The City of Dahlonega is looking a lot like Christmas. That's because a made for television Christmas movie is setting up production there.
Filming for "Shooting Christmas" began this week and Dahlonega Director of Tourism David Zunker said on WDUN's Afternoon News Wrap Wednesday that the production crews were hard at work, as there's a quick turnaround time. The filming should be wrapped by October 13, one day ahead of Gold Rush on October 14, Zucker said.
"They were going to scout seven different communities, towns within Georgia and they were going to do it over a weekend. They came to Dahlonega and never left," Zunker said. "They loved what they saw immediately, they saw the possibilities, they loved the historic public square downtown and they saw a number of buildings that were going to work for them."
The town will be transformed into a small Iowa town, and parts of the city, including the square, will be blanketed with fake snow at times.
"It's like dishwashing liquid, except it has no toxicity what so ever, it's not bad for the plants... they make a ton of this stuff and they also have blankets of this stuff that they put down before they start making the snow. But the snow looks very real - what they're making looks just like snow," said Zunker.
And, locals are welcome to be extras for some of the scenes.
"They are actually reaching out to more and more people, they have a budget for about 50 extras," said Zunker. "One of the things they said was they encourage people to walk the square, but they also encouraged them to wear heavy coats."
The movie is set to air on the Hallmark channel around Thanksgiving.
Anyone who would like to participate as a background artist is asked to contact Wendy Geary at 410-262-7235.
