Front Page, Industry News

Film production in B.C. dives by 26% in 2007

Thursday March 13th 2008

VANCOUVER — A robust Canadian dollar, the U.S. writers’ strike and competition from other jurisdictions led to a 26.2-per-cent drop in film and television production spending in British Columbia in 2007.

According to figures released Tuesday by the B.C. Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts, the film and television industry contributed $943 million to the provincial economy last year, down from $1.227 billion in 2006. The main factor was a 43.6-per-cent drop in foreign spending, from $950 million in 2006 to $535 million last year.

On the positive side, domestic production had a record year in spending, amounting to $407 million. Even though the number of domestic productions fell from 144 in 2006 to 138 last year, the dollar value was up 46.7 per cent over the previous year’s $277 million.

This means that domestic production accounted for 43.1 per cent of total production spending in the province, a healthy sign for an industry dependent on American studios spending their dollars here.

Domestic productions in 2007 were on a larger scale than in 2006 and included:

– 24 feature films (up from 18 in 2006).

– 24 TV series (up from 14 in 2006).

– 10 animation productions (down from 12).

– 80 TV movies, miniseries, TV specials, pilots, documentaries and docudramas (down from 100).

Foreign production tailed off in three of the four areas:

– Feature films fell from 35 to 23.

– TV series from 25 to 18.

– TV movies, miniseries, specials, pilots, documentaries and docudramas fell from 20 to 14.

– Only animation showed an increase, rising from six productions in 2006 to nine in 2007.

“We can’t rely on service productions,” said Mary Anne Waterhouse, a producer with Vancouver-based Anagram Pictures, makers of the comedy Fido. “To build a sustainable industry, we need it to be homegrown and in our control.”

Waterhouse said the big rise in Canadian production spending in 2007 was largely the result of spending on two CBC-TV series, Intelligence and jPod. The latter series was cancelled by the CBC last week.

Kirk Shaw, whose Insight Film Studios spent an additional $60 million on Canadian productions during 2007, also saw the news as proof that the indigenous industry has a solid footing. Shaw credits B.C. Film for putting development money into local companies. Two years ago, Insight received $225,000 to develop scripts from B.C. Film, and feels that without that development money his company wouldn’t be producing as many projects as it does now.

The spike in the Canadian dollar was responsible for much of the decrease in U.S. spending in the industry. When 2007 began, the Canadian dollar sat at just under 87 cents U.S. It climbed steadily throughout the year, reaching $1.10 U.S. on Nov. 7 before levelling off to the par level it currently holds. The attraction of saving 14 cents for every dollar spent north of the border has vanished for American studios, who increasingly are going to states like New Mexico and Louisiana, which offer tax breaks similar to those in B.C.

In October, the provincial government extended the existing labour tax credits through 2013. But when Ontario and Quebec boosted their labour tax credits, the B.C. government matched those increases on Jan. 25 of this year. Domestic productions now receive a 35-per-cent tax break on the cost of B.C. workers, and foreign productions get a 25-per-cent labour tax credit.

The three-month Writers Guild of America strike also hurt production, as U.S. television series shut down filming when they ran out of scripts. It remains to be seen if the television industry will recover from that setback.

Even with fewer American productions, studio space in the city was booked solidly, a factor which may have cost the province a few productions in 2007.

The Lower Mainland remains North America’s third largest film and TV production centre, trailing only Los Angeles and New York City.

Source: Financial Post