Why are so many SciFi shows filmed in Canada?

Cheap out-sourcing? What no good ol'e american locations usable?
Stargate SGI, Supernatual, 4400, and now Eureka. Next Lost will be in
Vancouver.

jayembee...

The reason is money. Partly because of unions here in the US, partly
because Canada gives big breaks to studios that will film in Canada
(and as a consequence, pour money into local businesses).

It's not just Sci Fi shows, though those are the most obvious. Stephen
Cannell, for example, shot most of his independently-produced shows
in Canada (THE COMMISH being a notable example).

Most of CBS's "Crimetime After Primetime" line-up about 15 years ago
were produced in Canada. A couple were produced in Spain, and one
(SWEATING BULLETS) was shot first in South Africa, and then moved
to Israel for the final season.

And there was a period where a lot of syndicated shows were being
filmed in Australia or New Zealand for the same reason: HERCULES,
XENA, TIME TRAX, THE BEASTMASTER, THE LOST WORLD, et alia.

Brian Tkatch...

You can't do that on Television!

B.

Brian Tkatch...

You can't do that on Television!

jayembee...

YCDTOTV was not an American series "out-sourced" to Canada. It was
a Canadian series born and bred. It started out as local show in,
I believe, Ottawa before the folks at Nickelodeon even heard of it.

KennyGee...

We have the most Aliens....:)

Ken from Chicago...

It's all part of Canada's plan for WORLD DOMINATION by infiltrating the
number one global export:

"American" pop culture.

karl...

Well that convinced me - not. I would point out that I did provide links
that support my argument of why production was outsourced. You OTOH simply
insist it must be because of the unions without providing any substantiating
basis other than an anecdote you 'heard about'.

karl...

I've listened. I've rebutted. Unless you can provide some evidence for
this quantifiable difference in unions between the US and Canada that
explains why US unions in general and entertainment unions in particular are

KennyGee...

Try arguing with the union that picks up your garbage if you are a business
owner. :)

Anim8rFSK...

I believe it. The key word there is 'California' desert.

more onerous I will continue to disagree.

karl...

Your prerogative.

It's only a matter of time before the world is covered in snow, evergreens,
moose, squirrels, mounties, and beer, giant glasses of beer second in size
only to German steins.

Big giveaway is the number of cast members youv'e never seen before.
Them Canadians look so much like us, eh?

jayembee...

Well, that some of us have never seen before. I can usually tell
when a show is shot in Canada because I *do* recognize some of the
supporting players as being Canadians.

Ken from Chicago...

There are plenty of unions in the US.

jayembee...

No, the point is that the unions in Canada don't hold up the
production companies at gunpoint.

et472...

I thought the giveaway was seeing lesser known actors who were
still familiar, because they were in all the other series filmed
here in Canada.

It may be that many of those shows are syndicated, so there is somehow
more incentive to move away from Hollywood. Or perhaps that some
locales have already done some SF, so there is a pool of capable
people there, which added to the lower costs of making shows in
Canada, is incentive to do them here.

Mark Nobles...

is there still the Canada content requirement for Canadian TV that
makes these shows all essentially presold into syndication in the great
white north, making the risk much less for producers?

Pumpkin Escobar...

However, one does begin to recognize the Canadian actor pool after years
of watching these show.

For those that don't remember, 'The X-Files' was originally filmed in
Canada until DD demanded that it be moved to L.A. While versatile,
Vancouver just can't handle some 'location' shots that are supposed to
be places like Florida. The forests are all wrong.

karl...

That is the one thing Canada can't provide: the subtropical look. But that
isn't why DD demanded the change. He married Tea Leone and didn't want to
spend so much time away.

I recall one X-Files episode or movie that featured Mulder looking at a CN
Rail train. They explained it away - and it was plausible as Canadian and
US railcars do cross the border all the time. But I assumed that they used
that scene/train because they were filming in BC.

manitou...

Location access _can_ be an issue. I remember reading about tne years
ago that "90210" was having so much difficulty with the 'college years'
location, Aaron Spelling considered moving production to Vancouver.
(Not to mention, "90210" was almost riddled with Canadians, both in

karl...

So then the contention is that the entertainment industry unions are
atypically powerful in the Us context and comparatively restrictive compare
to Canadian unions?

Anecdotes are nice and not to impugn anyone's honestly but I'd need more
than that to convince me that this was a major reason for the outsourcing of
entertainment production to Canada. The biggest problem with the logic is
that if it were truly the unions they could move to numerous US states much
more anti-union than Canada's jurisdictions.

Anim8rFSK...

Only if they moved the entire city. The unions are all interlocked.
You can't even get a union 'projectionist' at a network to air a show
that was transferred by a non union house.

Jason Maxwell...

They have, Louisiana has a growing film business (Or at least they did
pre-Katrina)

Wayland...

North Carolina has had a lot of TV and film business in the past

karl...

Are you suggesting the entertainment industry moved the entire city to
Canada?

karl...

It seems you have a real bugaboo about show business unions. A thought:
Even if they were as onerous as you seem to believe they probably aren't
responsible for every ill in the entertainment industry.

decade or so.

Wayland
...and we have the lowest union membership as a percentage of
population in the US.

front of and behind the camera.)

Anim8rFSK...

That is a good point; LA sometimes runs out of locations that you
haven't seen a dozen times before.

Mark Nobles...

I was just thinking that. This morning I watched "Cursed", a werewolf
movie starring Christina Ricci. Her little brother was a student at ...
Sunnydale High.

manitou...

The building used for "90210"'s West Beverly High location resurfaced
three years ago for FOX' short-lived "SKIN".

However, as I recall, the problems Spelling were experiencing concerned
limited access.