Hollywood North
Local businesses and residents are reaping the benefits of increased U.S. film and television production work in Metro Vancouver
Langley Township’s Hilltop Cafe proclaims itself as “home of the famous pies.” But in recent years, the retro café has found new star power: as a popular movie locale in Hollywood North.
Half a dozen productions are filmed each year at the diner, which has seen the likes of big-name stars like Kate Bosworth, Robert Redford, John Travolta and Shia LeBoeuf. The café has been featured in the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, the Butterfly Effect and the Bates Motel television series, which highlights the early life of Psycho’s Norman Bates.
“It’s been good for us,” said Andrea Zaiser, who co-owns the diner with her sister Sandie Parley. “I always have people coming into the diner saying, ‘I saw you in this movie or that movie.’ It just gives us better promotion, better exposure, better advertising.”
Zaiser and her Hilltop Cafe are among thousands of residents and businesses who have found a niche in the fast-growing $2-billion Hollywood North film industry sweeping B.C.
Bolstered by the slumping Canadian dollar and a plethora of landscapes that can double as the U.S., Metro Vancouver has become a hot spot for commercials, TV series or feature films. The situation had prompted municipalities to create independent film offices to lure more productions to boost the local economy and provide spinoffs for neighbouring businesses.
Vancouver, the third largest film production centre in North America, announced it wants to brand itself as a “film city” following a hectic year of filming in 2015, while Burnaby has hired another two parks officials to monitor productions in popular locations like Central Park. Others, like the city of North Vancouver, are trying to get a firmer foothold in the industry by offering gravel sports fields as parking lots for crews or film trucks, and using Facebook and Twitter to encourage residents and businesses to list their homes and shops in the Creative BC database to lure more shoots.
“At the moment everybody’s busy and we’re actively encouraging people to come,” said Clare Husk, film and shipyards liaison for North Vancouver. “We’re actively promoting on social media that people can advertise their homes or businesses to the database. There has been more pickup. You’re not going to get a great deal of money from this but it’s fun.”
Landing a spot on a feature flick, television series or commercial appears to be part pitch and part luck. The Western Market, a nondescript Burnaby corner store, had been used by Once Upon a Time, before other scouts decided it fit the bill for their productions.
“The word gets out there after a while,” said Burnaby’s film co-ordinator Susan Rae. “Everyone finds something quite by accident and then it becomes a popular spot.”
It’s a lucrative gig if they can get it.
Zaiser, for instance, can reap up to $3,500 per day on a regular shoot, plus more if there’s a need for cleaning or liaising services. Most shoots are one or two days but her longest was five days in a row, which allowed Zaiser a few days away from the café. She acknowledged crews can sometimes make a mess, like they did in The Hollow TV movie, and she still has to pay her staff when she shuts down, but it’s worth every penny, especially when her café is featured in a television series like the Bates Motel. So far, it has been used twice in the series; once as a bus stop and the other as a diner.
“I couldn’t buy air time on that show and yet they sometimes show my sign and logo,” Zaiser said. “It’s great for business. My local customers, they love to tell their friends, ‘Oh yeah, we go to the diner all the time.’ So it is worth it.”
Those renting out their premises aren’t the only ones who benefit. When scouts come knocking, or just want to shoot photographs for the database, they will spend the day and buy both breakfast and lunch, Zaiser said. And even if a production is being shot nearby, it injects money into hotels, laundromats, restaurants and other facilities.
“The residual money spent here is incredible,” she said.
Economic data from the production of Deadpool, which was shot in B.C., for example, shows more than $40 million was spent on production during 58 days of filming, according to the Motion Picture Association. The production also hired more than 2,000 local cast,
It’s great for business. My local customers, they love to tell their friends ‘Oh yeah, we go to the diner all the time.’ So it is worth it.
crew and extras, who earned more than $19 million in wages. Key expenditures included more than $1 million on location costs, close to $815,000 on hotels, catering and restaurants and nearly $780,000 on transportation.
The Laughing Bean Cafe in East Vancouver wasn’t featured in Deadpool, but it reaped some of those benefits when part of the movie was shot in a laundromat next door because the cast and crew came in for coffee breaks.
“They were in here consuming beverages and food so that was awesome,” said co-owner Rebecca Bertrand. “That was a good day for us.”
The Laughing Bean has also been featured in more than a dozen TV shows, movies and local high school productions, including most recently Love It or List It and Real Housewives of Vancouver.
“Some customers have come in and said, ‘Hey, I saw you, you were featured in that show’ but I don’t really keep track,” Bertrand said. “The bigger productions are always generous, so I wouldn’t say no to them.”
While businesses get additional exposure, residents benefit in other ways. Carol Abernethy and her husband were paid $1,000 per day in 2005 when they rented out their Crescent Beach house in south Surrey for the eight-season series Psych, a detective show supposedly based in Santa Barbara. The $1,000-per-day rental increased slightly over the next few years, while the couple also received $500 per day when their property was used for parking.
But it was the little getaways — the couple was put up in hotels of their choice during filming — that stand out most in Abernethy’s mind. The first year, they stayed in the Sutton Place Hotel in downtown Vancouver, but later chose the River Rock Casino where they were given the suite below the Penthouse.
“We had half the hotel. We could look out the window and watch the planes come in,” Abernethy said. “We could have negotiated more because it was a popular show but we were happy with what they did. We didn’t want to get greedy and it was fun to have the stars around.”
Rae noted it’s up to residents and businesses to negotiate their own deals, but “it’s never going to be a situation where lost revenue is going to be in the picture. They try to make it fair and equitable for everyone.”
North Burnaby’s Alison Bridger took her family to Mexico in 2010 when her home was rented for the comedy 50/50, starring Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The family spent six weeks on holiday after a character had to be recast, leading to delays and, in her case, more compensation. Bridger declined to say how much she was paid, but maintains the production crew was always “respectful and courteous and fixed anything that needed fixing.”
The house, portrayed as a bachelor pad, was cleared of all its furniture, including the piano, and given new blinds and a fresh lick of paint in the kitchen, living room and bathroom. Bridger was worried at one point when she noticed chips in the door frames and on the cherry red exterior before realizing it was just paint.
“They said the house was too maintained and they wanted it to look shabby,” she said. “There were knocks and chips in all the door frames. I was freaked out thinking they were wrecking my house.”
The crew fixed her front steps, as well as her garden, which was trampled during the shoot. They also repainted the house after they finished shooting.
Abernethy’s 100-year-old south Surrey home on the beach, meanwhile, was painted a bright raspberry red, but aside from removing a giant moose head from above the fireplace because it didn’t befit the California lifestyle, the production crews left the interior pretty much intact.
Abernethy figures the house was perfect as-is for character Henry Spencer, played by Corbin Bernsen, whom she described as “an eccentric guy who never changed anything.”
“I have a husband who’s exactly like that. He gets rid of nothing and never buys nothing new.”
The interior of the Abernethy house was only used for a few years until a set was built in North Vancouver, but the couple continued to rent out the house’s exterior and yard, which backs onto the beach, until the series ended in 2014. Abernethy, who has had visits from Psych fans from as far away as the U.K., said while it was fun, she’s not sure if she would do it again.
But Bridger would love to have her home in another shoot. “Some- times I find myself thinking ‘I really need the house to be rented again.’ ”
That’s not a problem for the Hilltop Cafe, which was so busy last year that it closed for three shoots just before Christmas. But Zaiser has decided to scale back the rentals after residents became exasperated because the cafe was closed so often. “We’re a restaurant first and a film location second.”
Similar balancing acts are being experienced across the region. Rae wants to shift some productions out of North Burnaby neighbourhoods such as the Heights into areas further east in the city to balance the needs of production crews with those of residents. Parking is a big issue, she said, noting she requires a few days to notify and work with residents who might be upset if a film crew is in the neighbourhood when they’re planning a party or a baby shower.
“My job is to keep the peace between both of them,” she said. “It’s really a juggling act.”
But city officials say it’s worth the hassle as the film industry has become a significant employer. Some 353 productions were filmed in Vancouver last year, providing $710,000 in revenue from film and street-use permits alone.
This included 26 features films — 10 more than in 2014 — 158 commercials and 309 television episodes. Payroll stubs suggest $143 million was paid in wages to Vancouver residents in 2015, while 30 per cent more film permits were issued in January this year than last.
On the North Shore, 1,000 people were employed in the film industry in 2015, earning $97 million. Over $182,000 was generated in 2014 from film permits.
Rae didn’t have specific numbers for Burnaby, but a 2012 report suggested the city reaped $405 million in direct and spinoff spending from the industry that year, with 2,425 residents directly employed in the industry.
Rae said the last few years have been even busier, and worries Hollywood North is getting close to capacity in terms of local crews. “We’re having as stellar a year as we did last year. We’re still booking in many, many shows. We’re trying to accommodate everybody but it’s really a very busy industry right now.”
They said the house was too maintained and they wanted it to look shabby. There were knocks and chips in all the door frames. ... I was freaked out.
ALISON BRIDGER