Georgia’s reputation as “the Hollywood of the South,” is growing, with a movie currently in production in Monroe County.
Gilda Stanbery is the Executive Director of the City of Forsyth Convention & Visitors Bureau. She says she worked with the crew’s location manager, Dwight Dyer, to find a place to film in Juliette. On September 27, a race scene was filmed in front of GroGreen Solutions on Camellia Plant Road.
Stanbery and Dyer said that they were trying to bring the economic benefits of movie production to Middle Georgia.
“Juliette is in Monroe County and they’re certainly our partners in everything that we do in tourism and economic development and working with the film industry is one of those ways that we greet people and encourage them to come to our community,” said Stanbery.
“The bigger counties in Atlanta, the Gwinnetts, the DeKalbs, the Fultons, already have a plethora of productions going in there from HBO to MTV, Turner Broadcasting, but as soon as you go sixty miles outside of Atlanta, these communities don’t get anything. so what I wanted to do was to make it feasible for them to clear permits, get applications, create economic impact to support the local business owners to allow them to get a piece of what Atlanta’s getting,” said Dyer.
The film, titled “Teenage Wasteland,” is a coming-of-age story based on the song by The Who. The crew is comprised of students from Savannah College of Art and Design, who are working on the film as part of their senior projects.
The film’s creator, SCAD senior Josh Prem, says the decision to come to Middle Georgia was easy.
“What attracted me the most to come here is to really capture the intensity of the world we’re trying to create, but it allows us to have a lot more freedom to film here rather than filming in the city,” said Prem.
The film is independently funded, and those who would like to contribute to the project can make a tax-deductible donation.
For more information, visit the film’s website.
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