Arts Seattle, B.C.
From the Seattle Times:
Charlize Theron will play a pregnant bystander who loses her baby in Seattle’s WTO riots. Susan Sarandon may take the part of a newscaster sympathetic to the protesters… “It’s going to be the next ‘Sleepless in Seattle,’ “ said James Keblas, head of Seattle City Hall’s film office. “Once you capture a star like Charlize Theron, you are instantly a big picture.”
Except it isn’t going to be filmed in Seattle.
Keblas said he is working hard to get more of the shooting done in Seattle. But industry economics, including cheaper labor and other financial incentives, are driving the production across the border.
We can’t even get a movie about the WTO shot in Seattle. That’s just… sad. As hot tipper Gavin puts it:
So basically the city government that botched WTO, is letting everyone but Seattle profit from a movie that is not only set in Seattle but essentially about Seattle. The city is also failing to regcognize a growing trend of using Seattle as a setting. It continues to raise the question, as an actor, “Why the hell am I here?” …people don’t move to New York or L.A. for the traffic and crime.
While I certainly don't dispute my good friend's suppositions, the situation is rather more complicated than what he describes.
While Seattle, and indeed the State of Washington has consistently given a cold-shoulder to film & video production (every two years the industry has to battle with the State legislature over whether to close the WA Film Office), things are getting better. The Governor recently signed into law the Washington Film Incentives Act, which creates a commission empowered to find economic incentives for local film production.
But, the economic realities cited in the original article are some that even local and state governments are challenged to meet. The exchange rate between the U.S. & Canadian dollar, along with extremely generous tax incentives offered to Hollywood by the B.C. Government (incentives WA state is constitutionally prohibited from offering), combined with nearly two decades of concerted building of the film industry - both in terms of infrastructure and relatively cheap skilled labor - in Vancouver has put Seattle far behind our sister city to the north.
Some of these factors are ones that CAN be rectified, particularly investment in production facilities, but others such as government-sponsored lowering of union wage-scales within the industry, would ultimately do more harm than good, even if the State were in a position to do so, which they are not due to (still reasonably effective) federal labor law.
So, yes, it is extremely disappointing that "The Battle In Seattle" will be shot on Vancouver locations, but the general situation of film/commercial production in this area IS improving, albeit perhaps not as quickly as all of us in the industry would ideally like to see.