Written by on Jan 26, 2015. Posted in On Location

Canada awards $1.2m to British Columbia to help boost creative industries

Government funding of CAD 1.2 million has been awarded to Creative BC to help boost British Columbia’s creative industries, including the film and TV sectors. Vancouver is one of Canada’s main production centres and has recently hosted Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Godzilla.

The funding will be used to help boost the output of British Columbia’s creative industries in Canada and internationally, while also raising awareness of the province’s production capabilities.

“BC has a diverse and dynamic creative sector which is well-positioned to succeed on the global stage,” said Richard Brownsey, head of Creative BC.

“Creative BC is grateful to the federal government for this funding as it will play an essential role in advancing the creative sector internationally and in developing BC’s reputation as a global centre of excellence for creative content production.”

Vancouver routinely doubles for other parts of the US, partly because of British Columbia’s generous filming incentive programme. Television dramas range from Rainn Wilson’s new crime drama Backstrom through to the BBC’s Intruders and Gracepoint, the American remake of the hit UK drama Broadchurch.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes doubled Vancouver and its surrounds for San Francisco, a more expensive city. Godzilla recreated a host of countries in Vancouver including San Francisco, Japan and the Philippines.

Vancouver is a popular base for superhero productions, with TV dramas Arrow and The Flash both filmed in the city and a feature version of Deadpool scheduled to shoot locally in the coming months with star Ryan Reynolds.

(Godzilla image: Kimberley French/Legendary Pictures Productions/Warner Bros Entertainment)