hi my name is tonyand this is every frame a painting. the first time i ever felt like a movielied to me, i was eight years old and it washomeward bound 2: lost in san francisco. because this isn’t san francisco. --"what’s this? i thoughtwe were going someplace cool." --"this is my favorite placein the entire city." this is vancouver, where i grew up. if you watch enough tv or blockbusters,then chances are you’ve seen my city disguised as santa barbara
or as seattle and even one timeas the bronx. --"something’s always happening here." --"that’s new york for you. you'll get used to it." but no matter how manymovies or tv shows are filmed here there’s always been one nagging problem. we never actually see the city. it’salways pretending to be somewhere else. --"i'm in vancouver downtown, robsonsquare on the set of the interview..." --"this is whereseth rogen and james franco..."
--"...they’re supposed to bein north korea, so check it out." --"you are fucking stupid andyou are fucking ignorant, dave." --"mmgh!!--"ugh!" vancouver is actually the thirdbiggest film city in north america. but we’re so hidden we have movies abouthow we’re not featured in the movies. --"my specialty is disguising vancouver so it looks like an american city." but how do you fake one city asanother without the audience noticing? well first you need to know the cityand vancouver is kind of a chameleon. in mission impossible ghost protocol,it plays seattle...
and eastern europe… and even india, all withina 15-minute drive of each other. once you know the city, it’s actuallypretty simple to trick the audience. most people don’t questionthe establishing shot so you can just find the right buildingand put a title card onscreen. the other option is to shoot 2nd unitfootage of another city and then cut to somewhere in vancouver. this is especially common with seattlesince a lot of the architecture there looks pretty similar to here.
but to really convince the audience,you're gonna need a lot of help. which brings us to the art departmentwho control all the little details... like decals on the sides of cars american flags in the background new signs in front of buildings and this one's my personal favorite --"i'm not gonna kiss them butlet's just say i might give em some--" usa today vending machines because nothing says americalike usa today.
--“i read it every day fornews around the u.s.a." the next step in faking a city isdeciding how to light and shoot it. one of the best ways to disguise vancouveris to film at night in shallow focus. this is to avoid pulling a"rumble in the bronx" when they pointed the camera northand you could clearly see the mountains. it’s kind of remarkable whatyou can get from a location by changing the angle and the lighting this is the orpheum theatre,on a tripod from a high angle. and here’s the exact same entrywayfrom a low-angle, handheld.
last, there’s the vfx team whocomposite specific elements in the shot sometimes it’s a landmarklike alcatraz the transamerica pyramidor the space needle. but other times, they’ll changealmost the entire frame. this is front street, playing japan. and here it is againplaying future chicago. and it’s all these little detailsthat help us believe the illusion. so that a character can jumpout of a window in vancouver… and in the space of one cut…
end up in san francisco. but what does it mean for a cityif it’s always playing somewhere else? well for vancouver, it means thatour onscreen image is kind of generic. what you’ve seen in the movies ismostly downtown like the glass buildingsalong burrard street. and the area around gastown,like this alley off of cambie. the city is kind of likeone giant backlot a bunch of anonymous buildingsthat can stand in for anywhere else. even when the movies go somewhere uniquethey have a way of typecasting it.
for instance, bcit’s aerospace campusactually looks pretty cool. but it’s always turned into somevaguely dystopian government facility. everybody walks aroundwaving a special badge and they try to maintain order,but of course they can't. vancouver’s locations are likeweirdly familiar character actors. for instance, the city'stwo biggest universities play opposite roles onscreen. sfu, with its concrete staircases,never plays a university. it’s either a military base
or some evil corporation. meanwhile, ubc always plays a university that’s located everywhere elsebut canada. this year, it even playedwashington state university which means that vancouver, b.c.finally got to play… vancouver, washington for me, this is the singleworst moment in local film history. i will never forgive this. but if filmmaking today is global...
why do so many of our storiestake place in the same four cities? is it just so we can destroythe same landmark over... and over... and over? by the way, take a guess whereall four of these films were shot. --"who wants to go to vancouver?" sometimes, i wonder if local film crewstry to sneak the city into the shot as a form of protest. to hollywood, vancouver isa location but not a setting.
it’s a place with talent and sceneryand tax incentives but almost no film identity of its own. just other identities it can borrow. but maybe there’s some hope. for 50 years, there’s been alocal movement of films and tv shows where vancouver does play itself. --"we had no idea how to make a film." --"we had no idea. we justwent ahead and made the film." a lot of these filmsaren’t widely distributed.
but they offera completely different perspective. for me, they’re often a lot closerto my own experiences… as a child of immigrants whomostly explored the city on foot. --"come on dad!" --"oh shit, my camera!" these movies treat vancouvernot as a location but as a setting. and they capture the thingsthat are unique to us. so we need these images more than ever. because films can preservea particular time and place.
not as a documentary but asa fictional story about the real world. and the city deserves better thanthe occasional joke about its weather --"pack your winter coat.we’re going to canada’s warmest city." so this is vancouver. the third biggestfilmmaking town in north america. onscreen, it is ubiquitousand it is invisible. but offscreen, there areother angles just waiting to be filmed. and i think it’s time we made a pushto create new images of ourselves. because honestly, it’s our city. who else is going to do it?
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