When filmmakers didn't want to pay $30 a day to work in Vancouver
By 1988, an increasing number of film productions meant an increasing workload for city staff
Filmmakers didn't like what Vancouver's city hall was putting on its next reel of municipal business in the summer of 1988.
That would be permits, for which the city was considering charging those same filmmakers $30 a day.
The film industry was then bringing in $150 million in annual business to Vancouver and with that, a growing need for support for those film shoots from the city.
And that's why the city wanted to use the revenue generated from the proposed fees to pay for staffing to provide service for those productions.
A growing industry, a growing workload
"Whenever films are shot in Vancouver, the city is responsible for blocking streets off, arranging police escorts and lining up facilities," reporter Joni Mar told viewers, in a story that ran on CBC's Midday on Aug. 30, 1988.
"A single city employee has been making all those arrangements in addition to his regular work, but it's turning into a full-time job."
Bill Curtis, the city engineer, said the industry had grown to a point where at least four film shoots were underway at all times.
"For one person to go and look after all of those and see that it's happening properly, is a pretty big load," he told CBC News.
'A bad scene' off-screen
But the filmmakers did not want to see their costs go up — and they definitely did not want to deal with any extra red tape.
Harry Cole of the B.C. Motion Picture Association said a lot of working people could be affected by any delays resulting from new regulations.
"It seems insignificant, but if you take a crew of 75 or 80 people who are standing around waiting to get a piece of paper that says you can shoot at a certain location and it may not come through for two or three days, that can be really a bad scene," Cole told CBC News.
Would filmmakers go elsewhere?
Mar said the city also wanted to regulate where film shoots could occur and the hours in which they could take place.
"Filmmakers say they'll take their business to more accommodating cities if Vancouver starts to complicate their lives with red tape," said Mar, who noted that local councillors would make a decision on the matter within a few weeks.
A film schedule fee was brought into effect that September, according to council records outlining that legislative history that suggest it started out at not $30, but $25 a day.
By 2020, film productions were paying $1,000 a day to film in public locations, according to the City of Vancouver's website.
Staff from Vancouver's Film and Special Events Branch told CBC Archives via an emailed statement that these fees "cover the basic administrative costs associated with a film permit."
