North Hollywood

Here I am.

Word on the street is, the American movie makers come to Vancouver for the remarkable tax cuts. Hooey, says I. While the tax cuts are no doubt a positive benefit for any multi-million dollar production you don't see a rush of Hollywood natives showing up in places like Winnipeg, Calgary or, I don't know...Iqaluit every Summer. And those places would bend over backwards to let Michael Bay and his cronies waltz in, shut down some streets and blow stuff up. No, a place has to have more going for it than a wee savings scheme.

What Vancouver has, that most major cities don't, is an incredible level of variety. In terms of filming locations one could scarcely ask for a better spot. Sure, you could head East to Louisiana, which also boasts large tax benefits for the celluloid crowd, but your filming locations are restricted to alligator infested wetlands, some old French buildings and farmer McCready's farm house which gets blown to bits every Spring by the annual hurricane(s). Vancouver, on the other hand, has *almost* everything you could want, mountains, beaches, forests, a central city which could be any major U.S city and an assortment of architecture (it lacks a desert, but just head back to California and you'll be sure to find one or two).

But what if say, you want to be filming your big New York style action scene one day, and don't feel like traveling six hours to the nearest small town to get your poignant ending where the character returns home the next? Less than one hour drive from central Vancouver (or three bus rides and two trains, if I'm going from personal experience) is the picturesque town of Fort Langley. Fort Langley has certainly tailored itself to give off the small town feel, but drive through the open farm land to get there, then walk down the main street (populated with Fort Langely natives all saying friendly hello's to one another) and stop at in at the 50's style diner and tell me you don't think you're in Mayberry or Bear Creek.

Naturally, there are a multitude of reasons why Hollywood packs it's Botox and cocaine for the yearly migration to versatile Vancouver. A short (and cheap) plane trip from L.A, the wealth of different ethnicities (it's hard to sell it as downtown L.A when all your extras are whiter than snow), the leniency of the local government (including those low taxes), but most of all it's the old triple pronged alliteration, location, location...you know the rest.


Kiwi