Filmed At Georgia Tech
By: Jennifer Herseim | Categories: Alumni Interest
Located in the heart of “Y’allywood,” Georgia Tech has served as the backdrop for many popular movies and shows. Some campus spots you might recognize immediately—Is that the Clough Building they’re calling Google’s headquarters?—while other familiar places are transformed by movie magic.
“One of the most common requests we get is for the Academy of Medicine because it can be turned into a government building or serve as a residence,” says Julie Birchfield, director of Community Engagement, who leads Tech’s Film Logistics, Activations, and Relationship Building.
Birchfield and her team coordinate with film crews to scout locations, manage logistics, and importantly, limit the interruptions to student life and campus activity.
This isn’t a complete list of films shot on campus—Georgia Tech often can’t speak about current projects—but it’s a start to plan your next movie night.
Yellow Jacket References
Beyond the movies filmed on campus, there are even more references to Georgia Tech on the big screen.
In Fly Me to the Moon (2024), a historical romantic comedy set in the Apollo 11 era, a character played by Scarlett Johansson meets a senator from Georgia and claims to be a Tech engineer.
“You probably don’t remember me, but you spoke at my sophomore year at college—Georgia Tech ’55,” her character says. “You’re a Buzz?” the senator replies.
Clearly, the writer wasn’t a Tech alum with that line, but there was a Buzz, er, Yellow Jacket, on set.
By day, Paul Todd, IM 86, is the group manager for Operational Excellence at Georgia Tech’s Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP). A big movie fan, Todd moonlights as a background actor and played a NASA scientist in the film. You can spot him in mission control wearing a thin tie, pocket protector, and wire-rimmed glasses behind Johansson’s co-star, Channing Tatum.
“It’s been fun to see behind-the-scenes of how movies and TV shows are made, and I’m struck by how much effort it takes to make a movie, even a single scene,” he says.
The first rule in background acting, Todd says, is to not talk to the actors on set. “I joke that Scarlett Johansson and I are close working partners, but really I was just in the same room,” Todd says. “If I do meet her one day, now I can tell her that I’m a fellow alum.”
