Denise works with GFCC as a Strategic Partner in assisting interested parties through the tax credit process. Our goal is to maximize the tax credit opportunities, complete filings in the most beneficial manner, secure additional requirements per project, and then process the sale of the tax credits. GFCC provides turnkey services in order to create greater ROI for production in Georgia.

Denise Evans Elsbree is currently founding Partner of TRIO media group in Atlanta. TRIO works with industry leaders in North America providing complete marketing services. TRIO handles PR, Reputation Management, Advertising and Interactive services for both national and international clients.
Previously, Denise Evans Elsbree founded StayOnline.net in 1997 and built the high tech company into the largest wireless technology provider to the hospitality industry in the US, selling to LodgeNet in 2007.

Contact Denise Elsbree:
404.255.1070 x102
678.409.8394
denise@gfcc.us

Ron is a former Georgia State Senator. He was elected in 1992 to the Georgia State Senate representing the City of Atlanta and re-elected in 1994. Ron was instrumental in working with the State and the City in preparing for the 1996 Olympics.

After politics, Ron moved to Brazil where he headed up business development for Brightpoint, Inc., which is a global leader in the distribution of wireless devices and the provisioning of customized logistic services to the wireless industry.

Ron moved back to the U.S. and served as Publisher of Atlanta Jewish Life Magazine and also created a groundbreaking TV series in Atlanta.
Ron joined with Denise Elsbree in 2004 to start TRIO media group, which specializes in providing integrated marketing services (advertising, PR and website development) to help achieve increased sales results for their clients. TRIO was involved in writing the business plan for the 2008 Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act and helped with its passage. Ron maintains his contacts at the State Capitol as he continues to work with clients on government and public relations.

Contact Ron Slotin:
404.255.1970 x103
770.365.3723
ron@gfcc.us

Sandra Bullock may have a state tax credit waiting for you.

Seriously.

There is at least $40 million in unclaimed tax credits from film companies shooting in Georgia that you or a corporation can use to reduce state taxes.

Part of those tax credits are from “The Blind Side,” which was filmed around Atlanta and starred Bullock.

The credits can be used to reduce a company’s 2009 state tax liability, which is due to be filed March 15. They also can be used to cut individual state taxes, due April 15.

There is still enough time to get the paperwork done, officials said.

We’re talking taxes here, so it’s a little complicated to explain. Bear with me.

Here are the basics, which I got by interviewing Bill Thompson, head of Georgia’s Film, Music & Digital Entertainment division, and Denise Elsbree, a partner in Georgia Film Credit Consultants:

To prop up the state’s film industry, legislators passed a special tax credit in 2008 for entertainment companies (film, TV, music video and video games) to do their production work in Georgia.

The credit is primarily responsible for production skyrocketing in the state to $770 million in 2009, from $295 million in 2008, Thompson and Elsbree said. About 7,500 workers are employed in the industry.

The entertainment production companies, which can get a 30 percent tax credit for their spending here, cannot take full advantage of the incentive by themselves. That’s because their state tax liability is generally far lower than the credit is worth.

That’s where you or a company can come in. To enjoy more of the tax credit, the film companies need to share them with a third party, which is allowed by the legislation.

For example, a film company that spends $100 million would be eligible for a $30 million state credit. But its tax liability might only be $6 million, leaving $24 million on the table.

To avoid that, the company is willing to give up 10 percent to 15 percent of that $24 million, so it can get the remainder of the credit. In this case, you or another company would get a tax credit of between $2.4 million and $3.6 million.

The larger film producers generally want to deal with corporations with sizable state tax liabilities. But the smaller film companies are willing to deal with individuals, possibly those who owe as little as $10,000 in state taxes.

By the way, the credits are good for five years, but they cannot be transferred again.

There has not been much marketing or publicity about this credit because Thompson and other state officials have been spending most of their time trying to attract film companies to produce here.

But the word needs to get out, officials said, so the companies are able to take full advantage of the credit or they can decide to move to other states where they can. Some 40 states offer incentives to attract these companies.

For more details, you can go to the gacredits.com Web site or call the state’s Economic Development Department at 404-962-4052.

When it comes to deciding where to shoot these days, many producers will tell you they have Georgia on their mind.

Recent high-profile film releases lensed in the Peach State include “The Blind Side,” starring Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock, “The Last Song” with Miley Cyrus and Tyler Perry’s “Why Did I Get Married Too?” Set for the cine-plexes later in 2010: “The Conspirator,” directed by Robert Redford; “Lottery Ticket,” starring Ice Cube and Bow Wow; “The Killers,” with Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigel; and “Due Date,” starring Robert Downey Jr.

Productions have come flocking to Georgia ever since it boosted its film incentives to 30% in 2008. The hike made Georgia competitive with Louisiana, New Mexico and a handful of other states that have effectively used hefty tax breaks to lure shoots from Hollywood. More than 26 features were shot in Georgia in fiscal 2009, compared with only a couple two years earlier.

“We’re definitely in the top five states when it comes to film and television production and No. 1 in our region,” says Bill Thompson, deputy commissioner of Georgia’s Film, Music & Digital Entertainment office. Production spending has increased by more than 150% since the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act was signed two years ago, according to Thompson, who projects that total outlays could approach $1 billion in 2010.

Georgia provides a basic 20% incentive tax credit for film, television and videogame productions that spend at least $500,000 in a single year. An additional 10% is available if a production includes an animated State of Georgia logo in the titles or credits or some similar product placement within a film. On top of that, there is a sales tax exemption, worth up to 8%, on spending within the state for equipment or services.

“Our incentives are the easiest to use in the country,” Thompson says. “There is no sunset clause on the legislation, no limits or caps on Georgia spend, no limits or caps on the amount of tax credits that may be earned, and both residents and non-residents working in Georgia are treated the same,” he observes.

Because the financial incentives come in the form of credits, they have to be sold to a company or an individual that has Georgia taxable income, which usually is done through a broker intermediary.

“The value generally ranges between 85 and 90 cents on the dollar but can go up to 92 cents on premium credits, usually from large studios,” says Denise Elsbree, head of Georgia Film Credit Consultants. Since 2008 the business “has exploded,” she notes. “We feel we’ve become the go-to state, under consideration for just about any location that we even remotely resemble.”

Georgia’s tax benefits are leveraged against the state’s other attractions to filmmakers, from generally mild weather to a diverse topography that includes mountains, forests, swamps and 100 miles of seashore. Locations range from teeming urban environments to rural hamlets. Georgia also has a number of historic towns boasting unique period architecture.

Coastal Savannah, with its well-preserved streets and planned squares that hark back to its 18th-century founding, is where Forrest Gump sat on his bench and recently served as the period setting for “The Conspirator.” Disney’s “The Last Song” was shot at nearby Tybee Island.

“Making a movie in some of the neighborhoods can involve a lot friction,” says Jay Self, the long-time tourism and film services director for Savannah. “My job is to find a way to accommodate a production that is also good for the city.”

Atlanta is already a major media and entertainment complex with a music sector that registers annual revenues of about $2 billion. The city has become a center for hip-hop recordings, spawning stars such as Outkast and Ludacris. It is also the headquarters for Turner Broadcasting with its many cable networks.

It’s estimated that more than 25,000 Georgians owe their livelihood to some entertainment-related enterprise. Most important to production companies, Georgia has a deep and experienced film and television crew base that tops 6,000. “We can handle up to 10 film and television productions simultaneously,” Thompson says.

Broderick Johnson, one of the producers of Alcon Entertainment’s “The Blind Side,” says the positive experience of shooting in Georgia drew the company back to do “The Lottery Ticket,” which hits theaters in August. In addition to offering creatively appealing locations for both films, “The magnitude of Georgia’s tax break is one of the best, if not the best, in the country,” he says. Georgia trumps other states with attractive breaks because “it has such a mature crew base you can hire almost everyone locally, so the value of the credit is bigger.”

A strong testament to Georgia’s incentives appeal to filmmakers is, indeed, repeat business. “Everything about shooting here was tremendous,” says Marc Fischer, executive producer of “Hall Pass,” directed by the Farrelly brothers and starring Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis. The pic recently finished shooting in and around Atlanta.

Georgia served as a substitute for New England, and it was both more economical and easier to shoot the film in Atlanta instead of Boston, Fischer notes. He also praises the city’s amenities. “There’s a Morton’s, a Palm and amazing shops,” he says. “Our wardrobe people from Los Angeles were able to find everything here.”

Because of the positive experience with “Hall Pass,” the next two films Fischer is working on are also set to be filmed in Georgia. “Walter the Farting Dog,” based on a children’s book of the same name, will begin filming in August. And the much-anticipated “Three Stooges” project — tentatively starring Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and “very possibly Jim Carrey,” according to Fischer — starts prepping in Atlanta in January. “We’ve really found a home here,” he says.

Georgia ranked third in a list of top places to film by industry publication P3. The report noted the opening of the Panavision Atlanta facility and quoted Margit Elo, president of U.S. operations at Panavision, raving about what Hollywood South has to offer: “Atlanta provides a wide variety of looks, from rural to urban. It has a talented and well-established crew base, growing production infrastructure … easy access by air from all directions, and a strong technology infrastructure.”

P3’s list of “Top 10 Locations in the Universe” ranked California and Connecticut ahead of Georgia. Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, and North Carolina also made the list, which also cited Canada, New Zealand and the UK as great filming spots.

Here at home, the Georgia Department of Economic Development keeps a close eye on what’s filming and when the finished product will be released. Here’s a list of some of the major films shot here last year, with their stars in parentheses, along with their scheduled release dates:

“Joyful Noise” (Queen Latifah, Dolly Parton): Jan. 13

“Good Deeds” (Tyler Perry, Thandie Newton, Gabrielle Union, Phylicia Rashad): Feb. 24

“Wanderlust” (Jennifer Aniston, Paul Rudd): Feb. 24

“The Three Stooges” (Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes Will Sasso, Jennifer Hudson, Jane Lynch and some of the “Jersey Shore” crew): April 4

“American Reunion” (Alyson Hannigan, Tara Reid, Chris Klein, Eugene Levy, Jason Biggs, Jennifer Coolidge, Katrina Bowden, Thomas Ian Nicholas and Seann William Scott): April 6

“The Wettest County” (Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Mia Wasikowska, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Jessica Chastain): April 20

“What to Expect When You’re Expecting” (Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Dennis Quaid, Chris Rock, Matthew Morrison, Brooklyn Decker and Anna Kendrick)

May 11; “Neighborhood Watch” (Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Ben Stiller): July 27

“The Odd Life of Timothy Green” (Jennifer Garner): Aug. 15.

“Parental Guidance” (Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Marisa Tomei, Tom Everett Scott): Thanksgiving 2012.

The Billy Bob Thornton project “Jayne Mansfield’s Car,” also starring Kevin Bacon, John Hurt, Robert Patrick and Robert Duvall, is set to come out in 2013.

- Jennifer Brett/The Buzz/jbrett@ajc.com

(original article from Georgia Trend)

Sometimes in life and politics, just like in the movies, the third time is the charm. It’s certainly true for Georgia’s film industry.

Georgia has had a film commission since 1973, after the hit film Deliverance was released, and the state remained a popular location for a decade or so. Then Canada passed a tax incentive and stole a lot of the movie thunder. “Canada looks a lot like Georgia,” says William VanDerKloot, founder of production and post-production company VanDerKloot Film & Television and co-president of Georgia Production Partnership (GPP).

A nonprofit formed to help promote film and television production in the state, GPP was established in 1995 when the film industry was again hurting in Georgia; Louisiana had passed a tax incentive like Canada’s. The GPP urged Georgia to pass a similar incentive, but it wasn’t until 2002 that then-Gov. Roy Barnes signed into law a sales and use tax exemption that helped the film industry. Under Gov. Sonny Perdue, in 2005, the legislature created a tax credit; but it wasn’t until after the third try, when the measure was retooled in 2008, that Georgia’s entertainment industry exploded. Now things are looking more like they were 35 years ago. “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” says VanDerKloot.

The landmark legislation, the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act (HB 1100), provides a 20 percent transferable tax credit for production companies that spend a minimum of $500,000 in the state. An additional 10 percent credit is available if the production company uses a Georgia promotional logo in the finished project.

“In 2007, our [film industry] economic impact was $244 million,” says Lee Thomas, film director at the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Office. “By fiscal year 2011, it is up to $2.4 billion. Twenty percent of that economic impact happened in this past year.

In fact, Georgia is now among the top five states in the country for film and TV production, with more than 335 projects shot in Georgia in fiscal year 2010. That equals more than $759.3 million in investment, according to the GDEcD.

“The whole business has changed,” says Thomas. “Back when I was here in 1996, it was all about location. We lost a lot then, when Louisiana put more aggressive incentives in place, so our [film business] fell off from the heyday in the ‘80s. The sales use tax exemption Barnes put in in 2002 helped some; then in 2005 the tax credit, signed by Perdue, created a convoluted, tiered system based on Georgia hires and the location of the shot. Since 2008, we’ve had a better incentive.”

At 30 percent, Thomas says, “that puts us neck and neck with Louisiana, without buying back tax credits like they do.”

The 2008 tax credit legislation was pushed by former State Sen. Mitch Seabaugh and defended by Gov. Nathan Deal when it came before a tax commission this year.

Companies with no state income tax liability earn tax credits that can then be sold to Georgia corporations, says Thomas. “A company like Paramount could come in, make a movie, earn tax credits, then can go through a brokerage or go to their own group and sell the credits to corporations – it isn’t overseen by the state, but companies can get tax credits up to 85 cents on the dollar to go toward their tax payment – so, if they owe a thousand, they pay $850 instead.”

Money, Not Location

“Now, it is all about money,” says VanDerKloot. “You can’t get away from it, especially now with technology. Chicago was shot in Toronto. You can shoot anywhere and make downtown Atlanta look like Mars. So location no longer matters. When companies budget for productions and look at whoever’s financing it, there is only a budget for these [incentive] states, unless you’re one or two A-listers who can choose exactly where they want to shoot. Most everyone else is dictated by the bottom line.”

Being on the short list, combined with 40 years of experience with what the late Georgia-born musician and actor Jerry Reed (who filmed many movies here) called “pitcha’ makin’,” has been a good one-two marketing punch for Georgia, according to a panel put together by CREW-Atlanta (Commercial Real Estate Women), a networking and business development group interested in the real estate opportunities provided by the film activity.

“Hopefully this is just the beginning,” Craig Dominey, senior location specialist and project manager for GDEcD, tells the panel. “If the incentives went away, we wouldn’t lose all the business, but if it remains in place, the growth should continue.”

Kris Bagwell is executive vice president of EUE/Screen Gems, which made a big splash recently by purchasing the old Lakewood Fairgrounds in south Atlanta, where it’s built a 37,500-square-foot soundstage along with office space, a mill shop and lighting and grip facilities. It’s where Burt Reynolds blew up the roller coaster in Smokey and the Bandit II, but has pretty much been out of movie use ever since – although it did have a good 20-year run as an antiques mall and flea market site. There are a number of historic structures on the property that simply look like movie sets (and will be preserved). Bagwell tells the CREW panel the Atlanta location and tax credits were crucial to his decision to build his studio there and that he often lobbies to keep the incentives in place.

“We did a return on investment study on tax credits,” says Bagwell. “Some states only break even or worse, but in Georgia the bill is crafted in a way that the state is making money. While some states do rebates – say you spend $10 million, they will write you a check for $2- or $3-million back. Tax credits are a more defensible way of doing business. It’s kind of astonishing. I only wish this model could work for any industry; it’s created 10 times [the] economic growth in three years, based on a smart government public-private partnership.”

Bagwell adds that it is good for Georgia to court production because “it is an expensive business. We see projects that range from several million to several hundred million. Television has become as expensive as film – USA spends $2.5 million an episode for Necessary Roughness (shot at EUE/Screen Gems).”

Legislators have been shown film is good for jobs: In 2007 there were 11,800 full-time equivalent jobs, according to the GDEcD’s Thomas, and there are now 25,000 in Georgia, more than double the number in four years. “There are small armies that come in,” Bagwell says. “For Necessary Roughness, they had a crew of about 230 people. On our lot, we have BET in one building and USA in other, and about 75 percent of their crew is hired local. Georgia is known for having strong crew. But we need more. If companies can’t find enough, they will bring in more L.A. people, so it’s better for us to train more local people, which is why colleges are ramping up their film programs.”

“Production is like a construction business,” says VanDerKloot. “You can have full-time digital artists, then on location you hire lighting, technicians, actors, designers, makeup, very much like construction brings in plumbing, cement and electric – some days there are dozens of people on payroll. That’s the way it works even in the largest companies – there are no full-time camera people on payroll at major studios. It’s all freelance.”

Part of Georgia’s appeal is its number of colleges and universities putting out “highly skilled, highly creative people, as well as its huge employers like Turner Broadcasting System,” says VanDerKloot. “We are building up a critical mass of people, and it helps everything. These are the kind of people who support the arts and start up new business, and it feeds on itself. All that grows the whole creative community.

“A rising tide lifts all boats. There are more equipment rental companies, new inventory and more businesses opening up. It’s invigorated the whole industry, and people like Screen Gems – brick and mortar investments – wouldn’t have had the ability to do it without the tax incentive,” VanDerKloot says.

“We’ve also got good locations, temperate climate, good infrastructure, flights from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which is all helpful,” says GDEcD’s Thomas. “The longer the incentive stays in place, the more infrastructure like EUE/Screen Gems will come to Georgia. Or return – like Panavision, which closed in 1998 but is back, renting a big showroom on the Westside. There is a tremendous amount of new vendors coming in, and the crew is getting back into business. We’re also absorbing some of those who have been laid off – we have 12 television series on the ground right now, which is a real indicator of long-term growth. They’re not afraid to plant the flag.”

The film industry tax incentive has been good for commercial and office real estate: Many vacant properties have been made impromptu sets and offices. “We use the Atlanta Civic Center often,” says Thomas. “Right now, Family Feud is in the auditorium part, and Three Stooges is filming in the exhibit space. All throughout Atlanta, production companies use warehouses, and in this economy, that’s been a savior for small landlords. They may only use 15,000 square feet of office for eight months, but that’s a real boost.” The film office also assists with leasing furnished homes to movie stars and directors, says Thomas.

Ready, Set, Shoot

The GDEcD’s Dominey runs the state’s Camera Ready Program, which works with communities that want to attract film and TV projects. The localities name a liaison to the GDEcD to facilitate shoots, submit an application and, once approved, are designated Camera Ready Communities.

“Newnan and Covington have shows rolling in there all the time,” Dominey says. “Covington calls itself the ‘Holly-wood of South,’ and because of Dukes and In The Heat of the Night, tourists come looking for those locations. We still get calls about those shows, and My Cousin Vinny, and Smokey and the Bandit. And now, to this generation, The Vampire Diaries draws tourists from all over the world. In Juliette, Fried Green Tomatoes saved the town [in the early ‘90s]; the restaurant is still there, and they live off the tourism.”

“We have a five-person office, but a designee from each county can be a film liaison, help keep a database of location photos and arrange shoots with the local Department of Transportation, find a 24-hour dry cleaners, caterers and so forth,” says Thomas. A total of 112 of 159 Georgia counties are designated Camera Ready.

For small towns like Cedartown, to get Jayne Mansfield’s Car, starring Kevin Bacon, Robert Duvall and John Hurt, was a big deal, says Thomas. “For Covington, it’s nothing for the The Vampire Diaries to guarantee 2,500 hotel rooms. Get Low had a similar impact on Crawfordville, in Taliaferro County. (Producer Dean Zanuck’s father, Richard Zanuck, made his own impact on Georgia filmmaking, with the 1989 Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy.)

Atlanta Film Studios Paulding County is under construction in Hiram, says Thomas. The 80,000-square-foot campus includes two 20,000-square-foot soundstages along with room for production offices, storage, dressing rooms and wardrobe space. It’s the first production facility in decades to be developed in the metro area outside Atlanta’s city limits.

Dominey estimates the number of film-induced tourism dollars since 2005 at $430 million.

As good as Georgia’s three-year-old tax credit has been for moviemaking, there are those who would like to see it go further. VanDerKloot believes that the measure needs to be tweaked to keep up with Hollywood technology.

“One thing would be to take out the line about footage having to have been recorded in Georgia,” says VanDerKloot. “A great deal of movies are now done after the shooting stops – Avatar, for example, was almost entirely made in windowless rooms on computers. So much more is done in what we call post-production. We used to do editing with razors, and now it’s silicon chips creating whole new worlds, such that post is sometimes a far bigger budget than production.

“So even if it was shot somewhere else, and the producer wanted to come to Georgia to add special effects, they wouldn’t be afforded the credit. The good thing about post is that it involves bricks and mortar and really high-paid jobs – the same people that are covered in doing video gaming.”

Sound of Music

The GPP music equivalent – Georgia Music Partners (GMP) – is pushing to widen the tax credit to include music production (it already includes gaming). “We’re happy with the film credit – it includes soundtrack work,” says Simon Horrocks, co-founder of Affix Music, an Atlanta-based music licensing company, and co-president of the GMP. “But we are losing business to other states like Louisiana and Tennessee that offer tax incentives to the recording industry. Atlanta and Athens are popular now, but going forward we have to stay ahead of the curve.”

Georgia has a good reputation among recording artists and a smart work force to support emerging trends. “Georgia Institute of Technology has a master’s in Music Technology, and now it even has a Ph.D.,” says Horrocks. “Let’s face it, the airport is a huge factor and also having such a rich media company as Turner being here.”

A study of the Georgia music industry by Georgia Tech economist William Riall for Georgia Music Partners puts the economic impact at nearly 20,000 jobs and $314 million in state and local tax revenues. “The restructuring of the music industry,” Riall notes, “which will likely occur with considerable speed, presents a narrow window of opportunity for Georgia to attract the talent and technology needed to establish Georgia’s music industry at a higher level. Doing so would also be a significant adjunct to Georgia’s growing movie production industry.”

Georgia legislators may be loathe to surrender more tax credits as they struggle to plug a budget deficit, but it is well worth considering the impact HB 1100 has had and whether it could apply to other creative industries to grow Georgia’s cluster, says Tammy Hurt, founder of Placement Music, co-president of GMP with Horrock and president of the Atlanta Chapter of The Recording Academy. (They give away Grammys.)

“It’s worth noting that it isn’t just an Atlanta-centric thing,” says Hurt. “There are 49 different higher education institutions offering a music business certificate or music degree in the state. We do a good job of educating, but not job placement, so we want to attract companies to provide jobs to graduates.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Metro Atlantans have spied Bill Murray, Woody Harrelson, Sandra Bullock and Ashton Kutcher trolling local watering holes in recent weeks.

It’s a direct result of tax incentives Georgia passed last year for film, TV and digital media production companies.

“Despite the economy, we’re going gangbusters,” said Ric Reitz, a local actor who helped fashion the tax incentive package. The Georgia Film, Music & Digital Entertainment office predicts this will be Georgia’s biggest year for entertainment production.

Even though the new incentives didn’t pass until the middle of 2008, the office said it helped boost the economic impact of the movie and TV industry in Georgia over the previous year from $413 million to an estimated $524 million.

ATLANTA – Governor Sonny Perdue announced today that Savannah will be the filming location for the upcoming Disney film, The Last Song. The movie is expected to bring approximately 250 jobs to the state.

“I signed the 2008 Entertainment Industry Investment Act in support of our efforts to recruit film, music and digital entertainment projects to Georgia,” said Governor Perdue. “These industries are thriving and growing, boosting the state’s economy and employing thousands of Georgians.”