By Ken Klein, EVP, Outdoor Advertising Association of America
SYLVA, NC – Family-owned independent Allison Outdoor Advertising built and posted billboards for an award-winning movie with pre-Oscar buzz.
“We made good money,” said Gary Ayers, president of Allison Outdoor, based in rural western North Carolina. “The movie people were great to work with.”
The movie is set in a fictional town in Missouri, but filmed in and around Sylva, NC (population 2,644). Hollywood likes western North Carolina for movie-making, including Hunger Games, Last of the Mohicans, The Fugitive, and Dirty Dancing. The state’s film office touts North Carolina as “film-friendly with minimal permitting and ready assistance throughout production.”
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri is a dark, profane comedy featuring Frances McDormand as a grieving mom pushing the police chief (Woody Harrelson) to solve her daughter’s murder. The movie was released November 10; its trailer has more than 1.1 million online views.
“When you see the police station in the movie, it’s really on Main Street, Sylva,” said Ayers. “They shut down Main Street for the filming . . . hundreds of people came to watch.”
Main Street in Sylva, NC, as a movie set
Three Billboards won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, considered an Oscar bellwether.
Allison Outdoor custom-built the three billboards shown in the film, and installed the 10-by-24-foot structures in a cow pasture in a nearby county. Ayers, an all-around optimist about the project, says soil in the cow pasture wasn’t rocky, and, therefore, billboard installation was easy.
“Our guys loved being a part of this movie, because now they can say, ‘hey, were part of the action,’” said Ayers.
Associated Posters, Inc. (API) printed the billboards in late May of 2016 in Kernersville, NC.
“The boards were paper,” said printer Robert Arnold. “We went through several trial and error prints. They had a custom size structure and also wanted to post in 7 long vertical sections.”
Associated Posters and Allison Outdoor are involved in their communities. When NFL-bound quarterback Heath Shuler played football at Swain County High School in Bryson City, NC, Ayers announced the games on local radio.
“Small towns like the one Heath and I grew up in have a way of keeping friends close for a long time,” says Ayers.
Shuler served three terms in Congress (2007-2013).
Nancy Fletcher (OAAA), Congressman Health Shuler, and Gary Ayers in 2007
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