Faces of Hollywood North's busy entertainment industry
Credit to Author: Stuart Derdeyn| Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2019 18:38:23 +0000
Hollywood North is a $3.58-billion dollar industry, employing thousands in a variety of capacities ranging from actors and producers to special effects artists and support personnel.
The mechanics of the industry are changing rapidly, due in part to the amount of work being generated by streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon in addition to the traditional networks.
And visual effects (VFX) and animation are at the heart of it all, as there are very few productions today that don’t have VFX and/or animation involved to some degree.
To get a feel for the state of the industry today, we talked to three people about their personal history, the current projects and the future of Hollywood North.
Vancouver actress Jennifer Cheon Garcia appeared in season 5 of Supergirl in a guest role.
Jennifer Cheon Garcia transitioned into acting from modelling and dancing right out of high school, getting in on the ground floor working as an extra. And it was scary.
“Nobody knew then it was going to get like this with so many productions going here, everyone wanted to get that 01 visa (for the U.S.) and get to Los Angeles and make it,” said Cheon Garcia. “If you came home, you failed, it was harsh. But in 2013, living in L.A., I looked at everything that was available to me and realized that I was auditioning for roles that were in Vancouver and I thought “bigger fish/smaller pond, hopefully.”
Yes, there were naysayers. But being able to pursue her goals and live at home was a dream come true. The reality was that some part of almost everything she found work in was happening here. And if the need arose, the geographic location meant a few hours on a plane to get to Tinseltown.
“For sure, you can do it all in one day if you’ve got the stamina — and people do it constantly,” said Cheon Garcia. “Everyone wants content now, and I believe that they want content that speaks to people with well-told stories that they can relate to no matter where they are. It’s not so much about being from Canada or one specific spot — although for sure there is strong Vancouver pride — as it is in reflecting this diverse world we live in.”
Cheon Garcia currently plays Ivory, the leader of an all-female vampire faction called the Sisterhood in the Vancouver-shot SyFy supernatural action series, Van Helsing.
Season four of the fantasy horror series about the adventures of Vanessa Van Helsing, the future descendant of monster hunter Abraham Van Helsing, in a world ruled by vampires airs on Netflix in Canada on Sept. 27.
Of Mexican/Korean heritage, Cheon Garcia landed her first role at age 19 in director Julia Kwan’s acclaimed feature Eve and the Fire Horse and won a 2016 Best Actress Leo Award for her work in the acclaimed web series The Drive.
With her martial arts expertise, Cheon Garcia has an in-demand skill set.
“Sci-Fi has always been a pretty natural home for me, because it was easier to cast a six foot-tall Mexican/Korean girl there than in more traditional stories,” she said. “That’s what I loved about the Drive and about Canadian content like Kim’s Convenience, because we are used to seeing someone like that in any role here. I still love demons and vampires though, because who wouldn’t want to get dressed up and spend 14 hours a day sword fighting and high-kicking?”
Looking forward, Cheon Garcia is excited about getting behind the camera and pursuing her goal to get more involved in the hands-on side of production, making sure that the diversity of our world is reflected up on screen. It’s a transition that many in the local industry pursue as wearing more hats means more varied work.
Jonathan Walker is Vancouver-based actor and producer. Photo: Kevin Clark
Industry veteran Jonathan Walker is a man of many talents.
The producer of season four of Van Helsing and Netflix’s Wu Assassins, starring Indonesian action hero Iko Uwais (The Raid), Walker has acted in the X-Files, The Killing and now the coming TNT series adaptation of Korean director Bong Joon-Ho’s action thriller Snowpiercer.
Working multiple angles is great, but Walker says it can get a bit overwhelming as well. For a portion of last fall, he was doing 12 hour days on set of Wu Assassins as a producer and “then driving across town to do the same in front of the camera on Snowpiercer as an actor.”
Any demands for his character to look wiped out and worn were achieved without putting too much mental focus into the method.
The very fact that this kind of multiple jobs scenario exists is proof of the booming local business, said Walker.
“We are obviously in a golden era of television production, with all of the major film production centres across the country seeing record numbers, budget spends and those sort of things,” said Walker.
“From the perspective of crew members, equipment providers, ancillary services like hotels and caterers and actors, we are all very, very happy. It’s a win for everybody when you get great projects like Van Helsing, which get in front of a lot of eyeballs because that keeps them going.
“We used to be a location that companies came to purely because it was cheap and American money went a lot farther paying crews, cast, etc.,” said Walker. “Science fiction shows tend to be shot on tighter budgets and there were a number of those shows — X-Files, Andromeda, Stargate SG-1 — that were shot here 15 years ago for that reason. What happened was that we got enough of those productions that we got very good at making them and industry noticed and then higher budget ones turned up and now we’ve hit the zenith where Altered Carbon had a first season budget of $800,000 to $1 million an episode.”
Matthew Welford came to the West Coast looking for work in the entertainment industry 10 years ago and never left. He’s not alone in that regard.
Welford has a masters degree in digital special effects from the National Center for Computer Animation in Bournemouth, England. He is currently employed as the VFX supervisor at Vancouver’s Pixomondo, an international special effects studio founded in 2001 by CEO and executive producer Thilo Kuther in Germany. It now has offices in Los Angeles, Beijing, Shanghai, Toronto and Vancouver. The studio has been involved in everything from Mary Poppins Returns and the Child’s Play reboot to Game of Thrones and Star Trek: Discovery.
“Vancouver has cemented itself as a hub with both deep resources, technology and talent,” said Welford. “Which is a very different impression than it had when I got here 10 years ago on a work visa. There was already a good base then, but a lot of crew were brought in globally.
“And a lot of us stayed, and wanted to stay, and every week I’m seeing another VFX artist getting their citizenship because they want to be working in a proven, mature industry.”
The combination of a few busy major facilities and high demand for jobs keeps senior level workers employed even through the cyclical ups and downs, which means the talent base runs deep. Pixomondo Vancouver started with a two person office after being relocated from Los Angeles.
“We are about 120 people now, going from about 45 people last year,” said Welford. “That meant taking two top floors of the offices we were in and over-doubling our capacity in a short time to reflect the demands of the workload. Being next door to Los Angeles, which is still the de facto centre of where the studios are, even ones such as Lion’s Gate that started in Canada, has really proven advantageous to the growth of the industry.”
It seems that, no matter how long these actors, producers, supervisors and more have been working in Hollywood North, they all say the industry was “already there” when they started. The change now is that the depth of talent is being put to work like never before and there is no indication of it slowing down either.
Part three in our three-part VFX series: Facing the Future prepared. Is telling our stories still important in a global industry undergoing seismic changes? And how is the industry preparing the next generation of Canadians for work in Hollywood North?