By Laura Newsome

It’s a fine morning for a zombie apocalypse. A golden line of dawn is beginning to soften the sky above the glass-fronted shops and brick sidewalks of Downtown Atlanta’s Fairlie-Poplar Historic District. The streets are blocked off, guarded by police cars camped out at every intersection, lending the whole scene an air of claustrophobic authenticity.

Hundreds of zombies are gathering on set, taking their places in the background of a major battle scene. They practice their newly adopted zombie swaggers with varying levels of speed and jilting intensity—aided by layers of tattered clothing and makeup designed to show exactly how long each zombie has been undead. With pale skin and bloodshot eyes, the newly compromised look as though they are having a bad day, while the long dead are gaunt, with sunken lips and bruised ribs so pronounced they appear ready to rip clean from the skin.

Such scenes of zombie chaos—torched, overturned buses and smashed out storefronts—have become a common site in Atlanta this summer as production reels on for “The Walking Dead,” a new show helmed by AMC, the network behind the critically acclaimed dramas, “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad.” Based on the best-selling graphic novel by Robert Kirkman, “The Walking Dead” is written, produced and directed by Frank Darabont, the Academy Award-nominated director behind “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile.” “The show is basically about a small group of people who band together and fight after the zombie apocalypse,” says Tom Luse, line producer for the new series. “Atlanta’s been very cooperative with our zombies. They’ve given us a lot of access to take over several city blocks.”

“The Walking Dead” is just one of the many film and television productions that have taken up residence in Atlanta over the past few years, making Georgia one of the top five states in the country for film production. With in-state entertainment spending reaching a record $770 million in 2009, shots of Atlanta’s skyline are cropping up all over television, from the scene-setting opener of the “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” to the title credits of HGTV’s interior design shows, which populate Atlanta’s leafy intown neighborhoods.

And while the city is thriving on the small screen, the Capital of the South is also showing up in movie theaters across the country. In this year’s action comedy “Killers,” megastars Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl run amok of the polished greenery and gingerbread-trimmed garage doors of Tributary at New Manchester, one of Atlanta’s premier master-planned communities. And, as the couple races away from rival killers in a stolen SUV, Georgians familiar with the Marietta Square can’t help but spot the flashing marquee of the Strand Theatre through a passenger-side window.

In the years before the entertainment industry became a billion-dollar business in Georgia, productions shot in Atlanta were usually Southern stories that required a background of azaleas and magnolias in order to appear legitimately regional. Until the last decade, the state was primarily known for Southern set pieces like 1972’s “Deliverance,” the 1989 Best Picture winner “Driving Miss Daisy” and the Southern classic, “Fried Green Tomatoes.” In recent years, however, Atlanta’s growing list of urban amenities and conveniences has begun to draw projects that reach beyond the stereotypical Southern fare that put the city on Hollywood’s radar. In the last two years alone, 26 movies, ranging from low-budget horror flicks to blockbuster romantic comedies, have been shot in the state of Georgia.

This flood of cinematic activity is largely due to the state’s ambitious 2008 Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act, which offers generous tax incentives to any company shooting a film, television series, music video or video game project anywhere in the state. The act offers a 20 percent flat tax credit on production expenditures in Georgia, and an additional 10 percent tax credit if a production company includes a promotional Georgia logo in the opening titles or end credits of their production. In the first quarter of 2008, before the incentive law was passed, only one major production was being filmed in Georgia. Less than a year later, eight major productions were filming in the state, with 100 more prospects in the works.

“We enacted the first set of film incentives in 2005 and have improved these incentives to a very competitive level in 2008,” says Bill Thompson, deputy commissioner for the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Office, which is dedicated to attracting new entertainment companies and film productions to the state. “For example, if a company spends $1 million in Georgia, they will receive a $300,000 tax credit for that spending.”

For major productions with a roster of expenditures totaling well into the millions—from sound equipment and stunt coordination to production design, lighting, film editing, special effects and costumes—Georgia’s generous tax breaks are an attractive incentive for budget-conscious producers and studio executives. “Atlanta is a good filming location for a number of reasons, but the new incentives are very valuable because they allow us to put more on screen for less—to spend a little more to make our films look bigger and better,” says Louis Feola, president of Paramount Famous Productions, which is currently filming “Mean Girls 2” in the Atlanta area.

While Georgia’s generous tax breaks and financial incentives have their critics, state officials are convinced that the long-term economic impact generated by productions living, working and spending in Georgia is immeasurably greater than the incentives provided up front. The town of Juliette was home to just four people when “Fried Green Tomatoes” began filming in the historic, crossroads community. Now, more than 20 years after the film wrapped, 100,000 visitors make a pilgrimage to the town each year, all wanting to stop in for a meal at the Whistle Stop Café, which is featured prominently in the film. Another economic success story involves the stunt rafters from “Deliverance,” who remained on set and launched a rafting company on the waters of the Chattooga River. Today, their once fledgling company now serves 20,000 tourists a year and has generated more than $30 million for Georgia’s economy.

“When it comes to the big picture, a million dollars rolls throughout the entire economy,” says Thompson, whose office has lured more than 550 productions to the state since its inception in 1973. “The money travels through the crew to the vendors, suppliers, local hotels, restaurants and rental car companies—the spending effects hundreds of local businesses, which means more tax revenue for the state. The average budget of a feature film is $40 million, so you can only imagine what that kind of investment means for the state.” When looking at the trickle-down effect of big-budget films, Thompson notes that when Miley Cyrus and her crew relocated to Savannah and Tybee Island last summer to shoot “The Last Song,” the movie alone was responsible for booking 12,000 rooms in local hotels.

Besides generous tax incentives that impact the local economy, the state’s burgeoning film and television industries are aided by a host of logistical advantages. Though producer Tom Luse calls Park City, Utah, home during the year, the commute to his rented Atlanta bungalow near Piedmont Park is relatively painless. “There are a lot of advantages to shooting in Atlanta and transportation is definitely one of them,” he says.

For many in the entertainment industry, a close proximity to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest passenger airport, is a major plus when traveling to and from entertainment capitals like New York and Los Angeles. “Metro Atlanta is not just a city, it’s a major city with 7 million people—the hub of the entire Southeast—and the ease of transportation in and out of Atlanta is remarkable,” Thompson says. “You can go just about anywhere in the United States from Atlanta on a single direct flight.”

Another benefit of shooting in the Peach City is the ease of the film permitting process. While long-established film cities like New York and Los Angeles require extensive, time-consuming permits for capturing nearly every shot, the relative ease of Atlanta’s process is an added benefit to shooting in the state. “It’s one thing to have state financial incentives, but to have the cooperation of municipalities is another thing entirely,” says Feola. “Definitely the permitting process in Atlanta is easy to understand and follow. Everybody is supportive in figuring out how things can get done instead of just throwing up their hands and explaining why we can’t.”

For many years the film business growing beyond the borders of L.A. was headquartered in North Carolina, where affordable production costs and the idyllic wilds of the North Carolina Mountains suited productions like “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Dirty Dancing” and “Dawson’s Creek.” EUE/Screen Gems, a company that operates North Carolina’s largest production facility, is expanding its reach by creating a second Southern hub in Atlanta. The company recently signed a 50-year lease on the former Lakewood Fairgrounds, a location featuring century-old, Spanish-style structures used in previous film productions. Bringing 1,000 jobs to the city, the $6 million investment deal will create a turnkey facility for productions looking to film in Atlanta.

“Our Wilmington property is perfect for filming in rural kinds of settings, but when productions are in need of an edgy, urban environment, Atlanta really offers that kind of atmosphere, and a great ethnic and cultural element that many productions are looking for,” says Susan Dosier, a spokesperson for EUE/Screen Gems, whose company was approached by numerous entertainment ventures about the need for such a facility in the Atlanta area.

Proposed renovations to the 30-acre Lakewood property will provide office space and a brand new 37,500-square-foot sound stage, creating the largest studio in Georgia—even larger than Riverwood Studio’s permanent 19th-century town located in Senoia, Ga. “This facility will be a huge benefit to the state—and something we’ve needed for a long time,” says Thompson. “When we have studio space available for use, companies come and stay longer and spend more money because it’s easier to work in a studio for much of their needs than it is to film on location.”

In addition to providing the skyline views and gritty scenery required for many urban productions, Georgia also features mild, year-round shooting weather and locations to match the needs of nearly any motion picture or television series. “We are definitely one of the few states that has such diverse topography and filming locations,” Thompson says. “We have 150 miles of coastline, mountain forests in the North, farmland down in Central and South Georgia, small historic towns, marshes and even the Okefenokee Swamp—anything a crew could want.”

When deciding on the ideal Atlanta locations for the summer filming of “Mean Girls 2,” Paramount Famous sifted through a wealth of potential properties, eventually settling on a high school in Decatur, Sutton Middle School, a few houses in Buckhead and a nearby coffee shop. “Atlanta does provide a variety of shooting locations,” says Feola. “And the local crew base is very deep and talented—all of our crew except for the director of photography is from the Atlanta area.”

As Hollywood is finding out, Atlanta’s growing film and television industry is fostering an ever more talented community of skilled craftsmen and specialists in nearly every area of entertainment production, including 25,000 Georgians working in the entertainment industry, 5,000 Georgians working in the state’s film industry, 800 local production companies and nearly 1,000 production suppliers and support vendors specializing in everything from lighting and facilities to film labs, props creation and sound design.

Further adding to the local talent pool is a new crop of young filmmakers, directors, writers, actors and behind-the-scenes support personnel who are graduating from the state’s elite film schools, including Georgia State University and the Savannah College of Art and Design, whose students have shown their work at Sundance, Cannes, South by Southwest and the Los Angeles Film Festival.

In Atlanta’s case, homegrown talent has always had a monumental impact on the growth of the state’s entertainment industry. When local entertainment mogul Ted Turner launched Turner Broadcasting System in the 1970s, he created one of Atlanta’s most successful and enduring media brands, with a diverse portfolio that now encompasses cable networks like CNN, TNT, TBS, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network and TNT, all headquartered in an expansive brick compound visible from Interstate 85/75 heading south toward Downtown.

Similarly, longtime Atlanta resident Tyler Perry has reinvented black entertainment with his self-titled production empire that is credited with creating 12 films to date, many of which were shot and produced in Atlanta, including “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” “Madea’s Family Reunion” and his hit TV series, “House of Payne.” While the economic impact of Perry’s Atlanta projects totals well into the millions, his studio, which occupies more than 200,000 square feet of production space, has also been a boon to the sagging retail landscape of nearby Greenbriar Mall.

With emerging young talent, generous financial incentives, diverse filming locations and a long list of logistical reasons why Atlanta is an enticing place to create entertainment, the film and television industry anchored in Georgia has generated $5 billion in economic impact since “Deliverance” first put the South on the map in 1972. “Besides the financial benefits, Atlanta is such a vibrant urban area that has a lot of the amenities the above-the-line people like to see in a filming location,” says Luse, whose pleasantries about the city seem at odds with the decaying zombie gore fest of the “The Walking Dead.” “Atlanta’s such a pleasant community and we like the friendliness of the people and all the great hotels and restaurants and things to do off set.”

Regardless of whether American audiences are hankering for inner-city zombie mayhem or the next Friday-night suburban teenage hit, Atlanta’s on-screen entertainment industry seems poised to rake in another $5 billion for the state. “The industry has grown 400 percent since 2005,” says Thompson, with a tone of optimism that seems unusual in today’s post-recession economy. “So many people who have never worked in Georgia are just discovering our talented workforce and our high level of industry professionalism. I think more growth is definitely ahead.”