The Big Chill, set in Beaufort, opened in theaters on Friday, Sept. 30, 1983. Photography courtesy of SC Film Commission
Numerous locations pop up again and again in films, from New York’s Empire State Building in King Kong and Sleepless in Seattle to Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory in Rebel Without a Cause and La La Land, among others. Movie buffs with a Palmetto State bent will recognize a certain Lowcountry home that has twice served Hollywood and permanently serves South Carolina as a film industry location.
Tidalholm in downtown Beaufort made its debut in The Great Santini, a 1979 film based on a story by South Carolina novelist Pat Conroy. The antebellum mansion returned to the screen a few years later in a film that became a landmark of its own.
“It was The Big Chill that really put us on the map,” says Dan Rogers of the S.C. Film Commission. The film was directed and co-written by Lawrence Kasdan. “He set it in Beaufort, South Carolina, only because the location manager, Mark Indig, found the house for him.”
As early as the silent film era, the occasional movie was filmed on location in South Carolina, particularly if the story was intentionally set in the Palmetto State, like Santini. “The Big Chill showed it doesn’t have to be a story specifically about South Carolina or written by a South Carolinian,” Dan says.
The Big Chill opened on Friday, Sept. 30, 1983. Its competition included Flashdance, Mr. Mom, and Risky Business. It earned $3,662,152 that weekend across 722 theaters — $10.8 million in today’s dollars. It was a critical success, earning Oscar nominations for best picture, best writing, and best supporting actress for Glenn Close. Another cast member, Tom Berenger, ended up marrying a Beaufort native and settling down in nearby Okatie.
The film, which explores the friction between youthful 1960s idealism and middle-aged 1980s reality through a group of old college friends, is now middle-aged itself, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The South Carolina film industry has matured as well, with multiple television series being shot in the state and a slow but steady drumbeat of other projects being produced.
“I feel like I’m in the right place at the right time,” says Dustin Whitehead, a Columbia actor, filmmaker, and assistant professor of acting at the University of South Carolina. “Hollywood is shifting, and a lot of productions are being shot on location instead of shooting at studios. It’s exciting, and I’m curious to see where it goes.”
Dustin has a film that released this year, Hero, which was shot in and around Columbia. The film commission provided grant funding for the project. It was made via Dustin’s nonprofit, Local Cinema Studios, which provides students opportunities for on-the-job training in the film industry.
“Shooting in Columbia was just beautiful — we joke the movie was kind of a love letter to Columbia,” Dustin says, describing the use of local murals in the film and numerous establishing shots featuring Columbia. “We tried to look for all the gems in the city. It was fun to get to learn the city.”
Hero had a crew of about 25 people of various backgrounds, ethnicities, and skill levels, according to the film commission’s Matt Storm. Matt oversees incentives, grants, training, and marketing, while Dan handles locations, scouts, permitting, and the online databases of people and places.
“Dustin came in with a good idea at the right time, and we were able to make it work,” Matt says. “We were able to get some kids to see how things really go on set. This is not a hobby. This is not shooting things with your friends for TikTok. You can make real money and work with some creative people, and it’s a lot of fun. Some of those kids were able to transfer into internships on various productions down in Charleston.”
Creating a labor pool that can serve film and television has been a slow build but is crucial to building the industry in the state. This challenge goes back to the early days of the film commission.
“Back then, you had to prove to Los Angeles that the crew, the locations, the suppliers, the hotels, the extras, and some cast were basically within a 30-mile radius,” says Jeff Monks, who worked for the commission in 1989-2010. “It was a tough sell. We didn’t have that much crew, and we didn’t have that much of a supplier base. You had to sell them on the quality of locations and fill in the blanks from there.”
The film commission was created as the S.C. Film Office in 1980. Debra Rosen, a Charleston native attending law school at the University of San Francisco, learned about the film commission there and convinced then Gov. Dick Riley that the Palmetto State should have one as well. A number of productions came to South Carolina throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Days of Thunder visited Darlington Raceway. Forrest Gump traced some of the same Lowcountry steps as The Big Chill. The Abyss came to Gaffney because filmmaker James Cameron was able to shoot underwater scenes inside massive tanks at a never-completed nuclear power plant there. Debra says she found additional allies in U.S. Sens. Ernest Hollings and Strom Thurmond, but not everyone in government was receptive. Some opportunities slipped away for lack of either public or private sector support or both.
“Many people back then didn’t look at the film business as a business,” Debra says. “It was looked at as art, but it’s a marriage of the two — it’s art and it’s industry.”
Experts say that marriage creates jobs, supports existing businesses, and promotes South Carolina. Debra says the scenes shot in Charleston for the 1985 miniseries North and South were “like a free commercial for your state.”
The Motion Picture Association, an advocacy group consisting of production studios, says that “2.2 million people, from special effects technicians to makeup artists to writers to set builders to ticket takers and more, work in jobs supported by the industry, which pays more than $192 billion in wages annually.”
The association estimates that as of 2020, the film and television industry was responsible for 6,550 jobs in South Carolina, with approximately 960 in production and the rest related to distribution. It accounted for $430 million in wages. Three films and seven TV series were shot in the state in 2020, with another three films and 11 series in 2021.
Movie and TV locations spawn a side industry, as fans visit the places they’ve seen on screen. Sand Hill Baptist Church, site of the opening funeral scene in The Big Chill, still sits in a clearing down a lonely, two-lane blacktop in Hampton County. Tidalholm is a tourist magnet with its own Instagram page.
“The town of Senoia, Georgia, totally changed because of The Walking Dead,” Dan says. The horror series, which recently concluded its run on AMC, spent 11 seasons shooting in the town of 5,245. During that time, business boomed on Main Street as fans flocked to the site of their favorite show.
The Notebook, a 2004 film based on a novel by North Carolina author Nicholas Sparks, was filmed at a string of Lowcountry sites, from Moncks Corner to Edisto Island to King Street in Charleston. Jeff says it helped convince leaders of the industry’s tourism impact.
In 2011 and 2012, SC Parks, Recreation, and Tourism and the Film Commission partnered with Strategic Marketing & Research, Inc. to research how television shows and movies that are filmed or set in South Carolina influence travel to the state. The study suggests that productions filmed or set in South Carolina may have influenced up to 1.6 million household visits and $1.7 billion in travel spending in the state over the past 10 years.
In the early 2000s came a plot twist. States, including South Carolina, began offering various types of financial and tax incentives to lure productions. “The first question now is always, ‘What are your incentives?’” Dan says. “They’re not as interested now in how beautiful the site may be as they once were.”
Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina all became aggressive players. For example, a production company can receive an extra 10 percent tax credit simply by adding a Georgia promotional logo to its end credits. Incidentally, this may also explain why that peach logo periodically pops up during broadcasts from The Weather Channel, which is based in Atlanta.
“Our incentives pale in comparison to Georgia’s — everybody’s does,” says industry pro Ron Tucker, who heads the annual Beaufort International Film Festival with his wife, Rebecca. “I’ve scouted for films over the years, spending a week showing what we had to offer, and then they ended up going to Georgia to shoot their film there. Georgia and North Carolina both have a powerful base when it comes to infrastructure. It’s nothing for five films at a time to be shot in Savannah.”
South Carolina’s incentives include sales tax exemptions. Production companies also don’t have to pay a location fee for shooting on state government controlled property. In addition, entrepreneurs and investors can be eligible for tax credits if they build production or post-production facilities in the state. Perhaps the most popular incentives are rebates of up to 30 percent on supplies and up to 25 percent on wages.
“We devised the program with just-in-time auditing of their financial records so when they finished, they could have their money in four to six weeks,” Jeff says. “That makes a big difference with lower-budget films when it comes to post production.”
The film commission distributes the rebates from a $15 million pot that must be replenished by the General Assembly each year. Matt says the funds have been exhausted some years.
“From 2019 to 2021, we had 23 projects that called us that didn’t consider South Carolina because of our lack of incentives,” Dan says. The projects were produced elsewhere, representing $416 million in potential investment. “Now that doesn’t mean they all would have come here, but it’s a real business decision. It’s called show business for a reason.”
While being judicious with who gets South Carolina’s limited funds, Dan says they’ve found a “sweet spot” with television productions. Army Wives was shot in Charleston throughout its 2007-13 run. Season three of the Netflix teen drama Outer Banks and season three of HBO’s dark comedy The Righteous Gemstones were produced in and around Charleston. TV productions reside in a community for months and years at a time, compared to the quicker in-and-out of movies.
“They’re going to do more hiring, and they’re going to do more rentals,” Matt says. “It’s astounding how expensive a television series is now. It’s definitely in our best interest to have a television series that can build a crew base. They do outreach and try to engage the community. We have a quality of life here that they just weren’t finding elsewhere.”
The shows are being seen everywhere. When the 10-episode second season of Outer Banks came online the week of Aug. 2 - 8, 2021, it attracted 2.1 billion minutes of viewing. “How much would it cost a state to get 2.1 billion minutes of streaming advertising?” Dan asks. “That’s Super Bowl numbers.”
Gemstones creator and star Danny McBride enjoyed filming in Charleston so much for the HBO series Vice Principals that he moved his family and his production company, Rough House Pictures, to the Holy City. “They want to be able to see their kids at night,” Debra says of McBride and company. “Who wouldn’t want to live in Charleston?”
Girlfriendship, a Hallmark Channel romantic comedy, was also among the productions shooting in the Palmetto State recently. Homegrown projects are being produced as well. Debra helped create a virtual reality experience based on the Brown v. Board of Education court case. It can be viewed at the visitors center in Charleston. Ron and Rebecca produced Stars Fell on Alabama, a 2021 film shot in Beaufort.
Dustin says his nonprofit teamed up with USC and the film commission on another shoot this summer. This time, he says, beach and farm scenes were featured. He’s interested in scouting locations and learning more about the state — and who knows, perhaps 40 years from now, people will be pointing at screens and saying, “I’ve seen that place,” as they savor his cinematic contributions.
