# Doubling Locations: How Georgia and New Zealand Play Somewhere Else

Source: https://storiara.com/blog/doubling-locations-how-georgia-and-new-zealand-become-new-york-and-the-moon
Last updated: 2026-09-14
Author: Nick Harty, Storiara

> Doubling a location means filming in one place and dressing, framing, and finishing it so the audience believes it's another. Productions do it to reach an incentive, stage space, or a cheaper crew base. The work falls on the location scout, the art department, picture cars, a small second unit in the real city, and VFX set extension, and the saving has to cover all of those costs.

Georgia, Ontario, New Zealand, and Queensland have all spent years playing places they aren't. The projects below are ones where the production history is on record, which makes them useful for seeing how the decision gets made and what it takes on the day.

## Productions that doubled one place for another

*Spider-Man: Homecoming* is set in Queens and was shot mostly in Atlanta. The production worked at Pinewood Atlanta Studios, used Grady High School and downtown Atlanta, and built a replica of the Staten Island Ferry. Tom Holland explained the reason plainly: building New York sets in Atlanta was cheaper than filming in New York. The company still went to New York in September 2016 to shoot in Astoria, Sunnyside, Staten Island, Manhattan, and a Brooklyn high school, and wrapped principal photography there.

*Stranger Things* is set in Hawkins, Indiana. The Duffer brothers first pictured the show on Long Island, then moved it to the Atlanta area, where Jackson, Georgia became downtown Hawkins and the former Georgia Mental Health Institute became Hawkins National Laboratory. For season four, the production also shot at Lukiškės Prison in Vilnius, Lithuania, for its Soviet prison storyline.

*Suits* is set at a Manhattan law firm. Only the pilot shot in New York. The series then moved to Toronto, where the office sets were built to match the New York offices seen in the pilot. Ontario also gave *It* (2017) its fictional Derry, Maine: Port Hope's municipal hall was turned into the Derry Public Library and its tourism centre into a City of Derry office.

*The Power of the Dog* is set in Montana in 1925 and was shot in New Zealand, in the Maniototo in Central Otago, in Dunedin, and in Oamaru, with interiors on Auckland stages. *M3GAN* is set in Seattle and filmed partly in Auckland, whose suburbs stood in for an American neighborhood.

In Australia, *Ticket to Paradise* is set in Bali and shot around Queensland, including the Whitsunday Islands and Brisbane. *San Andreas* was based at Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast and used Brisbane, Ipswich, and Gold Coast suburbs for California before finishing in San Francisco.

## Why the money points somewhere else

Every one of those examples lands in a place with a production incentive, stage space, and experienced crew. Doubling is how a production moves the spend to the incentive without rewriting the script.

| Where the show shot | Incentive the spend could reach | Headline rate |
|---|---|---|
| [Georgia](https://storiara.com/incentives/us/georgia) | Transferable tax credit | 20%, plus 10% for the promotional logo |
| Ontario, [Canada](https://storiara.com/incentives/canada) | OPSTC plus federal PSTC | 21.5% of Ontario spend, plus 16% of Canadian labour net of assistance |
| [New Zealand](https://storiara.com/incentives/new-zealand) | International screen production rebate | 20%, plus a 5% uplift from NZ$20m |
| Queensland, [Australia](https://storiara.com/incentives/australia) | Location Offset plus state support | 30% of qualifying spend from A$20m |

The comparison city is usually the one in the script. [New York](https://storiara.com/incentives/us/new-york) and [California](https://storiara.com/incentives/us/california) both have credits of their own, so the producer compares one package against another, adding crew rates, stage availability, and the cost of moving people to find the lower net number. Our pillar on [why productions shoot overseas](https://storiara.com/blog/tax-incentives-and-global-film-production-why-shoot-overseas) goes through that comparison with a full budget.

## How a double gets sold on screen

A doubled location works when the audience never has a reason to wonder. Getting there takes several departments.

### What the scout looks for

A [location scout](https://storiara.com/glossary/location-scout) looking for "Queens" in Atlanta starts with the bones of a street: two- and three-story attached brick buildings, storefronts at street level, a block short enough to control, and sightlines that don't end in pine trees or a skyline that's wrong. The art department can change almost everything at eye level. It can't change the height of the buildings, the width of the street, or what's visible at the end of the block.

Scouts shoot every candidate in the directions the camera will actually look and send those photos with a note about what would need to change. Our [location scouting checklist](https://storiara.com/blog/location-scouting-checklist) covers the standard photo set and the logistics questions for each location.

### The art department changes eye level

Once a street is chosen, set dressing does the heavy lifting. For a New York double, that means street signs in the right font and color, fire hydrants, mailboxes, newspaper boxes, bodega awnings, subway entrance railings, parking signs with alternate-side rules, and trash bags on the curb on the right day. Every business name on camera needs clearance or replacement. [Greenery](https://storiara.com/glossary/greenery) goes both ways: the greens department adds planters and street trees that belong in the setting and hides plants that don't, such as palms or Spanish moss.

### Picture cars carry a lot of the illusion

Traffic reads fast. If a Queens street is full of Georgia plates, viewers notice without knowing why. The picture car coordinator supplies [picture vehicles](https://storiara.com/glossary/picture-vehicle) with the right plates (often prop plates), taxis in the right livery, and police cars that match the city's current or period design. In New Zealand and Australia, where traffic drives on the left, a US-set shoot also needs left-hand-drive cars and a traffic plan that runs everything on the right side of the road.

### A second unit shoots the real city

Most doubled shows still send a small [second unit](https://storiara.com/glossary/second-unit) to the actual place. It shoots establishing shots (the aerial of the skyline, a subway train crossing a bridge), driving plates for car interiors filmed on stage, and background plates for VFX. A second unit might be a director or second unit director, a camera operator and assistants, a small grip and electric team, a local production manager, and a couple of PAs. It doesn't need cast, which keeps it cheap.

### VFX finishes what practical can't

[Visual effects](https://storiara.com/glossary/visual-effects) set extension replaces the top of a frame with the right skyline, removes a building that gives the game away, adds an elevated train, or paints out a mountain range. Plan these shots in prep. The VFX supervisor should be on the scout and on set for the doubled days to capture reference, lidar, and HDRIs so the shots don't turn into expensive rescue work in post.

### Watch the tells nobody scouts for

Light and weather can give a double away as quickly as architecture. Latitude changes the sun's angle and the length of the day. New Zealand and Australia run opposite seasons to the US, so a story set in a New York December shot in Otago in December means summer leaves on every tree. Background extras need to dress for the story's climate even when it's 30°C on the day, and costume has to budget for that. Accents in walla and background dialogue need attention too.

## Worked example: five story days in Queens

A Georgia-based feature has 20 pages of exterior Queens scenes that would take five shoot days. The producer compares two plans. The figures below are illustrative assumptions for a mid-budget feature, meant to show the structure of the decision, and every production's day cost is different.

### Plan A: take the main unit to New York for five days

- Main unit day cost in New York (crew, equipment, locations, catering): $190,000 x 5 = $950,000
- Travel, housing, and per diem for 40 Georgia-based cast and crew for one week: $3,000 x 40 = $120,000
- Location fees, parking holds, and neighborhood costs: $25,000 x 5 = $125,000
- Total: $1,195,000

For a Georgia-based production, none of this counts toward the Georgia credit. We assume no New York credit, since a five-day unit from an out-of-state production may not meet New York's program requirements. Check the program before assuming either way.

### Plan B: double Queens in Atlanta, with a small New York unit

- Main unit day cost in Atlanta: $170,000 x 5 = $850,000
- Extra set dressing, signage, clearances, and New York picture cars: $90,000
- VFX set extension on 25 shots at an assumed $4,000 a shot, with a vendor outside Georgia: $100,000
- Second unit in New York for three days: $40,000 x 3 = $120,000
- Second unit travel and permits: $25,000
- Total: $1,185,000

Qualified Georgia spend is the Atlanta main unit plus the dressing: $850,000 + $90,000 = $940,000.

- Georgia credit at 30%: $940,000 x 30% = $282,000
- Sold at an assumed 90 cents on the dollar: $282,000 x 0.90 = $253,800
- Net cost of Plan B: $1,185,000 - $253,800 = $931,200

Before the credit, the two plans cost almost the same, and in some cities Plan B would cost more. The Georgia credit is what makes the double worth doing, which is why doubling follows incentives so closely. You can run the credit side of this with your own numbers in the [incentive calculator](https://storiara.com/tools/incentive-calculator).

The other cost to weigh is creative. If the scenes depend on a real, recognizable place, such as a specific subway platform or a view that audiences know, the double will cost more in VFX than the example assumes, and the main unit may need to go to the real location anyway.

## Keeping track of which place is playing which

Once a script's settings split across real and doubled locations, paperwork gets confusing fast. The call sheet lists an Atlanta address for "EXT. ASTORIA STREET - DAY," the second unit's shot list lists the real Astoria corner, and the VFX vendor needs both. Storiara pulls the settings from a script into a Locations list, where each one can hold scout photos, a real address on a map, availability, and comments, and a find-in-script link back to the scenes. That keeps the script's setting and the practical address on the same record for everyone planning the day.

## Frequently asked questions

### What does doubling a location mean in film?

It means shooting in one place and making it read on screen as somewhere else. Atlanta doubled for parts of New York in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Otago in New Zealand played 1925 Montana in The Power of the Dog.

### Why do movies set in New York film in Atlanta or Toronto?

Mostly cost. Georgia offers a transferable credit of up to 30% of qualified spend, and Canada stacks federal and provincial credits, while both have stages and crews used to studio work. Tom Holland said of Spider-Man: Homecoming that building New York sets in Atlanta was cheaper than filming in New York.

### How do filmmakers hide that a location is a double?

They choose streets with the right architecture, then dress them with local signage, street furniture, and picture cars on correct plates. A second unit shoots establishing shots and background plates in the real city, and VFX adds skylines or landmarks that can't be faked practically.

### What gives away a doubled location?

Vegetation, traffic driving on the wrong side, utility poles, license plates, background extras' clothing for the climate, and light. Southern hemisphere shoots also run opposite seasons to the US, which matters when the story needs snow in December.

## Sources

- [Georgia Department of Economic Development: Production incentives](https://www.georgia.org/industries/film-entertainment/georgia-film-tv-production/production-incentives)
- [New Zealand Film Commission: Rebate for international productions (NZSPR)](https://www.nzfilm.co.nz/incentives/rebate-international-nzspr)
- [Ontario Creates: Ontario Production Services Tax Credit](https://www.ontariocreates.ca/tax-incentives/opstc)
- [Screen Australia and Ausfilm: Australia incentives brochure (February 2026)](https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Incentives-Brochure-English.pdf)
- [Wikipedia: Spider-Man: Homecoming (production section)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Homecoming)
- [Wikipedia: The Power of the Dog (film), filming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Dog_(film))