ORGANIZATION
A Steady Heartbeat The DeKalb Entertainment Commission (DEC) is an unwavering advocate and resource for Georgia’s creative industry, at its side and pushing forward By Ca ro l Bada r acco Padge t t
Photos courtesy DeKalb Entertainment Commission
T he Decatur-based DeKalb Entertainment Commission (DEC) delivers a constant cadence as the primary force attracting and expand- ing businesses that support the film, music, and digital entertainment industry in metro DeKalb County. Notable DeKalb businesses include 11 film studios, with four particularly large industry powerhouses among them: Blackhall Studios, Third Rail Studios, Eagle Rock Studios-Stone Mountain, and NuGround Studios. To provide an accurate picture of film industry growth in DeKalb since the commission’s inception in 2017, the number of productions in the county was 54 in 2015 and rocketed to successfully approving 189 film permitting applications and working with 138 productions by 2019. In the larger picture for the state of Georgia, prior to COVID-19 the Georgia Screen Entertainment Coalition of the Georgia Chamber reports that some 399 film and TV productions shot in Georgia spurred the local and state economy with the spending of nearly $3 billion overall, supporting 92,000 motion picture and TV production businesses, and delivering $5.2 billion in total wages. Pre-pandemic, for its part DeKalb County was playing host to 26 major productions. As DEC Director Shelbia Jackson notes, “If we based our first few months of 2020 on the production volume that would have happened if COVID-19 didn’t occur, we were projected for a phenomenal year.” But by March 13, 2020, all production halted as the country stood still.
For DeKalb County, that standstill included locally shot productions like Green Leaf, MacGyver, Doom Patrol, Black Lightning , and others. However, since the state’s reopening on June 1, “we have seen an uptake of permitting applications and productions come through the office,” Jackson says. And she fully expects that DeKalb will see still more as fall approaches. Before, during, and through it all, the DEC has not missed a beat in its mission of fostering and supporting local businesses and entertainment ventures. Its primary initiatives have included a broad focus on getting back to business after the pandemic, changing its popular in-person educational events to a series of Virtual Entertainment Expos for the industry, and planning for its yearly Student Film Festival in 2021. “DEC has taken this shutdown and now slow reopening as an opportunity to be a resource to the creative community,” Jackson emphasizes. “We are not letting COVID-19 stop us from providing local content to the industry.” True to her word, whereas the DEC had hosted just one yearly physical entertainment expo pre-pandemic, Jackson and her team split the event into monthly virtual master classes and panels hosted on Zoom and Facebook Live during the lockdown. The virtual event topics included a look at the gig economy during COVID-19, a master class with film producer Samad Davis, and a panel discussion on the state’s return to film production. “Our decision to go virtual was a perfect shift for our organization,” Jackson notes. “Not only has it been
successful, but we have reached more individuals… than we did in our two years of hosting it in-person.” As of Aug. 13, Jackson says the virtual expos had reached 6,162 people in the industry. Another example of the DEC’s commitment to serving the industry through the COVID-19 crisis was its summertime work with C4 Atlanta, a non-profit that offers business development courses for the creative industry and its artists. Hand-in-hand, the DEC and C4 launched a survey to find out how the industry was coping with the crisis and what its plans were for the future. The commission also created a well-received “CO- VID-19 Resource Guide” to provide accurate, reliable re- sources and aid for the industry. To put the guide together, Jackson says her team reviewed similar guidelines from around the world, from countries such as South Africa, the UK, and Belgium. Looking to the future, she says the DEC will continue to maintain strong working relationships with partners like the Georgia Film Office (GFO), which is in regular contact with production companies and industry executives who describe the hiatus as “short- term,” reporting that they plan to return to Georgia post-COVID. “So we remain optimistic,” Jackson states, sharing that, as of June 1, DeKalb opened for business with two small commercial productions and an independent project underway. Clearly, the DEC’s steadfast beat goes on.
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