Productions filming in British Columbia can now get a tax credit on their post-production spending as part of an expansion of the Digital Animation or Visual Effects programme. Vancouver got a boost last year doubling for Seattle in Fifty Shades of Grey, which is now an international hit.
Hawaii’s Big Island got a production boost in 2014 hosting the TV game show Wheel of Fortune, but the county still failed to attract any large-scale features. Recent movie productions like Battleship, Jurassic World and Godzilla have shot in other parts of the state, particularly Oahu.
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.
Planned spending figures from the California Film Commission reveal that TV production will be prioritised under the state’s boosted filming incentive. State authorities are more than tripling the annual film fund and expanding support to big-budget movies and TV shoots.
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.
New Zealander Anthony Powell is a self-taught filmmaker who has spent more than 100 months living in Antarctica over the past 15 years. He had to specially adapt his camera equipment for the inhospitable conditions as he shot his feature documentary Antarctica: A Year On Ice.
BBC motoring series Top Gear is set to film highway scenes on location in the Okanagan region of central British Columbia. The province is a production hub in Canada and offers a 25% production services tax credit on qualified labour costs.
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan shot his sci-fi epic Interstellar on location mainly in Alberta and California, and also shot scenes in Iceland. Set in the near future, the film tells the story of a group of cosmonauts sent through a wormhole to seek a new home for humanity.