Why your favorite movies fake their locations

[Music] Christmas in New York City isn't it great the lights the storefront displays the I'm walking is except this isn't New York I left New York yesterday and flew 3,000 miles here to Vancouver British Columbia I know I know I'm sorry but it's actually not the first time that you've been lying to you like this Vancouver and its surrounding towns have been the accomplice to a plethora of Lies across movies and television it's where many of Chris movie love interest has returned home to refall in love the holiday their Hometown and their high school sweetheart

Spruce Grove Washington nope Fort Langley in Canada New York City nah Martini town a studio space just outside of Vancouver clearly Christmas Productions are big in Canada but Vancouver has also been Seattle New York City New Hampshire India and just a short drive away it's where Clark Kent aka Superman grew up in rural Kansas right there at that Barn but what is it about a place like Vancouver that makes it so attractive to filmmakers I mean it's not like it's impossible to shoot in New York and there's got to be a great Barn in the

state of Kansas that would have worked for the Kent family farm so why do so many films fake their [Music] location number one reason why we shoot movies in Canada we claim Santa to be our own as Canadian he lives in the North Pole in Canada that's Jesse preus I'm the senior vice president of scripted at news entertainment and I've produced swindler seduction not so Royal Christmas and hot Frosty the number one decision that determines where a movie is going to film is really the locations that are being called for in the script one of

the reasons that areas like Vancouver and Atlanta have become such hot spots for film making is because they have a lot of different types of scenery in very close proximity you've got downtowns Suburban areas mountainous regions rural Landscapes and even a temperate rainforest and all of this is just a short drive from the city so while you kind of have to be in New York to convincingly pull off a stroll past the Washington Square Park Arch if you just want to be in middle of nowhere Manhattan or anywhere's Ville USA it's pretty achievable to do

that anywhere that has a dense enough downtown and beautiful Rolling Hills and it's much easier and cheaper to do it in a place like this on the outskirts of Vancouver than it would be in a city like New York New York is one of the most expensive places to shoot in the world some of the most expensive hotel rooms in the world so it becomes very unaffordable to shoot in New York as much as I dream to do so the other big consideration is weather La Atlanta Vancouver all of these cities have a lot of

warm sunny days throughout the year which means that Productions don't have to fight mother nature to get their job done because even something as simple as rain can cause major issues like oh my God it's going to rain in 2 days we have an exterior shoot what are we going to do it means double booking locations it can be very pricey to do that but it's a factor and generally speaking movies are filmed out of season anyways so you want to make sure that you have the most flexibility even if it's uncomfortable I would love

frankly to shoot more Christmas movies in the winter very often we end up shooting a lot of these Christmas movies in the spring or in the summer the actors are sweating away this bottom layer is just to soak up the sweat it's nothing but sweat from here down and we're making fak snow but it's also part of the magic so often you'll show up in July and we are you know on a Town Square and it's been all snfi and there you are it's Christmas in the [Music] summer let's take a second to talk about

the sponsor of this video destination Vancouver all the things that make Vancouver a great City to make movies in also make it really attractive for personal travel within just a short drive you can go from downtown to the ocean to the mountains and even to a temperate rainforest it's a place where you can build almost any type of vacation during any time of year thanks to the mild climate so the next time that you're planning on taking a trip whether to take a toour of your favorite film making locations or to immerse yourself in nature

consider Vancouver our sponsor has no editorial influence over how we report our stories but they do help make videos like this possible so if you're interested check out the link below clever cinematography and production design can do a lot like this facade of Riverview Hospital that has doubled as an orphanage an asylum and much more but for a city to be worthwhile to film in you have to have production friendly locals and officials I know that when a Canadian movie producer shows up to shut down streets in New York that's uh it's probably not going

to happen and probably rightly so cuz there'd be the resentment of you know thousands of New York residents against us New York City has a population of 8 million Vancouver has just over 700,000 people LLY a Municipality of Vancouver that's about as Hallmark as you can get has a population that's just under 30,000 when you go to a smaller town the police chief wants to play ball there's a bit more excitement and willingness to work with producers in these smaller towns let me put it that way another nice thing about a smaller siiz city is

often there's less traffic I've had unionized actors in traffic jams for an hour and a half and you have five or six of them and they're all making overtime especially it's the end of the day that can be very pricey it's all about finding The Sweet Spot between somewhere that's not so crowded that it's really difficult and expensive to film but also not so empty that there's no one around to work in these mediumsized cities there's one or two Crews that will work on television movies pretty much throughout the year so you can tap into

that experienced talent for those things but if a studio or production company really wants to get the best bang for their Buck they need to account for something less flashy tax incentives tax credit are also a factor for any major movie production and they're offered frankly around the world basically the government reimburses you for some portion of the cost of your production as long as you meet their criteria in Vancouver you can get tax credits of up to 28% with no spending cap to qualify you have to have a certain percentage of local crew and

that's one of the reasons that Canadian based Productions will often have a Canadian star or producer in the mix filming in specific qualified areas is can boost your tax credits too like this Regional ice gatering that has shown up in a ton of Hallmark movies even post-production and animation qualify for tax credits which is one of the reasons a movie like into the spiderverse had a primarily Canadian Workforce typically for Reginal BC we're counting on about 30% and so yeah $ 300,000 on a million dollar you're hoping to get back Georgia offers 20% for meeting

the basic requirements and an extra 10% if the film includes the state logo in the credits you've probably seen it before California offers a lesser 20 to 25% on local Productions and that comes with the cap you can get a bit more money if you film outside of the usual zones but it's not as alluring as other places countries like Canada the UK Australia and Malta have gotten quite competitive with their tax breaks which has meant that fewer films are being made in the US these days but a lot of them are still catering to

an American Market which contributes to this faking of locations American audiences are seeking content that's set in America so one of the reasons why so many Christmas movies shoot in Canada is because there's lots of parts of Canada that look like New England or Northern United States Midwest even parts of the Northern Pacific area there's parts of Canada that really resemble that as well it's the time-saving money-saving location choices that ensure that independent filmmakers and Studios can make movies happen especially the lower budget holiday films if you're in the television Movie game if you're making

like I am like our company is films for Hallmark and Lifetime and and occasional films for Netflix that need quain cities you're going to shoot these in the regional areas of Canada largely or other states I would say as I head back to New York now I know I'll see a lot more of Canada on my TV later but that's the magic trick of it all isn't it knowing that what you're seeing on screen isn't entirely real if they can make you believe that it is though that Santa does live in the North Pole in

Canada or that Midwestern love story is genuine then it doesn't really matter where it was filmed because the trick is being pulled off [Music]