Commentary by Randy Davidson, CEO & Founder of Georgia Entertainment
In the past few days, filmmakers, legislators and business owners serving productions have asked our opinion on House Bill 1180. It goes without saying that I am personally in favor of anything that spurs growth of Georgia’s creative industries and the Creative Economy.
With the bill likely on the way to the floor for debate and vote, here are some observations.
- It is important that Georgia situate our stance on the film credit. It’s the “mouth of the spring” that has driven growth, recognition and opportunity positioning the state as the creative capital of the world. The bill, for the most part, shows that the state understands the economic benefit for Georgians.
- A ton of work has been put into this bill. After the film incentive avoided sure disruption in the 2023 legislative session, a committee – as directed by the Governor, Speaker and Lt. Governor – spent the rest of the year reviewing the credit and HB 1180 is the result of this work. It would be a setback to not have something to show for it.
- The creative “cap” the bill institutes (a percentage of the Governor’s budget annually) seems to be the least concern of most of the people we have spoken to. The restraint on selling credits appeases some of the anti-incentive legislators that have asked for “guardrails” yet it is large enough to incentivize steady production spending into the state.
- Challenges: Influential voices have issues with various aspects of the bill – not enough for rural, the aggregate amount of $10 million to qualify is too high, there isn’t diversity language/consideration, the inefficiency of the audit process and monetization, gaming needs more support to compete with Texas/California, and other items with special interests concerns.
In summary, I think the best thing we can do for the whole of Georgia’s creative industries is to settle on the state’s support of a 30% baseline incentive for film production. Overall, the bill supports that and Georgians deserve some level of predictability around that one narrative. Strikes, pandemic pauses and the general nature of the industry warrants a settlement on this overarching theme.
Dealing with the challenges set forth above is crucial. These and other issues need to be dealt with aggressively and smartly – building on the core of the state’s support of the 30% baseline incentive.
I am hopeful that we can provide stability around the core of the incentive and build on the rest in this session and sessions to come.
