Atlanta film department on hold

What's a sure-fire way to keep zombies out of your neighborhood?

According to Atlanta City Councilman Michael Bond, it would be to increase production costs, disrupt shooting schedules and add red tape to the permitting process.

That's why Bond says he opposes an initiative by Mayor Kasim Reed to create an in-house film office at City Hall to deal with the growing number of film and TV shoots going on around the city.

"It seeks to regulate an industry that's already doing well," Bond says. "When you start to nickel-and-dime people and create red tape, it's like killing the golden goose. It would have a chilling effect on the industry here."

Last week, the concerns of Bond and other council members — as well as a parade of film industry insiders who came to criticize the mayor's proposal — appeared to effectively kill the legislation in the Council's Finance and Executive Committee until Reed himself appeared to make a successful appeal to have it put on hold.

But administration officials say the bill has already been reworked and will continue to be tweaked to ensure that, when it finally comes up for a Council vote sometime after the first of the year, the bulk of the local film industry will be in favor. And even some of the industry veterans who've voiced concerns say that a "one-stop shop" for permits and city services could help streamline local shoots.

In fact, says city Chief Operating Officer Peter Aman, the very idea for a local film office came from the industry itself, with representatives from some of the larger studios reaching out to the city last year. Last week, for instance, Michael Walbrecht, vice president of production for Warner Brothers, sent a letter of support for the ordinance, saying it would "relieve the production companies from being an expert at navigating various city departments to obtain a film permit quickly or solve a critical production problem."

While some critics, including Bond, have taken an if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it approach, Reed says the city has a definite need for a local film office because there's currently no mechanism for coordinating permit requests. For example, if a production needs a street closed or permission to shoot in a park, or if it needs access to a fire hydrant or an electrical hookup, it has to call each affected city department individually. Creating a single contact point would streamline the process, he says, saving the city man-hours and making it easier to let residents know when a film shoot is coming to their street.

"What we have now is the Wild West, and some people don't want to change that," says the mayor, adding, "I love the film industry, but it doesn't always do a good job at notifying people when their neighborhoods are impacted."

An early concern about Reed's proposal was that it would add a host of costs, but he insists that the goal is not to create a new revenue stream. Under the revised ordinance, the city would charge a flat location fee of $300 — even for a multiday shoot — plus a $155 community notification charge, if applicable. The administration expects annual revenue from new fees to total less than $200,000, enough to staff a four-person film office headed by Stacii Johnson, a former actress who now handles filming permits in the city's office of special events.

Even most of the industry critics concede that the proposed costs don't sound very burdensome. Instead, the chief source of concern seems to lie in new regulations and restriction that would take away some of the flexibility that film productions now enjoy.

Michael Akins, the business agent for a local union that represents most Atlanta-based sound and lighting technicians, points to a measure in the proposal that he says would interfere with a director's decision of whether to do a dolly shot in a public street. Currently, he says, on-set city police officers have discretion to allow such a shot if the street has already been closed to traffic. Under the new legislation, Akins says, the director would need to get a separate permit to lay down tracks for the shot.

"There is a need for a local film office to help facilitate shoots in Atlanta," he says, "but the city is going about it the wrong way. I've seen this industry pack up and move overnight. We don't want to see folks move outside the city limits to Decatur or Senoia."

Mike Riley, location manager for AMC's "The Walking Dead" and a vocal critic of the mayor's plan, says the revised legislation is a substantial improvement in that it eliminates some fees and services included in the initial draft, but says it's "not what I would call a film-friendly ordinance. Some of the points in the ordinance overreach and overregulate."

Several of the industry sources contacted for this story were enthusiastic about a resolution introduced Monday by Bond and Councilwoman Joyce Sheperd that would create a 14-member task force composed of city officials and industry representatives to study the need for a film office and research what other cities have done. But it's doubtful the Reed administration would agree to effectively start over. More likely, the mayor will try to build consensus for his still-evolving proposal. The ordinance is scheduled for discussion in council committee in early December.

Riley hopes that a version of the proposal can eventually make all sides happy.

"If the mayor is determined to have a film office, we'll work with him on it," Riley says. "But the city needs to be very careful in how it does this. The result could make the difference in productions coming here or going to Shreveport or Richmond."