Chris Ratledge used to make as much as $9,500 a week working on film sets around Atlanta. Now, he's on food stamps. The 48-year-old digital imaging technician moved from Indiana to Georgia in 2017 as studios — lured by generous tax credits — turned Atlanta into the "Hollywood of the South," the backdrop for hundreds of productions like "The Hunger Games," "Stranger Things" and more than a dozen Marvel blockbusters. Ratledge said the work was grueling — 70-hour weeks were normal — but the $72-an-hour pay was transformative. "I paid off three years of back taxes in one year, just from the money I made," says Ratledge, who worked on the Netflix movie "Red Notice," as well as shows like TBS' "Miracle Workers" and Starz's "P-Valley." Those times are long gone: Ratledge has worked just four days on set since May 2024. Instead, he's been working part-time at the front desk of a local tennis center and stringing rackets on the side, trying somehow to support his family of four on $15 an hour without health insurance. His wife, a cancer survivor, has started cleaning houses a few days a week, and they've downsized their rental home. But their $2,000-a-month income hardly even covers their rent, a shortfall that has left Ratledge in debt and deeply depressed. "All I want for Christmas is for my film career back," Ratledge wrote on Instagram in December. Georgia's boom goes bust After hitting a peak of $4.4 billion in 2022, spending on film and TV production in Georgia has tumbled, reaching just $2.3 billion in the last fiscal year, as total productions dropped from 412 in 2022 to 245 last year. The decline accelerated after the 2023 writers and actors strikes halted productions for months, dealing a blow to an industry still... Read More