And the Oscar Goes to...

Earlier this year, as Academy Awards presenters were about to announce the winner for Best Picture – an award for which two films with a Vancouver connection, Crash and Capote, were competing – much of B.C.'s film industry watched on televisions at lavish local parties.

It was a rare work break. For the past the year, film crews in B.C. have been working full-tilt.

Cheers raised roofs when director and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote, left, and
Catherine Keener as Nelle Harper Lee, in a scene from
Capote (Sony Classic Pictures)producer Paul Haggis’ Crash took the Oscar. Best Screenplay for the film went to Bobby Moresco. Both are natives of London, Ontario. Vancouver’s Lions Gate is the film’s distributor. The movie, an intense drama about race relations, was nominated for six Oscars and won three.

Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Actor Oscar for his “eerily accurate” portrayal of Truman Capote in the film Capote. The film, about how Capote wrote In Cold Blood, was produced by Vancouver’s Infinity Features and shot in Winnipeg and southern Manitoba.

Brokeback Mountain, which led the way with eight Oscar nods, was filmed and co-produced in Alberta. The cowboy love story won three awards: Best Writing (adapted screenplay), Best Directing and Best Sound.

Thandie Newton and Matt Dillon in a scene from
Crash (Lions Gate Films)

Canada’s superb performance at this year’s Oscars has translated into substantially greater demand for our talent. Connections to both Crash and Capote put B.C. at the forefront of increased film production.

“Things are booming right now,” Lions Gate’s president Peter Leitch told The Globe and Mail following the Oscars. As chairman of the Motion Picture Production Industry Association of British Columbia, Leitch predicted this year will be one of the industry’s busiest ever. All five of Vancouver’s major studios are booked solid. “I don’t recall when all the studio space was booked [like this] for a couple of years,” he said. “It's early days, but it’s looking like a good year.”

B.C. film productions are expected to inject $1.4-billion into the provincial economy this year, exceeding last year’s $1.2-billion figure. For the past decade, Vancouver has been the third-busiest film production centre in North America, trailing only Los Angeles and New York. It hosts the production of approximately 10 percent of Hollywood’s movies. Many U.S. television series are shot exclusively in Vancouver. This is due to several factors, including the favourable exchange rate, Vancouver’s proximity to Los Angeles, and the fact that the city and its environs offer numerous “looks” — they can easily pose as myriad international locations.

Hollywood North hit a tough period around 2001, primarily caused by competition from other film locations around the world and by the rise of reality television (which cut the number of TV dramas being shot). Today, though, Vancouver’s award-winning crews –along with recent improved government support programs – are bringing Hollywood producers back in droves that should outpace Hollywood North’s 1990s heyday.

Next time you pass by a B.C. street lined with film trucks, consider this: It could be one of more than 200 productions created in the province this year, employing some 35,000 people. And if you see those massive trailers and catering vans during May and June, keep an eye out for Mark Wahlberg, star of Shooter; Timothy Hutton, the lead in Mimzy; and Pierce Brosnan, who stars in Butterfly on a Wheel — all these movies will be rolling in early summer. It's showtime!