Once Upon a Time may have been canceled for next season, but it helped catapult New Westminster to a record year of filming in 2017.
The City of New Westminster issued 135 film permits that resulted in 155 days of filming and generated gross film permit revenues of $1,000,831 in 2017. All totaled, the city estimates the net filming permit revenue to be $612,268, which includes civic location fees, administration charges, license fees, inspection fees and civic services “purchased” by film productions, such as police services.
“It does vary from year to year, depending on what the appetite is, what the films are,” film coordinator Elizabeth Keurvorst said of film revenues. “In 2017, we saw a high increase in the downtown use – 61 per cent of our gross revenues were in the downtown area compared to 19 per cent in Queen’s Park. … That was all about Once Upon a Time being a reoccurring location.”
Once Upon a Time filmed in New Westminster 17 times and Supernatural hit town 13 times in 2017, but they weren’t the only productions to hit town more than once. Timeless, Arrow, Lucifer, The Flash, DC Legends of Tomorrow, The Crossing, Life Sentence, The Good Doctor and Supergirl were among the productions that made repeat visits in New West last year.
“We definitely have seen a record year the last two years here in New Westminster in filming. Every once in a while I’ll be watching Netflix, and go, ‘Hey wait a minute, I recognize that street, that’s right here in New Westminster,’” said Mayor Jonathan Cote. “There’s no doubt there’s a lot of positive spinoffs and benefits to the filming activity and industry in general in New Westminster. I think we have always tried to balance that with some of the neighbourhood concerns about a lot of filming in particular neighbourhoods and tried to find that right balance.”
Balancing the revenues generated by filming and the community’s quality of life will continue to be a priority, Keurvorst said.
“It’s about where it’s probably going to get,” she said of overall filming activity. “I can’t see it getting that much busier.”
In 2016, there were 203 film days in New Westminster, resulting in gross revenues of $908,907. That was up from $557,682 in 2015, $313,114 in 2014 and $431,837 in 2013.
Keurvorst said the city has “maxxed out” filming opportunities in the downtown, but there’s still a bit of room to grow in Queen’s Park. With its heritage homes, the Queen’s Park neighbourhood has long been a popular spot for filming.
“It was $193,000 in gross revenue,” she said of filming revenue generated in Queen’s Park last year. “Our net revenue was about $120,000, or 19 per cent, for last year.”
Keurvorst said the city expects location managers to do their due diligence in terms of talking to neighbours and determining a neighbourhood’s support for filming. By and large, she said the community is still embracing filming in various neighbourhoods.
“We have some shows lining up for the summer. We are just in converstiaons with whether we can get some of those, but we also really want to make sure we are balancing the sustainability. That’s our big mandate,” she said. “I always joke that New West is like a backlot with different sets or like a studio with different backlots. We have the downtown backlot, we have the heritage house backlot. You can only do so many shows at the same time.”
A staff report said it’s estimated that filming created $1.3 million to $2.7 million in economic spinoffs to New Westminster residents and merchants in 2017.
While filming fees go into general revenue, Cote suggested the city may want to consider if that money should be put toward specific projects so the community can see concrete examples of the industry’s presence in New West.
“I’ve always thought that would be a good way to connect the revenue sources that we get from the filming industry,” he said.
According to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, B.C. is North America’s third-largest film and television hub, with more than 300 productions generating $2.6-billion in economic impact and creating more than 60,000 jobs each year.
Jeff Bridges was part of a cast that recently filmed scenes for a feature film at Starlight Casino. The city has been approached by a number of productions set to film in the coming months, including feature films and TV series.
“Our bread and butter is really the TV shows, the slow and study,” Keurvorst said. “There are some movies of the week that come and go, but most of those stay out in the suburbs.”
What's filming?
If you’ve seen the trailers or film sets around town, you may have wondered what was being filmed. Here’s a sampling of some of the productions that filmed in the Royal City in 2017:
TV Series: Timeless; Arrow; Supernatural; Lucifer; The Flash; Zoo; Once Upon a Time; Trustee; Doomsday; Somewhere Between; Altered Carbon; Psych; DC Legends of Tomorrow; Man in the High Castle; Supergirl; The Good Doctor; The Crossing; Life Sentence; Ice; You Me Her; Colony; Unreal; Riverdale; Six; Deadly Class; Blue Book.
TV Movies: Curveball; The Godmother; Lethal Tender; A Gift to Remember.
Feature Films: Predator; Hardpower; Khai Productions.
TV commercial: Toolbox Fashion; Microsoft; PNC Bank; Canada Post; BCLC.
