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Film-production spending on rise on Island, thanks to tax credit

While crews were shooting a Christmas movie in downtown Victoria on Monday, the provincial government used the backdrop to declare July 27 Screen in B.C. Day. “It’s a great day in B.C.
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Descendants, airing on the Disney Channel on Friday, was shot last year in Victoria. Tax incentives and a good exchange rate are luring more productions to the city and surrounding area.

While crews were shooting a Christmas movie in downtown Victoria on Monday, the provincial government used the backdrop to declare July 27 Screen in B.C. Day. “It’s a great day in B.C.,” said MLA Greg Kyllo, parliamentary secretary to Shirley Bond, minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training, after visiting the Just in Time for Christmas set and touring post-production studio Foley 1010.

The proclamation was made in tandem with events in Vancouver, Kelowna and Campbell River to celebrate B.C. as one of North America’s busiest screen-entertainment-production centres.

The opening of a B.C. Film and Television Office in Los Angeles, with Dr. Steven Funk appointed as special envoy to California for film and digital arts, was also announced.

Production expenditures in B.C. reached an estimated $2 billion in the 2014-2015 fiscal year, up from $1.45 billion the year before. The industry supports 20,000 related jobs, according to government figures.

The Hallmark Hall of Fame movie Just in Time for Christmas, which is filming 11 days in Vancouver and 10 in Victoria, shows how tax incentives, the favourable exchange rate and B.C.’s diverse locations can reap benefits, Kyllo said.

“We’ve seen significant growth in productions shot here on Vancouver Island, largely in the Victoria area,” he said.

Eighteen shows with nearly $20 million in direct spending have already filmed here in 2015, “well ahead of our best year, 2006,” said Victoria film commissioner Kathleen Gilbert, who attributed the upswing largely to the six per cent distant-location tax credit.

Producers of three TV movies are scouting, potentially adding to a slate including a new Signed, Sealed, Delivered movie, For Wheelz, Stranger in the House, The Boy and Monkey Up.

The region is also in the limelight with global media coverage of Descendants, Disney’s hyped musical action-comedy premièring July 31.

“This is not hard duty at all,” said Just in Time for Christmas producer Andy Gottlieb, as a crane hoisted the “fly-swatter,” a giant square light filter fringed with Christmas greenery across from the Empress Hotel.

Meanwhile, director Sean McNamara blocked a scene in which Eloise Mumford and Michael Stahl-David dash past the Capt. Cook statue, decorated with boughs of holly and background Santa faces.

“It obviously costs us money to come here, but it’s worth it for the look,” the Santa Barbara-based producer said. “We need a mid-sized-town look and the stuff we’re getting here is so much better for the movie.”

Gottlieb was already familiar with the area, having been here eight years ago to helm the Dean Cain vehicle Crossroads.

Another reason they came was because Fort Langley, where so many tax-credit-conscious producers shoot, is off-limits for filming during July, he said.

Meanwhile, Gilbert is almost finished moving the Vancouver Island South Film and Media Commission office from the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce into a heritage building at 514 Government St.

“The Chamber graciously gave us five years of free rent, which was amazing,” she said, noting they outgrew the 120-square-foot space.

mreid@timescolonist.com