The film industry on central and northern Vancouver Island has been able to withstand the effects of last year’s Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild strikes and the future looks promising.
“We’re fortunate on the north, mid-Island,” said Brandon Lepine, regional production services manager for Vancouver Island North Film Commission (INFilm), which provides liaison and location scouting services to the film, television, commercial and new media industry north of Ladysmith.
“Our bread and butter is really documentary, natural history — lots of independent filming on the Island,” Lepine said. “So the strike did affect us, but not as bad as like one of the major film hubs. So we were able to ride it out.”
Although 2022-2023 was a slow year due to the strike, it still tallied an economic impact of $11.8 million and 59 projects, according to Lepine.
“It crippled the unions shows, right? So anyone who had a union actor or a union writer wasn’t able to work,” he said.
Production for Can I Get a Witness, shot in Port Alberni, received an exemption and was able to carry on, Lepine added.
Two feature films titled One Mile and One More Mile are set to film in Parksville and Port Alberni this September and October, according to INFilm.
A casting call for those productions went out in July. There’s a wide variety of occupations needed on a film set and INFilm has partnered with North Island College (NIC) to facilitate tuition-free micro credential union accredited film courses.
“We’ve had everything from production assistants, grips, electric, construction, set decorators, even accounting — production payroll accounting,” Lepine said. “I believe we’ve had 518 graduates to date. With these programs they get all their tickets.”
With this education, Lepine added, they are free to work on the union side or stay non-union and make themselves available for as much production as possible.
When the Hallmark television show Chesapeake Shores shot its first season they started with 26 per cent local hires for the crew, but by the sixth and final season in 2022, it was up to 64 per cent, Lepine said.
B.C.’s film and television tax credit and labour incentives bring production to the province, plus the Island’s wide range of geographical terrain make it a desirable location for film, according to Lepine.
“Our rivers, our lakes, our waterways, our wildlife,” he said. “And not discounting our people. Because we’re not a film hub in the sense that Toronto or Vancouver or LA, it’s still very exciting. It’s very exciting to have a film rep knock on your door and say ‘have you ever though about having filming in your home?’”
The pandemic helped a lot of people in the film industry realize they could relocate to Vancouver Island, he added.
“We got more crew and we got more department heads, like supervisor types, who were able to influence more film projects to come to the Island,” Lepine said.
There’s around half a dozen productions currently underway in central and northern Vancouver Island at various stages. As of the end of 2023, the industry has generated $198.2 million in the central Island and northern Island since its INFilm’s inception.
“Film is the perfect industry for Vancouver Island. A film crew comes in, creates a bunch of jobs, generates some revenues. When they’re done filming they clean up the area — the motto in film is ‘as good if not better than before’,” said Lepine. “And then a year later you get to see your town on screen. And maybe six months to a year after that the tourists start coming in.”
