This time last year, three movies and one TV series were about to start shooting in Greater Victoria, setting the stage for a hot production summer.
White movie trucks and trailers became a familiar sight from Esquimalt to Fernwood as the cameras rolled on films including The Boy, Just in Time for Christmas, The Last Resort and The Girl in the Photographs.
Cut to June of 2016. Business has inexplicably slowed to a standstill, sparking speculation that brings to mind William Goldman’s famous Hollywood quote: “Nobody knows anything.”
While the Oscar-winning screenwriter was referring to uncertainty about what will make a motion picture succeed, in this case it applies to what makes a filmmaker decide to shoot here, or not.
Factors include timing, economics and the availability of required locations and crews. Sometimes, it’s just because a star prefers shooting elsewhere.
While 25 productions were filmed here last year, there have been only nine projects since January, including commercials and still photo shoots for Volvo and Canadian Tire.
Two made-for-TV movies — Hallmark’s The Gourmet Detective 3 and The Convenient Groom — and some “road work” in Sooke for Fifty Shades Darker, the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey, have been filmed.
Footage for 1491: The Untold Story of the Americas Before Columbus; Taken, a series about missing and murdered aboriginal women; and two travel documentaries has also been captured.
“Sometimes it’s just showbiz,” said Allen Lewis, the Metchosin-based producer with Front Street Pictures. “Sometimes the stars align, sometimes they don’t.”
While it has been suggested that a shortage of affordable accommodation is keeping producers away during summer, Victoria film commissioner Kathleen Gilbert said that issue is often misconstrued. “It’s not that there aren’t available hotel rooms,” she said. “The problem is trying to find hotel rooms for 40, 70 or sometimes 120 crew people for four to six weeks without having to move them around.”
Gilbert said hoteliers approached while trying to land three made-for-TV movies produced by Sepia Films “came back with amazing deals,” but there were logistical impediments.
Vancouver Island South Film and Media Commission has also explored vacation-property rentals with favourable results, said Gilbert, who emphasized accommodation is only a summer issue. “This industry is very different than any industry that block-books rooms in advance,” Gilbert said. “On MOWs [movies of the week], two or three weeks is often the most notice we get.”
Another potential obstacle is the perception that there aren’t enough local crews, especially since many have taken jobs in Vancouver, where production is off the charts.
“The appetite for content worldwide is at an all-time high, and that, in part, is a reflection of delivery systems,” said Allan Harmon, chairman of the B.C. branch of the Director’s Guild of Canada.
Harmon directed Stranger in the House here last year for Really Real Films, the Vancouver-based production company he runs with his wife, producer Cynde Harmon. It debuts in Canada on Superchannel on July 5. “With video on demand, Netflix, Shomi and all these alternatives offering fresh programming, they’re the reason why so much content is being ordered,” he said.
While business is on hold here, crews in Vancouver have been busier than ever working on a glut of U.S. primetime shows, blockbusters and Netflix series such as A Series of Unfortunate Events and Altered Carbon.
Some locals who resisted crossing the pond during our recent lull have worked up-Island on Chesapeake Shores, the Hallmark series starring Meghan Ory, Jesse Metcalfe, Diane Ladd and Treat Williams. Although Gilbert tried to lure the series here, the producers chose the Parksville-Qualicum region chiefly because of its abundance of sandy shores and other locations that suited the material.
Gilbert said with the return of 10 local “A-list” craftspeople from Vancouver, there is enough Victoria crew to staff a full shoot (300 people on the commission’s crew list have on-set experience.)
“I don’t think crew is so much of an issue,” said Lewis, whose locally shot projects include three Gourmet Detective movies, Freshman Father and Spooksville. “Some of it is cyclical, and some movies just don’t work in Victoria, or some series [such as Murder, She Baked] have already-established locations in Vancouver.”
Lewis is returning in August to prepare two new Hallmark movies he plans to shoot back-to-back — another Signed Sealed Delivered franchise picture, and Fixer Upper starring Jewel.
The Harmons, who are developing another female-centred thriller, also plan to do two films here, including a Christmas picture that would shoot between December and January. “We just love coming to the Island,” said Cynde Harmon. “We want to be one of the few companies that actually shoots a Christmas movie during the Christmas season.”
While Disney has yet to confirm Descendants 2 will shoot here [likely this fall], Victoria-born Dan Payne, who played Beast, King of Auradon, said he’s ready to roll. “I’m praying with every part of me that I’ll get to come back and Beast it up,” he said.