Bill Thompson, deputy commissioner of the Film, Music & Digital Entertainment Division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. “Georgia offers everything production companies are looking for, which has enabled us to attract projects ranging from TV series like Vampire Diaries and Drop Dead Diva to feature films such as The Blind Side, Zombieland and The Joneses. We’re excited about the opening of The Last Song and look forward to a successful run of all of these Georgia-made movies.”

The Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act provides an income tax credit of 20 percent to qualified productions, and an additional 10 percent tax credit to productions that embed a Georgia promotional logo in the titles or credits, or as product placement within the content of the production. The tax credits may be awarded to not only traditional feature films, television series, commercials and music videos, but also to innovative new industries such as video game development and animation. Since Georgia increased its competitiveness in mid-2008, the program has generated more than $ 950 million dollars in direct investment, yielding an overall economic impact of over $ 1.6 billion to the state.

Filmed on Tybee Island and at the Georgia Aquarium, The Last Song is a coming-of-age drama film written by Nicholas Sparks and starring Miley Cyrus, Greg Kinnear, Kelly Preston and Liam Hemsworth. Miley Cyrus plays the role of Veronica “Ronnie” Miller, a rebellious seventeen-year-old forced to spend the summer with her estranged father in Tybee Island, where she finds love and manages to reconnect with her father again through their love for music.

“We’ve had a very positive experience with The Last Song filming on Tybee Island,” said Lindsay Fruchtl, marketing coordinator of the Tybee Island Tourism Council. “The Georgia Department of Economic Development has been very supportive and helpful along the way and we welcome production companies to film on Tybee Island. The Georgia coast in general has such a unique ecosystem and what makes Tybee Island so special is that we’ve got five miles of beach to work with and our close proximity to the Savannah area.”

Written and directed by Tyler Perry, Why Did I Get Married Too? is a comedy-drama film about four close couples gathering in the Bahamas for an annual one-week reunion. Their week in paradise comes to a halt when they are disrupted by an unexpected guest, with life-altering consequences. Stars include Tyler Perry, Janet Jackson and Tasha Smith. The film will be released Friday, April 2. Tyler Perry Studios is located in Atlanta, Ga. Perry has filmed all his movies in Georgia, as well as his TV shows Meet the Browns and House of Payne.

Scheduled for release this summer are Killers and Get Low. Killers, starring Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl and Tom Selleck, was filmed in Atlanta, Douglasville, Buford and at Riverwood Studios in Senoia. Heigl’s character, Jennifer Kornfeldt, falls in love and rushes into marriage with Spencer Aimes, played by Kutcher. The two enjoy a picture-perfect marriage until they find out they are targets of a multi-million dollar hit job in the action comedy film.

Get Low is an American folktale and real-life legend about the mysterious, 1930s Tennessee hermit who famously threw his own funeral party. The cast includes Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, Lucas Black and Bill Cobb. The film was shot in locations in Georgia that have changed little over the generations, including the small town of Crawfordville, the Gaither Plantation in Covington, a beautiful old church near Sparta, and Pickett’s Mill Battlefield near Dallas, Ga.

Coming to the big screen in November of this year is Due Date, a comedy film starring Robert Downey, Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Michelle Monaghan and Jamie Foxx. Downey plays a highly-strung, father who finds himself on a cross-country road trip with an aspiring actor. The film was shot at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Hampton and Gainesville.

More than 700 film and television productions have been shot in Georgia since 1972, including Driving Miss Daisy, Sweet Home Alabama, My Cousin Vinny (check spelling Vinny or Vinney?), Forrest Gump, Fireproof, We Are Marshall, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, the Emmy Award-winning HBO film Warm Springs, In the Heat of the Night and The Dukes of Hazzard. These projects have generated $ 5 billion dollars in economic impact over the last 38 years. Entertainment fans can expect to see more Georgia scenery and actors on movie and TV screens as the state’s aggressive entertainment incentives, ability to provide a variety of settings, temperate weather, and excellence in customer service attract the world’s top productions.

About Georgia’s Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Division

The Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Division conducts extensive business development, sales, marketing and promotional activities in order to attract entertainment projects and businesses to the state. The division’s team also assists the local, national and international entertainment industries with information, expertise and resources. It is a division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD), the sales and marketing arm of the State of Georgia. For more information, please visit http://www.georgia.org/fmde.

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Copyright © 2009 Ed Bagley

It is not often when the coaches and the media agree on their opinion of who should be in the preseason Top 25 college football polls, but this year at least their Top 5 picks are mirror images—Florida (1), Texas (2), Oklahoma (3), Southern California (4) and Alabama (5).

Of a possible 60 first-place votes in the media’s AP Top 25 Poll, Florida collected 58 votes and Texas 2, setting a record (96+%) for the most first-place votes since the poll was first started in 1950, long before there were ever Bowl Championship Series (BCS) games.

Florida is such an overwhelming favorite that one might think there is no need to play the games this year, since the Gators will probably run the table (go unbeaten). This, of course, is sheer nonsense.

Florida won the National Championship for the 2006 and 2008 seasons and, if it repeats during 2009, the Gators would become only the second team to do so since Nebraska won the National Championship 3 out of 4 years, winning the title outright in 1994 and 1995, and splitting the title in 1997.

However, going unbeaten to do so is entirely another matter. It is tough to go undefeated in a major conference, and then win the national title.

For openers, only one team (Utah at 13-0) went undefeated last season, and that happened because Utah does not play in a major conference. It the Utes played in the SEC, Pacific 10, Big 12 or Big Ten Conferences, there is no way they would be undefeated.

Florida, Southern Cal and Texas all lost a game last season. Oklahoma and Alabama were beaten twice.

You may be interested to know that the best team in the nation statistically last year was not Florida, which won the National Championship by beating Oklahoma 24-14, but rather Southern Cal. That’s right, USC. Maybe that is why Florida won; they were playing Oklahoma and not Southern Cal for the title.

Oklahoma had a great offensive team—ranking 1st nationally in scoring (51+ points), 3rd in passing offense (349+ yards per game) and 3rd in total offense (547+), but the Sooner defense was nothing to get excited about. They were 99th in pass defense, 68th in total defense and 58th scoring defense. There are only 119 BCS (Division 1-A) teams.

Florida’s pass defense was ranked 20th, and the Gators held Oklahoma to only 14 points, despite Oklahoma having the No. 1 scoring offense in the country. Shoot, the Sooners scored 51 points a game but gave up 24 a game, exactly what Florida scored to win the title. The Gators were ranked 4th in scoring defense, giving up only 13 (12.93) points a game. That shows you how accurate averaged statistics can be over the course of a season.

Texas was horrific in passing defense, ranking 104th of 119 teams. You may recall that Texas Tech beat Texas last year 39-33 on a pass play by NFL first-round pick Michael Crabtree. Texas A&M got swamped by Texas last year 49-9, in part because Texas A&M’s passing defense was ranked 95th, only slightly better than Texas, which had the 7th best passing offense.

Alabama was 7th in scoring offense last year, but its passing offense was 97th (yikes) and its total offense was only 63rd. The Crimson Tide defense won most of their games, ranking 2nd in rushing defense, 3rd in total defense and 7th in scoring defense. Sounds a whole lot like their coach Nick Seban.

So what is the big deal with Southern Cal? Well, its offense was pretty balanced, ranking 22nd in rushing, passing and scoring. The defense was the best in the nation, ranking 1st in passing defense and 1st in scoring defense, 2nd in total defense, and 5th in rushing defense.

Think about it, leading the nation in 2 defensive categories and being among the top 5 in rushing and passing defense, total defense and scoring defense. USC’s one loss came on the road at Oregon State, 27-21.

Was USC unfairly penalized by the pollsters when selecting the BCS title game participants? I think so. Heck, Alabama lost 31-20 to Florida on the road, so the Gators deserved a shot.

But Oklahoma? Get real. The Sooners lost to Texas at home, 45-35. Just the score of the game itself makes you shiver, 80 points between them, as opposed to 48 points between USC and Oregon State, and USC was on the road. If Oklahoma thinks Oregon State (9-4 last year) was a pushover, they should play the Beavers at home, where they were 5-1, losing only to Oregon.

So what does it all mean? Well, Oklahoma was the best offensive team in the country last year, and Southern Cal was the best defensive team; there is no argument when you look at the statistics.

Despite being the best offensive team in the country, Oklahoma could not beat Florida, losing 24-14. Southern Cal, which dispatched No. 6 Penn State 31-16, in the BCS Rose Bowl Game, might well have held Florida to fewer than 24 points. We will never know.

What we do know is that Southern Cal had a better passing offense, a more balanced offense, and a much better passing defense than Florida.

There is a reason why the Sagarin College Football Ratings show Southern Cal, not Florida, as the top team in its 2009 preseason poll. That reason is because the ratings are based on last year’s actual statistics and results, not opinion.

As I see it, Florida was fortunate that it faced Oklahoma, which has lost 4 of its last 5 BCS games. In other words, lame like Ohio State, which has lost two straight BCS National Championship Games to Florida and LSU in 2006 and 2007, and then lost again to Texas in its BCS game last year.

Let’s just say it—the East Coast bias among coaches and media is really bad. Two factors drive this inequity. One is population as 58% of the people (approximately 175 of 300 million) live on the East Coast. The second is the time difference as the West Coast is 3 hours behind the East Coast.

When media types get done watching football games Saturday around 10:30 p.m. EST, key games are just beginning on the West Coast and are never seen by poll voters. They are overwhelmed with watching East Coast football, and remain a servant slave to it.

If the powers to be had any size grapefruits at all, when Florida got rid of Oklahoma, their next assignment for the national title should have been Southern Cal, and then we would have seen the rubber hit the road.

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Mine: Alaska because it’s too isolated, cold, and no real big city, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama because of hurricanes. What are yours?

P.S. I the love the USA