By Marke Andrews. Image: Television shows such as The Flash have supplanted feature films as the main source of income at production facility Vancouver Film Studios | Submitted
A plummeting Canadian dollar, a growing talent pool and the arrival and entrenchment of new production players has brought the province’s film and television industry to new heights in 2015-16.
Final statistics for the 2015 fiscal year, which runs from April 1, 2015, to March 31, 2016, won’t be available until May, but the industry appears to be on par to match or surpass last year’s $2 billion in production spending. Creative BC, which oversees the industry, processed a record 287 tax credit applications in 2014-15.
A few years ago, some of Vancouver’s experienced film crew members had to leave the province to find steady work, but no such brain drain occurs now.
“We have 5,700 members at work full time, and we have experienced growth this year like no other year,” said Phil Klapwyk, business representative for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 891. The union has 412 new members to help meet the work demands.
“We can’t predict the film industry because it’s so volatile with the different tax incentives [elsewhere] and the value of the dollar, but we’re looking at a good year,” said Klapwyk, speaking from Florida, where he was on a business trip.
Industry representatives say that the boom is being partly driven by the high quality of local technicians, who in addition to providing reliable service, can also innovate. IATSE members Steve Smith, Dave McIntosh and Mike Kirilenko, as well as local grip Mike Branham, will be honoured February 13 with a technical achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for their invention Airwall, a portable greenscreen that inflates to whatever size necessary in 12 minutes, negating the need to construct a greenscreen structure.
While good crews draw productions, the freefalling Canadian dollar accounts for much of the activity from south of the border and beyond.
“My phone is almost lighting on fire,” said Kimberlee Alexander, vice-president of sales and marketing for Vancouver Film Studios (VFS), adding that local crews, proximity to Los Angeles and an abundance of studios with the capacity to handle large-scale films and TV series make Vancouver a choice destination.
Pete Mitchell, VFS president and chief operating officer, said television now provides the studio with 70% of its work, whereas a decade ago feature films were the main revenue source. The studio’s 2015 production list included returning TV series Arrow, The Flash and Bates Motel.
A major production boost came from the emergence of streaming services Netflix and Amazon Prime, as well as from HBO.
“This is a brand-new customer group that we haven’t seen the likes of in 15 years,” Mitchell said. “They are making big inroads into audiences, and making big series productions.”
IATSE’s Klapwyk agreed that Netflix and Amazon have changed the work landscape in the province. “It’s a shift in the industry and it is shaking out here,” he said.
Because of the boom in Vancouver’s visual effects industry, big productions can not only shoot here, but they can also do their post-production at Vancouver VFX studios.
Greg Herbert, chief financial officer for Vancouver post-production house Image Engine, said the studio had a busy 2015, including work on movies The Revenant, Deadpool and Independence Day Resurgence and TV series Game of Thrones, and the number of potential productions in the pipeline makes 2016 appear promising.
While the falling dollar may attract producers, productions still need qualified people to do the job on deadline, which Vancouver possesses.
“You have to have amazing talent to do the work, and to do it on time,” Herbert said. “If you have second-rate quality, there is no time for fixing.”
Herbert welcomes the influx of post-production houses to Vancouver – some of them much larger than Image Engine.
“It’s fantastic. It brings new work,” he said. “It means more great talent coming here and more great projects.” •
