This story is part of a series of interviews with Atlanta creatives about what it’s like to be working in Atlanta’s independent film scene and film industry at large. Click here to read more stories.
Annie Davis never saw herself making superhero movies. Instead, from a young age she always wanted to be the next Robert Osborne, the host of Turner Classic Movies.
“My grandma would babysit me, and we would watch Shirley Temple, and musicals, and all that kind of thing,” Davis said of her childhood.
Her love of film snowballed from there. She went to Wright State University, where she got a degree in Motion Picture History, Theory and Criticism. At one point, she worked in the motion picture division of the Library of Congress and eventually found her way to Atlanta with an internship and then a full-fledged role at Turner Classic Movies – bringing her one step closer to her Robert Osborne-shaped dreams.
But everything changed when she got laid off.
“My whole life, I was like, I’m gonna grow up to be Robert Osborne,” she said. “That’s what I’m gonna do. So when I got laid off from Turner, I was like, sh*t – now what?”
Luckily, Davis found a new path forward, and now works as a location coordinator. For most of our editions of Indie Spotlight, we’ve spoken with people who work in above-the-line creative positions. This time around, we’re focusing on logistics – and, maybe, getting a little glimmer of hope about what the future might hold.
Davis made her way into location coordinating out of pure chance. After buying her house in East Point, she joined the neighborhood association and met Jason Underwood who, at the time, was working as a location manager. She told him about losing her job at TCM, and he had an idea.
“I think you’d be good at being a location coordinator,” she remembered him saying. “I was like, ‘You know, it’s better than unemployment!’”
You might be asking what, exactly, a location coordinator does. Davis handles all of the logistics for the location department, things like paperwork, insurance claims, contracts, and the like. According to Davis, she mostly deals with the art department, legal, and production.
“All of the money comes through me,” she said. “All of our POs, all of our check requests, all of our spending goes through me, and I manage and track the budget.”
Turns out, Underwood was right – Davis’ skill set lent itself to coordinating. She liked that it offered something a little more creative than the corporate world, and also a little more freedom.
“Other than [the fact that] I’m good at it and competent, and it’s good to feel good about what you’re doing, I like that it’s always different enough that it stays interesting,” she said.
Davis worked with Underwood almost exclusively for a few years, she said, but now mostly works with location manager Ian Easterbrook. Over the years, she’s worked on films and shows like “Superman,” “Hillbilly Elegy,” “Atlanta,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” and “Megalopolis,” to name a few.
Much like everyone else in the film industry, the past several years have seen a little bit of a downturn in terms of work. But while the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off the start of a difficult time, it also brought a positive change for Davis – more freedom to work from home.
Davis has a four-year-old daughter, so she still likes to go into the office a couple of days a week “to talk to grown-ups,” she joked. But having the flexibility to work from home is a bonus. Her daughter was born while she was living in Chicago, but she still coordinated Georgia projects for Easterbrook.
“I really appreciate the flexibility that the pandemic brought,” she said. “But I also know that part of that is working with a manager who’s young and isn’t set in old school ways.”
Davis took a brief maternity leave in 2022, which is still to date the best year on record for Georgia film production. Since then, she’s felt the sting of the slowdown like everyone else.
“The past couple of years have definitely been a challenge. Last year, I only worked, like, four or five months,” she said “I’m freelance and I know it’s a plan to not work all year, every year. I usually plan to work nine months out of the year, because I know there’s going to be downtime between productions. So since the strikes and stuff, it’s definitely been much slower.”
Davis said one of the hardest parts of the last few years has been the widespread loss of crew talent. When we spoke with cinematographer Alexxiss Jackson for this series, we also talked about how Georgia ranks third out of the top 10 states with the largest losses of film industry jobs, losing nine percent (or 1,370) from 2024-2025, according to a report from the rental company Giggster. For reference, California ranks number one in terms of the numbers, but percentage wise, the states have lost an almost comparable amount – Georgia at nine percent and California at 10.4 percent.
“With the slowdown, so many people have had to jump ship because, you know – you’ve gotta pay your mortgage,” Davis said.
But, she said, recently, it seems like the industry might be headed in a different direction.
“Knock on wood, it seems like it’s starting to pick up,” Davis said.
U.S. production is still in the midst of a historic downturn, and according to a report released by the Georgia Film Office, this fiscal year’s revenue (July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026) dropped to $2 billion, which is the lowest amount in a decade.
But, in an email, Easterbrook confirmed Davis’ feeling, saying that while he’s not sure it’s an industry-wide trend, the industry seems busier now than it has been for the last three years or so. In August, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the number of productions filming in Georgia had jumped up to 23 from a mere 13 in July. As of the publishing of this article, the Georgia Film Office reports that 22 projects are filming in the state – so that number has stayed fairly steady for the past couple of months.
We might still be in a broader downturn, but maybe this little bump can represent some hope.
“We’re definitely hearing about more than we have the past couple of years,” Davis said. ”There’s a couple of irons in the fire at the moment, and it’s been a minute since there were potentially options of what to take.”
