Written by Tom Deehan on Feb 11, 2015. Posted in On Location

Fifty Shades Of Grey filming helps boost production on Vancouver’s North Shore

Filming for the movie version of the wildly popular erotic novel Fifty Shades Of Grey helped boost production on Vancouver’s North Shore last year. The shoot included stage work at North Shore Studios, as well as location filming across the city.

Like many productions that film in British Columbia, Fifty Shades Of Grey doubled Vancouver for Seattle, a city which lacks the same level of filming incentive support.

The City and District of North Vancouver saw an overall increase in production spending, North Shore News reports, with locally-shot TV dramas including Arrow and The Flash.

British Columbia offers a 25% filming incentive, but the tax credit only applies to local labour costs. As a result, the western Canadian province faces stiff competition from more generous film incentive programmes in Ontario and Quebec.

Even so, Vancouver sustains its popularity due to its proximity to Los Angeles, the quality of its crew pool and its ability to double for so many different parts of North America. San Francisco has been recreated in Vancouver numerous times in recent years for the likes of Godzilla, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the short-lived TV drama Alcatraz.

“The highest incentive does not necessarily mean the cheapest production,” said Richard Brownsey, President of Creative BC, in comments to the outlet: “If you don't have the infrastructure there, you've got to bring it in. If you have questions about whether you're going to get your content delivered on time and on budget, that gets factored in.”

Creative BC was recently given a CAD 1.2 million cash injection by the Canadian government, partly to help the province raise international awareness of its production capabilities.