College course tapping in to Georgia’s booming film production

The Peach State is the place to be these days when it comes TV and movie production.

A midstate college is helping ensure that the talent is Georgia-grown as well through a new course offering.

Georgia hosted more feature films in 2016 than any other market — including Los Angeles, according to a study released last month from FilmL.A. The state offers tax credits of up to 30 percent for film, TV and digital projects, according to the Department of Economic Development.

Macon has been a filming location for several projects lately, most recently with TV shows “The Originals” and “Brockmire” and upcoming films “Rampage,” “The Best of Enemies” and “I, Tonya.”

Georgia College is among several schools in the state partnering with the Georgia Film Academy to train the industry’s next professionals. The academy wants to provide qualified in-state workers so employees won’t have to be brought in from other places, said Karen Berman, Georgia College’s chairwoman of theater and dance.

The college offered its first introduction to an on-set film production course during the spring semester, and the class will be on the schedule again in spring 2018.

“It’s a really great opportunity to create a workforce in Georgia, to put our students straight out of university into a work space with a skill that they have learned,” Berman said. “Georgia College got in on the ground floor because we want to be able to offer as many opportunities to our students as possible so they’ll be successful when they graduate.”

Twenty-six students took the six-credit course, which met from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays at the Black Box Theater in downtown Milledgeville. The class was open to any Georgia College students pursuing bachelor of arts degrees. About half were theater majors, and the rest were pursuing majors such as mass communications and English.

Georgia Film Academy instructor Bryan Krass taught the course, and the academy provided $150,000 worth of film equipment for it, Berman said. Students learned about the different roles on film sets and how to set up and use the equipment, said Maggie Foster, a senior mass communications major who took the class. They wrote, shot and edited short scenes.

“I wanted to get some hands-on knowledge in the field,” said Foster, who hopes to one day be an assistant director on a film set. “I think it’s really opened my eyes to different jobs that are available in film productions.”

Jeremy Colwell’s lifelong goal is to work in the film industry, and he wants to learn all aspects of it. He was able to gain production skills and make connections through the class.

“It was very eye-opening. You think of film-making as this really deep creative zone, but there’s a lot of really technical and precise things to it,” said Colwell, a summer Georgia College graduate and theater major. “It’s given me a very solid foundation, and I feel like we’re super lucky at this school to have this class and to be working with Georgia Film Academy. It sets you up so you can take it further. That’s invaluable.”

Students who pass the intro course need just two more classes — for a total of 18 credit hours — to earn their Georgia Film Academy certification, according to the academy’s website. They can choose from set construction and scenic painting, lighting and electric, and grip and rigging courses at Pinewood Atlanta Studios and apply for internships that place them with major film studios nearby.

A number of Georgia College students are continuing their film studies this summer, Berman said. Colwell said he was accepted into the competitive six-week internship program and starts work Monday.

Once students earn film certificates, Georgia Film Academy counselors help them get jobs on projects, some of which pay $82,000 per film, Berman said.

This story was originally published June 21, 2017 at 3:58 PM with the headline "College course tapping in to Georgia’s booming film production."