Georgia has many of the elements necessary to support the global film industry. The state has the right infrastructure — millions of square feet of new soundstage space and a massive airport. It has a transferable tax credit with no annual cap. And it has skilled crews, along with equipment, prop and costume rental houses.
But Trilith Institute CEO Jeffrey Stepakoff says one key piece is missing: Writers’ rooms, which he calls the “teaching hospitals” of the global entertainment industry.
These are places where young film professionals can not only learn the basic mechanics of writing under deadline, but also how to run a show, work with actors, behave on set and deliver the type of content a director wants.
The Trilith Institute, the nonprofit arm of the sprawling Trilith Studios film campus in Fayetteville, aims to fill that void with eight new educational courses, a residency program and a professional development network called the Writers Room of Georgia.
Before Stepakoff took the helm of the Trilith Institute, he taught screenwriting at Kennesaw State University.
“For a decade, I was sending great talent out of our state, out of our public university system, to go to Hollywood and work at a Starbucks to try to get an agent to represent him or her,” Stepakoff said. “This is insanity.”
Bolstering Georgia’s entertainment industry to be self-sustaining is part of the mission of the Trilith Institute. It aims to create an ecosystem where all of the economic activities involved in filmmaking — from writing scripts to financing films — are completed in Georgia.
Trilith’s new courses run about four months, and can be taken online or in-person at Trilith. In an upcoming round of courses starting in January, students can learn about the business of independent filmmaking, storyboarding or producing visual effects and computer-generated animations. There are also courses on acting for the camera and auditioning, screenwriting and directing.
The Trilith Institute started a pilot of its residency program last year, and will formally launch the program in 2025. The Institute will select one applicant to produce an original work for the nonprofit’s production company, and will fund both the costs of production and a housing stipend for the resident. In exchange, the resident will work as a part-time teaching assistant for the Institute, and will be paid on an hourly basis. Atlanta writer Ebony Blanding is the program’s resident for 2024.
Industry slowdown
Developing these programs is of upmost importance as film and television production has slowed in both Atlanta and other major U.S. markets, said Stepakoff, who worked as a writer on television series such as “Dawson’s Creek,” “The Wonder Years” and “Simon & Simon.” It’s also needed as the next phase of the global entertainment industry is unclear after the expansion, and now contraction, of content produced by streaming services.
This month, the Georgia film office, which tracks TV shows and movies shooting in Georgia, said there are just 25 active productions in the state, the slowest pace since last November, when the industry was still struggling from the writers and actors strikes. In September 2021, there were 45 active productions in the state. In September 2022, there were 49.
The slowdown has not spelled good news for the crew members, actors and vendors that rely on the industry for their livelihoods. Major American film markets — Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York — are competing to land a smaller pool of productions.
“Why don’t we start telling the world about ourselves instead of being in the business of other people’s movies when they feel like getting around to it?” Stepakoff said.
Over the past few years, the opportunities for creatives to get into writers’ rooms have dwindled, Stepakoff said. During his early writing career, networks were ordering up to 28 episodes a season. The second season of teen drama “Dawson’s Creek,” which aired in 1998 on The WB — a defunct network whose close predecessor is The CW — had 22 episodes.
Now, streaming media companies are ordering fewer episodes. Netflix teen drama “Outer Banks,” which released in 2021, has 10 episodes. “Wednesday,” which also released on Netflix, has 8.
“This is an important, economically critical American job that’s being lost because we don’t have a training ground anymore,” Stepakoff said.
The Trilith Institute wants to build an alternative to the North American entertainment industry. For writers, actors, storytellers and producers, all roads lead to Hollywood. That’s where the agents are. That’s where the financing is. But these two groups are not in abundance in Georgia’s entertainment ecosystem. The state is purely a film factory, Stepakoff said.
Enrollment is open for this upcoming slate of courses, which begin in January. Prices range from $250 to $1,500 per course. Applications are also open for next year’s creative residency program.
Membership in the Writers Room of Georgia, which offers workshops, mentorship programs and job opportunities, is free.
