Atlanta, Georgia, is a hotspot for culture and modern living. It's also blessed with a rich history, beautiful greenery, and abundant natural light, and popular as the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. and a place where you can experience a thriving nightlife scene.
Whether you’re into sports, history, science, or entertainment, Atlanta is the place to be. After all, it’s hard to go wrong in a place where you can feast your eyes on the door to the Coca-Cola secret recipe vault!
Atlanta has long been deemed the “Hollywood of the South,” for good reason. Many major box office movies have been filmed there, including films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the hit Netflix series, Stranger Things. Beyond film production, it’s also a major place for conducting a video shoot, photo shoot, or music video production.
Besides all that, Atlanta has some of the best weather, being in the southern state of Georgia. That makes it easier if you plan to produce music videos or photo shoots outdoors—just remember it can get hot and sticky during July and August. However, the city offers an abundant selection of studios for rent in Atlanta, catering to a variety of needs and preferences.
Atlanta’s solid reputation in music and film production makes it a great place to utilize the outdoor or studio space, complete with competitive rental rates. With that said, there are other supplemental businesses necessary for making your film production, photo, or video shoot in Atlanta a success.
Catering
Food on set is how you keep your staff and actors healthy. Anyone who has been a part of any outdoor or studio space knows how long workdays can be. Because of that, providing full-service catering on-site is incredibly important. It becomes even more essential if you’re filming something that requires a lot of physical energy and retakes.
Equipment and Furniture
Once you’ve secured a venue, you need to figure out what equipment and furniture are provided there, if any. Along with any set props, it's essential to arrange an off-set area equipped with a dressing room, production offices, and amenities overseen by a studio manager for staff and actors to unwind when they are not required on set.
Supplementary Staff
Supplementary staff, like security, set assistants, and custodians, are essential in making sure everything runs smoothly. While supplementary staff are frequently considered late in the planning process for photo and video shoots, their expertise can be crucial in optimizing natural light within a beautiful studio environment. That said, they make the shooting environment safer and more secure.
Each of the options listed above is integral in ensuring production runs as smoothly as possible. As Atlanta is practically a film mecca in the United States, there’s no shortage of catering, equipment rentals, staffing agencies, and film studios in the city. This makes Atlanta a perfect backdrop for your future creative vision.
GHI Catering
The founders of GHI Catering have more than 20 years of experience in the culinary world and have used that experience to cater events both big and small. They offer four separate catering menus: cocktail reception, buffet, family-style, and desserts. This type of catering is perfect for production space because you’re likely going to work through multiple daily meals.
PC&E Atlanta
For renting a camera, sound stage, cyc wall, or any other audiovisual equipment, PC&E Atlanta offers everything you need under one roof. They also offer a wide variety of cameras, natural light gear, grips, and other expendables needed for your beautiful studio in Atlanta. This is great because you can customize what you need specifically for your project.
TRC Staffing
TRC Staffing is a great resource for hiring temporary staff for photo or video shoots. Additionally, if your project requires a super cool cyc wall, the staffing agency can help find the right temporary staff who can bring that creative vision to life. Using an employment agency may also save you a little bit of money in the long run.
Atlanta may be a “mini-Hollywood,” but it still comes with some drawbacks too. While it’s certainly important to look at the best things about production spaces in the city, you may also need to consider potential drawbacks. Here are some things to think about before finalizing your plans for a film production, video, or photo shoot in Atlanta.
Solid reputation for production
Atlanta has been used in the film and music industries for decades. The solid reputation that the city has built makes it optimal for any type of production. This reputation also means those who live there almost expect it. You won’t get many weird looks because they’re used to seeing all kinds of productions throughout the city.
A variety of locations
Just like the “real” Hollywood, Atlanta also has beaches, forests, cliffs, studios, and a bustling city. This gives you plenty of settings to choose from. On top of that, many businesses rent out production space indoors. With all of these options, you can complete an entire production without traveling to another city.
Excellent nightlife
Of course, Atlanta isn’t all work and no play. Production workdays may be long, but there will be days off and breaks eventually. When these occasions arise, there’s plenty of nightlife to explore downtown and around the city. From small dive bars to huge nightclubs, everyone is certain to find something.
The city can be congested
While Atlanta residents may be used to production crews roaming the city, you may deal with a few issues. When filming, you’re likely to get stragglers in the background that will cause more work in the editing process.
Coordinating can be difficult
For larger productions, expansive spaces with ample free parking are essential. To accommodate that may be difficult as you’d need to increase security the bigger the set becomes and that means more expenses. Large productions may also cause traffic delays which may not sit well with locals.
Summer heat
Atlanta is known for its warm weather but during the summer it can be downright hot and steamy. Because you will probably be shooting at least some of your production outdoors, you may want to consider planning your production during the winter. However, for those seeking natural light, winter might not be the ideal season.
National Center for Civil and Human Rights
Anyone interested in both history and current social issues needs to pay a visit to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. This facility is a museum and cultural institution that hosts a variety of talks and workshops to educate the public on social justice issues. They strive to connect the human rights movement with events currently happening today.
Center for Puppetry Arts
If you’re interested in puppetry, the Center for Puppetry Arts is where to go. Open since the '70s, they regularly put on puppet shows of many different styles. The Center for Puppetry Arts is one of the largest organizations dedicated to puppetry and focuses on history, education, and performance.
Children’s Museum of Atlanta
This children’s museum is designed specifically for children from infancy until age eight. They strive to pique curiosity in children and foster a love of learning through play. The museum features a variety of exhibits with creative and hands-on components. They also hold various events for children throughout the year.
2021 was a monumental year for Georgia's film industry with around $4 billion being spent on film productions within the state. While this is partly due to increased demand since the onset of COVID-19, the state has long prided itself as a strong economic and cultural option for filmmakers. Taking notes from then-Gov. Jimmy Carter's 1973 film commission, the Georgia Film Office was created with the primary focus of drawing productions to the Peach State—and it has definitely worked.
Now considered the Hollywood of the South, 2016 saw more Georgia-based feature films than California itself. In fact, the list of TV and films shot in Georgia is a whopping 50 pages long.
Outside of Georgia's lucrative tax breaks, a main component of the state's appeal is its capital and most populous city: Atlanta. The city has its own unique cultural appeal while also possessing the capability of being transformed into other major metro centers when needed. Not to mention Atlanta has especially proven its dedication to action films by going so far as shutting down major streets and even an entire interstate to allow for "Baby Driver" to shoot its car chase scenes.
With this kind of reputation, it's no surprise that Giggster looked at noteworthy shooting locations you can visit from the best action movies shot in Atlanta. And, of course, to qualify as one of the best, the film had to have at least a 7.5 user rating on IMDb.
- Location: Candler Building, 127 Peachtree St NE
One of the most iconic scenes from Edgar Wright's 2017 film "Baby Driver" is its musical opening (a concept tested in an early Wright short film), where Miles "Baby" (Ansel Elgort) is the getaway driver for a bank robbery. Sitting in his car, Baby perfectly lip syncs to the song "Bellbottoms" by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion while his coworkers rob the First Bank of Atlanta—the First Bank of Atlanta actually being Atlanta's Candler Building. While the only glimpses of the building's interior in "Baby Driver" are shot through a window, the beautiful Beaux-Arts decoration is captured through numerous exterior shots.
Created by Coca-Cola founder Asa Griggs Candler, this building stands at 17 stories tall, making it the tallest in Atlanta at its inception in 1906. The Candler is located on the famous Peachtree Street, a street that originally served as a Native American trail and was written about in the classic book "Gone with the Wind." Today, the Candler Building serves as a Curio Collection of Hilton Hotel, welcoming any avid "Baby Driver" fans spend the night in an iconic film set.
- Location: Goat Farm Arts Center, 1200 Foster St NW
"Catching Fire" is widely considered the best installment of the "Hunger Games" franchise in both its narrative and filmmaking (and the winning addition of Sam Claflin as Finnick Odair). This film sees Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) return to the killing field for an all-star tournament of past Hunger Games survivors, and the duo receives this news in the Justice Building of their home base, District 12.
In reality, this Justice Building is Westside Atlanta's Goat Farm Arts Center, a 10-acre compound dedicated to artists and education. Consisting of buildings from the 19th century, the Arts Center provides studio space to around 450 artists, four stories of apartments, and a 125-room hotel for the arts. A 2019 renovation and 2022 announcement revealed that the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia is adding a new facility within the Center's many acres, complimenting its other free-to-access galleries and performances. It's no surprise that this artistic hub allows film productions to utilize its extensive resources, including "The Walking Dead."
- Location: Jefferson St, Newnan
When you think of 2009's "Zombieland," the first thing that typically comes to mind is the iconic set of rules for survival ("Always wear your seatbelt" and "Double tap," among them) laid out by Jesse Eisenberg's character, Columbus. However, another hallmark of the film is its frighteningly accurate depiction of what a post-apocalyptic America would look like.
The characters travel from zombie-filled Texas to equally zombie-filled Los Angeles with a pitstop in the Midwest, but the vast majority of the film was actually shot in Atlanta—including the abandoned town Columbus and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) wander aimlessly around after being robbed by Wichita (Emma Stone) and and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). The two men are actually on Jefferson Street in Atlanta's suburb of Newnan, which leads to the charming Newnan Court Square. This downtown square has a well-preserved history stemming from the Civil War and architecture going back to the late 1800s. That said, the area still manages to have a successful contemporary commercial district—contrary to its ghost town appearance in the film.
- Location: Beauty Galore Studios 5039 Memorial Dr
With a film mostly set in space, it's no surprise that "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" has very few practical shooting locations. The only narrative scenes that take place on Earth occur in Peter Quill's (Chris Pratt) home state of Missouri, but, naturally, were filmed in the outskirts of Atlanta. These scenes open the film, following Peter's mother, Meredith, as she's courted by a Celestial named Ego (a very fitting name as it turns out) who is revealed to be Peter's father.
Seeing as how they're in the Midwest, of course the first place they stop is a Dairy Queen—or rather, they pull into the DQ to then run through the woods behind it. One avid Marvel fan took it upon themselves to root through every single Dairy Queen in Atlanta to find this filming location, only to discover that the building is not only bordering Atlanta in Stone Mountain, Georgia, but also no longer a Dairy Queen. To visit this location now, you have to schedule a reservation as it's currently the well-reviewed Beauty Exposed Salon.
- Location: Bouckaert Farm, 9445 Browns Lake Rd
"Avengers: Endgame" provides three hours of action-packed drama stuffed to the brim with just about every single Marvel character in existence. Out of all these protagonists, the undisputed hero of the film is Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who chose to leave a cushy retirement with his family to construct a quantum time machine and enter into his final battle. Before the plot unfolds, however, we get a glimpse into Stark's domestic retired life—and more importantly, we get to see the lakeside cabin he calls home.
This cabin is just one building within Bouckaert Farm (since renamed Chattahoochee Hills Eventing), located around 20 miles from Atlanta in a small town called Fairburn, Georgia. Bouckaert Farm has 8,000 acres of land, including a competition venue, nine barns, and a slew of equestrian trails. If that wasn't enough, it hosts various festivals and concerts across their extensive greens and weddings in the aptly named Horse Mansion. Tony's cabin is a definite draw for the Farm, and they've even gone so far as to list the property for $800 per night, advertising, "Avengers Endgame fans… Would you like to stay in Tony Stark's cabin? This is the iconic cabin in the movie!"