Not ‘Made in Georgia’: Film and TV industry seeing production slowdown

ATLANTA - The actors’ and writers’ strikes ended nearly a year ago, but the film and TV industry has been slow to recover. Production in Georgia has dipped below pre-pandemic levels. Thousands of specialized workers, including camera operators, visual-effects artists and technicians in film, are now scrambling to find jobs.

Georgia, once hailed as the Hollywood of the South, is now more like a cinematic dust bowl for many people who make their living in film and TV. "What are they greenlighting right now? Nothing," said veteran cameraman Matthew Jackson,

Actors and writers left the picket line and headed back to the studio lot nearly a year ago. Jackson says it seems like the jobs in Georgia were bouncing back. "It started to," Jackson said. "I went back to work in January of this year, worked up until April, and then it’s just been slow ever since."

The film and TV business has been sluggish. Production in Georgia is a fraction of what it was a few years ago. "Right now, it’s very inconsistent," Jackson said.

Some of the reasons include media company mergers and streaming services cutting their budgets. Now, thousands of workers have to scramble to find employment.

"Pick up whatever we can, wherever we can. There are commercials that come through, there are day jobs that may come through," Jackson said.

"I get a few days of freelancing during the month and that’s enough to pay bills," said Juan Medellin, a special-effects tech. "it feels like a lot of the work just fled the country."

Many studios, looking to save money, moved production to Canada or Europe for better incentives. "That makes it much harder for anyone here looking for a job," Medellin said.

Production has not totally dried up, but with spotty gigs, many Georgians are now forced to live off their savings or find jobs outside their fields.

"I moved to Atlanta with the premise that the movie industry was growing here exponentially, that I was going to get even bigger than in California," Medellin said. "That was my hope, that I was going to come here and grow and grow and grow and do my best and work in movies. Now it feels like that disappeared."

"I would like to see the work not only come back to Georgia, I would like to see the work to New York, Los Angeles, New Mexico, New Orleans," Jackson said.

Jackson said some of his colleagues cannot pay their bills. Some are losing their homes. Many hope production will ramp up in January.