In an inauspicious beige building tucked away in Daffin Park, the Savannah Film Office gives few outward clues of its function as the primary point of contact for major Hollywood television and film productions looking to use Savannah as a backdrop.
Go inside, though, and you’ll see old posters of movies filmed in the area — “Forrest Gump,” of course, the “General’s Daughter” and Julia Roberts’ “Something to Talk About” — most of them filmed during the ’90s or earlier.
More telling, a large whiteboard divided into a spreadsheet lists some of the 30 or so commercial and film projects currently in the works for Savannah — some of them exciting but not ready to be announced.
Leading the film office is Salt Lake City-native William Hammargren, who’s served as interim director since its previous head, Jay Self, was dismissed last fall by city officials over issues regarding “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
Hammargren quietly assumed the role officially over the summer and has kept busy coordinating locations and permits for “Magic Mike XXL,” the biggest production to hit Savannah since the pineapple-dwelling animated sponge.
Filming for “Magic Mike” wraps in November, but Hammargren’s work is just beginning. With a background in nonprofit public service ads, documentary and TV work, Hammargren came to Savannah in 2003 to attend SCAD and decided to stay put.
“It’s the film community that’s really kept me here,” he said. “They’re all very dedicated to Savannah.”
Hammargren hopes not only to grow Savannah’s small crew base, which fluctuates around 150 people, but to also capitalize on Georgia’s generous 30 percent film-tax incentive to lure more major productions to the area.
Joseph Marinelli, president of Visit Savannah and who’s served on the Savannah Film Commission for four years, said it’s been nice watching Hammargren, previously the locations specialist, step up to the plate.
“He’s still very green and has much to learn about the intricacies of managing film, video and photo shoots locally, but he brings a positive can-do attitude to the role,” said Marinelli. “That’s extremely important when dealing with big-time producers. They understand that Will’s job is to help them finesse working with our community, but also appreciate that someone is looking out for their interests as well.”
Hammargren is both energetic and pragmatic in discussing the task he faces — with a staff of one and a budget of $210,000. He sat down with Savannah Morning News this month to talk about the economics of “Magic Mike” as well as his goals for the department.
Q: What is the economic impact of a movie like “Magic Mike”?
Hammargren: “This is a little difficult to quantify, but I’ll put this way. They’re spending $13 million while they’re here. Now some portion of that will leave the community in wages when the out-of-town labor takes that with them, but the lion’s share will stay here. So that covers all the local employees, the hotels, all the food, construction materials, props … anything you can think of, anything the movie has to buy.”
Q: How long had “Magic Mike” been in the works?
A:“Since June of this year. This happens a lot. We’ll work on projects, sometimes, for years before they come here. When I started as locations specialist, we got a call and were in production on a feature two weeks later, so sometimes it happens really quickly.”
Q: Is that something people don’t realize, how quickly you have to make decisions?
A:“That’s definitely important. Especially on the bigger movies, they’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, and if they have to stop and fix something, it costs them a lot of money, so they need to be able to move fairly rapidly.”
Q: Is the impact bigger than “SpongeBob”?
A:“It depends on how you quantify it. ‘SpongeBob’ is a $60 million movie, but they only spent a little over $8 million here. The disruption is much smaller. For example, ‘SpongeBob’ shut down eight blocks of Broughton Street for over a week, whereas with ‘Magic Mike,’ we don’t have any closures that are major.”
Q: Seems like there’s a considerable amount of buzz, with the media sightings of Channing Tatum and other stars. Would you say things are going well right now? Are you pleased with the buzz you’re hearing about the production?
A:“Obviously people are excited about it. This is a little bit different for us because, generally speaking, Savannah doesn’t get star-struck like a lot of other communities do, but I think there’s something about these specific stars that’s appealing to a younger crowd and they’ve been much more vocal. Which is good, it’s visibility for the city.”
Q: Do you see this as your first big test as film services director? Are people skeptical about the value of bringing bigger movies here?
A:“Yes (to the first question). And I don’t think there was ever any question that people liked having movies here. There are always specific inconveniences that come with productions and trying to mitigate those is a huge part of what we do, but, yes, this a first real test. I think it’s been a relatively easy one so far.”
Q: Have you faced any skepticism from producers/location scouts in Hollywood because of what happened during “SpongeBob”?
A: “No, actually we received quite a good recommendation from them (producers of ‘SpongeBob’), and that’s part of the reason we got this project. The other part was that Florida no longer has an incentive.”
Q: Speaking of film incentives, Georgia’s film industry has taken off thanks to these tax credits. How do you plan to capitalize on that?
A:“Certainly we are. Georgia’s huge for film right now because of those incentives and certainly we’re getting our fair share of that. We certainly want more, and we’re working on things to encourage that. Obviously, it’s been humongous for Atlanta, and they’ve been extremely busy up there. In a way, they’re more busy than they can handle. We’ve gotten some projects simply because of that fact, because they’re over-capacity there.”
Q: Do you want to lure more projects away from Atlanta?
A:“We’re not competing, per se. I usually use this metaphor — the pie metaphor. It’s not that there’s so much pie and you have to share it, the pie can get bigger. And I think there’s no question that the entertainment business is growing in Savannah, is growing in the state at an exponential rate, and I think what’s good for Atlanta is good for us in a lot of ways. We have a lot of specific local issues we need to address to be more competitive even with some other municipalities.”
Q: What are some of those local issues?
A:“Infrastructure is the biggest one and crew base. We can’t compete with the infrastructure or crew base that, for example, Shreveport or New Orleans or even to this day, though they lost the incentive, Wilmington has. And until we can do that, it’s going to be much more difficult to get these bigger projects.”
Q: Is part of your goal to build a bigger crew base here in Savannah?
A:“Yes, that’s one of the main things we try to do in this office. The office was founded to protect the citizens and make sure projects were beneficial to them, but following that is local employment. It’s one of the most important things we try to encourage. We’re an economic development entity focused on film and television.
“It’s a chicken and egg thing. We can’t get the employees till we have the work, and it’s hard to get the work without the employees, so you have to grow it slowly and progressively, but we definitely do want to build that. … SCAD here is a great example. They’re pumping out a ton of talented kids. So convincing them to stay, finding them work is definitely something we want to do.”