DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — As the Writer’s Guild of America and Actors Guild strikes drag on, more than 3,000 writers and actors in metro Atlanta are feeling the pinch.
Entertainment officials in DeKalb County are holding a networking event to help.
The plan is to bring the creative community together and give them ideas for other ways to bring in money that is related to what they do for a living.
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Brandon Butler, founder of Atlanta-based media company Butter.ATL says in some lines of work across metro Atlanta, there isn’t any.
“The industry is being affected lots of different ways, especially for people involved in this whole actors strike that’s going on,” Butler said.
He said it’s never been more important for the creative community to pivot.
Shelbia Jackson heads the DeKalb Entertainment Commission.
One of its responsibilities is accepting and approving film permits.
There’s not much of that happening lately so the commission is working on other ways to help the industry’s local workforce.
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They’ve organized a workshop in downtown Decatur for “creatives”, as they call them, to help them network and find ways to keep making a good living, which will keep them in the area and get them back onto film sets once the strike is settled.
“I’ve done a lot of work with some actors who live in Atlanta. In the last couple of months, they came up with some new businesses. They started doing events and acting workshops of their own. They’re finding ways to leverage that brand and work they’ve done in their acting careers and put it into other things,” Butler said.
Of course, all involved hope the strike ends soon and productions fire back up.
In the meantime, they want to help locals who work in the industry stay afloat.
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