Metro Vancouver online portal helps film companies set up shoots in regions
Metro Vancouver is creating an online portal that’s expected to make it easier for film companies to set up shoots in communities across the region.
The regional registration portal for filming is part of Metro Vancouver’s regional prosperity initiative, which involves Metro’s municipalities working together to promote economic development.
“Coming up with a system like this to allow your scout managers and the like a one-stop-shop application process is night and day between pretty much any other jurisdiction other than Los Angeles,” said Metro Vancouver board chair Greg Moore. “When we’re competing against everywhere else in the (U.S.) and Toronto, as much as we see this as very minor and it seems really obvious to do, it’s quite big in the industry.”
Currently, representatives from the film industry have to deal with film co-ordinators in each municipality. Processes, systems and forms vary, which can create delays and extra paperwork for film companies.
The portal would create a standard profile for a film-production company that could be used by all municipalities and would link film companies to the right municipal sites for film permitting.
“Right now we all have film applications on our websites — some are online, some are PDF — and what we’re trying to do is co-ordinate that into a common application form,” Moore said.
The portal is being created with help from a small working group, led by Creative B.C., that includes municipal film co-ordinators and representatives from the film industry.
Moore said it will be up to each municipality whether they want to participate, and it’s anticipated the program will eventually be expanded to other areas and organizations.
The portal will likely be up and running later this year.
The regional prosperity initiative is also creating a regional mobile business licence, to make it easier for businesses such as construction companies to become licensed in multiple municipalities.
Businesses that operate across municipal lines are supposed to get licences from each municipality in which they operate. Moore said that according to a provincial registry, there are 50,000 to 60,000 businesses registered in Metro Vancouver, but only about 12,000 have licences.
The province has already developed inter-municipal business licences across B.C. — including four regions in the Lower Mainland — but there is no regional equivalent. Moore called the current system “a patchwork” that can be confusing for businesses.
“Right now it’s not done in the most efficient way,” he said.
The regional model would give eligible businesses the opportunity to get a business licence in their home municipality and then to select up to four sub-regions to operate within.
The application process would take place online.
Three working groups are developing a template bylaw and an agreement that can be used by participating municipalities, and are discussing business modelling, technology and revenue sharing.