Western Standard - November 22, 2022


IN FOCUS: Hollywood comes to Alberta with booming film and TV industry


Episode Stats


Length

26 minutes

Words per minute

175.3061

Word count

4,596

Sentence count

53


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Join me as I chat with Tina Alford from Actra, the union that represents professional actors and performers in Alberta. We talk about Alberta's film and television industry and how it has grown over the past decades.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Melanie Rizdin with the Western Standard. Thanks for joining me for another edition of In Focus.
00:00:14.300 Tonight we are going to the glitz of Alberta's Hollywood.
00:00:18.580 We're going to be talking about Alberta's film and television industry and joining me is Tina Alford from Actra,
00:00:24.760 which is the union that represents professional actors and performers.
00:00:30.000 Hi, Tina.
00:00:31.040 Hello, thanks for having me.
00:00:32.480 Yeah, so it's kind of exciting times here in Alberta.
00:00:35.760 It's ebbed and flowed, but we seem to be
00:00:38.260 in a fairly busy time when it comes
00:00:40.720 to our film and television industry.
00:00:42.920 Absolutely, yeah, it's just, it's been fantastic.
00:00:46.260 It's everything that we've been wishing for
00:00:48.980 for the past several decades, being so busy.
00:00:51.760 Yeah, and it really has ebbed and flowed.
00:00:54.840 There have been times where we've been booming.
00:00:57.420 know i know we've had you know big name stars here brad pitt we've had leonardo dicaprio we've had
00:01:04.940 some some big names come our way in the past and uh and and it's really ebbed and flowed there was
00:01:11.500 a point in time though that some some i think maybe some legislation or some policy uh came
00:01:16.620 into play that really kind of slowed the industry right to a crawl uh gee are you were you with
00:01:23.180 actor at the time do you know yes well i've been working in the industry for over 22 years i believe
00:01:30.860 so yeah i mean the a lot of the film and television industry globally relies on incentives um from
00:01:39.100 different jurisdictions you know to help lure the lure the productions and come in and shoot their
00:01:44.540 shoot their projects so depending you know on sort of the uh you know who's in government um what the
00:01:52.140 appetite is um the incentives in alberta have you know gone up and down which of course has a direct
00:01:59.340 uh implication on the the level of production i mean there's also there's also exterior factors
00:02:06.220 like the especially if we're looking at u.s production um where the canadian dollar sits
00:02:11.820 right so if we're at par with the american dollar not overly competitive so sometimes
00:02:17.420 you know that can have an impact on production levels as well sure now what are some of the
00:02:21.980 incentives that um you know that can or can't like it's kind of tax breaks or uh or things like that
00:02:28.780 are you are you familiar with some of the things that can like boom and bust well so we right now
00:02:36.780 we have a tax incentive um and just a general overview i don't think we need to get too much
00:02:41.660 into the weeds here but essentially um when a production wants to come and shoot in alberta
00:02:48.300 to get the incentive they apply there's an application process and they get a percentage
00:02:53.660 back based on the amount of money that they spend in alberto and so you know and that that covers
00:02:59.100 everything that covers you know working in the rural communities and you know food and uh car
00:03:05.740 rentals and gas um all the way up to labor so the cast and the crew um and so the the exciting thing
00:03:13.980 though about the film and television incentive is they don't they don't get the money up front
00:03:18.860 they actually get a percentage of what they spent after they've already um spent their money in the
00:03:24.380 province right so it's pretty low risk and when you're talking you know some shows and some
00:03:30.220 productions are dropping millions of dollars into rural communities um it's it is a really
00:03:36.300 great investment well and for those that don't pay attention i mean there are some communities
00:03:41.740 that are almost built specifically for the film and television industry i know high river has done
00:03:49.260 a huge amount of work to to make that town sort of very appealing and you know and i know it's
00:03:55.820 been used it's used for heartland it's used for i know tin star was filming here a couple of years
00:04:03.020 ago um and there's quite a few other shows that have uh have kind of raced the streets of of high
00:04:09.740 river are there other communities that are doing the same oh absolutely um obviously the whole
00:04:15.820 drumheller uh region in the town of drumheller they've been a very film friendly um community
00:04:22.540 right and they have a very specific look so we get a lot of productions that go there that maybe
00:04:27.260 want like some space age sort of um looking you know when they're shooting out in the badlands
00:04:32.940 irakana has had a lot of work uh car stairs bicycle um you know saint paul in the northern
00:04:41.100 part of the province saint paul outside of edmonton stony plain yeah so a lot of small
00:04:47.420 communities have benefited um from them in television and it's fantastic because like
00:04:52.060 when they move in you know they're the the local cast and crew are going to the coffee shops and
00:04:58.540 you know dropping dropping money in that that community so yeah that's right it is a regional
00:05:04.860 and a rural uh bonus to this industry absolutely and you know a couple of things with that um
00:05:11.980 as somebody who has um has worked with actra i have and and i know that there's a real push to
00:05:18.300 have alberta-based actors and alberta-based uh background and alberta you know it's there's
00:05:23.980 into theirs so so really i mean not only are they supporting um you know some of the establishments
00:05:29.580 in those areas but it's also bringing a lot of work for um you know people in the unions whether
00:05:36.300 you're with actra or you're in the the unions that support um sort of the more technical side
00:05:42.060 like iaxi it's bringing a lot of work to albertans here absolutely i mean you know so we see the
00:05:48.860 headlines right of when a big show comes into town recently fargo uh season five so i know there was
00:05:55.260 a lot of headlines about john ham um you know from madman fame is one of which of course you know
00:06:03.180 who doesn't love love him and so you get you see those headlines but what you don't see behind
00:06:08.300 those headlines is the hundreds of people that are working up like local albertans that are working
00:06:14.460 on that show um you know making a good wage and so you know they're not importing everybody in
00:06:21.100 from the us united states or elsewhere it's it's local it's local work and they're great paying
00:06:26.220 jobs and when you say hundreds it is hundreds the people who have not been on a set if you could see
00:06:34.940 the amount of work that's being done behind the scenes to have just you know a day's shoot where
00:06:40.700 you maybe are capturing two or three minutes worth of footage but you do have hundreds of people from
00:06:45.900 caterers to drivers to to grips to people doing lighting you know all the way up to then the
00:06:51.180 actors in the background and wranglers and uh it's it's an incredible amount of people that come
00:06:58.380 together to make this happen so you're right it is it is bringing a lot of work to a lot of people
00:07:03.180 yeah especially like the higher the budget you know the more economic impact the more people
00:07:07.900 are employed um so yeah we have a lot of those the the high profile shows but we also do have
00:07:13.660 um a healthy sort of local community here too where we have local producers creating canadian
00:07:20.540 television series and web series and feature films you know those those projects are sort
00:07:26.540 of the meat and potatoes and sort of the backbone of our industry and you know sometimes they don't
00:07:31.340 they don't uh get you know sort of all the glitz and glamour and the headlines um that they should
00:07:36.940 but there's definitely a a core of people that are you know creating local content as well
00:07:42.380 absolutely well and one of the big ones that's been filming here it's the 16th season now is
00:07:47.100 heartland uh one of these um gems and uh heartland's been filming here for over a decade and uh
00:07:56.380 it it too like it's it you know it's it catches a lot of attention because it is so well watched
00:08:03.820 in fact i think heartland has a huge uh viewership um beyond canada as well is my understanding um
00:08:11.020 and that's shot here in in rural alberta and in high river and in you know in other areas um
00:08:18.780 pretty much every year yeah it's it's such a great success story so i believe it's the longest
00:08:26.700 running one hour canadian television series i think they're kind of going head to head with
00:08:32.620 Murdoch Mysteries but yeah such a great success story and I mean you're right the the the people
00:08:38.860 that love that show is global. I remember several years ago when there was the floods
00:08:45.500 happened and so Heartland did a fundraiser for the town of High River and so they had one day at the
00:08:51.580 studio where they were allowing a thousand people in and you know they could make a donation and see
00:08:57.420 the stars and you know there were some silent auction items whatever and so I was there
00:09:01.340 volunteering helping out and i mean walking through the line of the people um that had come
00:09:06.540 to this day just to see the stars and they were hardcore fans i mean they were from all over north
00:09:11.820 america right had flown in specifically for this um yeah it's it's quite a success story so
00:09:20.140 hopefully we'll get season 17. yeah right i know it just it's the it's the series that just keeps
00:09:25.820 giving um and there's you know the the cool thing about it is that alberta is such a diverse
00:09:30.940 province i mean on one side of the province you have the rocky mountains so you know a lot of
00:09:35.660 filming in in the banff and canmore area and cananaskis you know for for things that require
00:09:42.380 that kind of um that kind of terrain then you've got the prairies uh you know so that's always good
00:09:49.260 for the fargos and you know where you where you're just looking for that and then we've got the
00:09:54.060 drumheller area where yeah you can look like a desert over there so there's a massive amount of
00:10:00.940 of change from location to location in Alberta
00:10:03.880 that makes us a really good target
00:10:06.780 for a lot of these productions.
00:10:09.180 Yeah, I mean, and even, you know,
00:10:10.700 and that's always been like historically been the draw
00:10:13.360 to Alberta is the diversity of locations that we have.
00:10:17.160 So, you know, going back to the Unforgiven days.
00:10:20.780 So that's, you know, over 25 years ago
00:10:23.120 when Clint Eastwood was shooting Unforgiven,
00:10:24.920 I think there's a quote from him saying that
00:10:27.620 the greatest thing about Alberta
00:10:28.880 you can get five different looks you know within an hour and a half of the city of calgary that's
00:10:34.400 true yeah well and even uh even um uh kevin costner was talking about uh time that he spent shooting
00:10:42.800 uh in alberta and how much he absolutely loved the the area and uh you know just
00:10:49.600 everywhere that he went same thing with brad pitt uh when he was here shooting what was that one
00:10:54.720 help me um well first with legends of the fall and then um assassination of jesse james right
00:11:02.960 and and so he spoke in fact uh people have have rumored that he owns a piece of land here and and
00:11:09.600 may very well uh but he as has been quoted saying just how beautiful it was here and so you're right
00:11:16.000 it's um just that variety and the variety of seasons really lends to um you know just the
00:11:22.560 beauty of alberta as well being a wonderful place to choose and we have so much shooting here right
00:11:28.560 now let's talk about some yes it's yeah it's fantastic um you know and from we're still
00:11:36.160 working on our for the performers here we're still working on our 2022 numbers but now i mean i know
00:11:43.360 last year so 2021 2021 we saw an over 50 increase in days of work for performers for alberta
00:11:52.240 performers wow yeah so that's that's pretty fantastic again going back to the fact that
00:11:57.840 you know a lot of these shows um it's not just the the hollywood stars um coming from los angeles
00:12:04.720 there's a lot of local performers that are that are working on these projects so it sounds like
00:12:09.680 actors growing all the time with members and and whatnot um would you say that's the case here oh
00:12:15.920 absolutely yeah our membership is i think we have a we have close to 1400 members um and when i
00:12:22.800 started here over 10 years ago we had about 600. okay so more than doubled and then um are we short
00:12:31.520 or do we do does it do we end up struggling with the amount of productions coming here versus
00:12:36.960 um how many members there are available to do these kinds of things i mean there's i mean it's
00:12:43.360 hard to say with performers because it's a little different than crew members right because so much
00:12:47.520 of our membership has to deal with you know how you look or your age um so i know you know we've
00:12:54.640 got such a even even if they're not actor members i mean alberta has such a strong performing
00:12:59.840 community right through the theaters um that we have in all the major centers um so you know i
00:13:06.800 don't i don't think we're short yet of talent because i don't think you know we've uh we've
00:13:12.640 had the opportunity for everybody to to get out there so um yeah i think great talent so some of
00:13:20.880 the things that are shooting here of course we were talking about heartland season 16 that's
00:13:26.240 filming into december um we had joe pickett season two that just wrapped up it looks like um very
00:13:34.000 recently yeah um ride this is another one that's uh that's here filming do you know a little bit
00:13:40.240 about ride yeah so ride is um it's in a it's it's it's a story it's a ranch based in contemporary
00:13:49.760 not a period piece but yeah so it's based on a ranch um it's sort of like uh an american version
00:13:56.800 of heartland i heard somebody say so okay similar similar kind of look and feel with that sort of
00:14:02.480 western western genre so that's that's going to be really exciting and of course coming up in
00:14:08.560 january the last of us on hbo back well they're they're gonna be i mean there's talk about them
00:14:16.000 coming back but then i think everybody's really excited that um i forget the exact date in january
00:14:21.440 but uh the first episode is going to air in early january so that will be super exciting to you know
00:14:28.560 they were here for 11 months yeah all over the province you know all over like up in grand
00:14:34.160 Prairie, down in Waterton. And so even if maybe you're not interested in the video game or the
00:14:39.800 story, I think it still will be a lot of fun just to watch it just to sort of spot the Alberta
00:14:44.300 locations. Yeah, absolutely. I actually did a little bit of background work on that one. And
00:14:51.100 that was in High River as well as out in Fort McLeod. A little further. So yeah, it's always
00:14:59.480 exciting to to tune in even with heartland you know to tune in and see oh i recognize that i've
00:15:04.520 been there you know it's it's always it's always kind of neat for people and i know the last of us
00:15:09.320 needed so many background for some of their big large scenes i know they did quite a few in calgary
00:15:16.120 so i think there's probably a lot of people who you know maybe don't do this regularly and are
00:15:21.000 very much excited to see how how it all looks once it starts coming out so a lot of people waiting
00:15:27.480 for that one well in that one too they had um like a huge uh stunt component there's a lot of action
00:15:35.720 so a lot of alberta stunt performers i mean who you know if you're not sort of entrenched in the
00:15:40.760 industry yes we do have a lot of stunt performers here in alberta and so it created a lot of work
00:15:45.960 for uh male and female stunt performers so that that was great yeah absolutely and uh fargo season
00:15:53.640 five we mentioned that's filming now right through till april um jen arden uh her show
00:16:01.160 shoots here and it looks like her holiday special just wrapped up recently correct
00:16:07.400 and then dark match this one is out of edmonton filming out of edmonton what's the basis of that
00:16:13.400 story that one is a a wrestling horror horror story yes so okay yeah it's a canadian feature film
00:16:23.080 shooting up in edmonton so uh they just started this week we're super excited um i think if you're
00:16:29.320 a wrestling fan when this movie i of course can't say too much but if you're a wrestling fan um
00:16:35.080 that'll definitely be something that you'll you'll want to check out but yeah right and then uh i'm
00:16:41.480 probably going to say this terribly wrong raffinus rapper manis yes thank you um that is the old
00:16:48.600 fraggle rock right yes it is uh-huh that is filming here with puppets puppets yeah fraggle
00:16:59.960 rock shot here last year was their first season and they um they have a they have a holiday special
00:17:06.040 coming out i think in a couple days or this weekend um so of course yeah everybody's super
00:17:10.920 excited to see the reboot of fraggle rock totally i watched that when i was a kid every sunday every
00:17:17.560 Sunday, I think Fraggle Rock came on and then it was Disney. I can't remember which one.
00:17:22.280 Yeah, exactly. And again, I mean, that's such a great story for Alberta puppeteers,
00:17:30.200 right, that fall under actors' jurisdiction. And so, yeah, we're seeing a tremendous amount
00:17:38.760 of work opportunities for our local puppeteers. And so what do you know, or I imagine some of
00:17:45.080 of it's under wraps but do you know of other things that will be coming in the new year because
00:17:48.440 i feel like there's sort of is there sort of shooting seasons it kind of gets quieter around
00:17:53.160 christmas than through the yeah i mean like before it was sort of our peak shooting season was we
00:17:59.560 would always say from like may to october um but now you know with with the additional production
00:18:06.040 here it's it is turning into sort of a year-round series but things do tend to kind of slow down
00:18:11.160 around december january february yeah um but you know at the same time that's two is when some of
00:18:17.400 the the smaller productions the local productions um they might kick kick off and do some of their
00:18:23.480 work just because they have the access to the crew and the locations and the equipment when
00:18:28.440 some of the big shows aren't happening here so it definitely is turning into a year round uh
00:18:34.600 jurisdiction well and it certainly doesn't help uh doesn't hurt that we have such a huge production
00:18:40.440 facility that's been around now for gosh i feel like that's got to be 10 or 15 years now yeah and
00:18:45.880 the calgary film center yes yeah yeah so the purpose-built studio space and then but because
00:18:52.200 of you know the the province investing um in this industry there's been a lot of private uh
00:18:59.160 private companies that have stepped forward and so we have several other studio spaces um that
00:19:05.240 have been retrofitted from warehouse space like just sort of your traditional warehouse space
00:19:09.400 into studio space causing more you know private investment um in the province and in the industry
00:19:15.480 so that's good news too so would we say we're booming are are we are we in a boom we are in a
00:19:21.480 boom we're 100 in a boom and uh you know and it's looking like it's going to stay that way
00:19:28.520 um i know that can you tell us i know i mean there's a lot of things i don't even know um you
00:19:34.600 know and and some of these projects are kicking tires and you know running numbers and and looking
00:19:39.960 at crew depth and checking weather patterns and all of this sometimes like a year in advance
00:19:44.840 yeah um so but yeah we're feeling very positive for uh 2023 for sure wonderful i have heard uh
00:19:53.000 from the uh the other side of the of the coin and the you know the um the technical side from
00:19:58.520 iatzi and some of the unions that supply the grips and the lighter lighting and ads and all of that
00:20:03.320 kind of stuff that that they do uh from time to time when we have these big booms struggle and so
00:20:09.080 you know it's uh it's probably good to to be a beacon of you know um having some some of these
00:20:16.600 skilled workers coming to alberta to to make up some of this workforce yeah so well and i know a
00:20:23.560 lot of the you know the other guilds and unions as well as actors like we have really scaled up
00:20:30.440 our training um so you know some of our members you know who maybe don't have all that experience
00:20:37.960 we're getting them trained up so that they are ready to take on these roles and to take on these
00:20:42.680 jobs so yeah it's it's exciting in that regard that you know we're boosting the training we're
00:20:48.680 working with post-secondary institutions to get some of these new graduates into the industry
00:20:54.680 yeah and it's been impressive i've noticed actra is doing a lot more of that now with um this extra
00:21:01.960 training and you know just helping and there's there's a lot of things people can do uh if you're
00:21:06.680 interested in getting involved in the film and television industry um on the acting or performing
00:21:12.040 side uh lots of different things that people can do to look into it i mean you can you can look
00:21:16.920 into finding agents and i noticed that actra has linked through on the website to to be able to
00:21:23.640 find agents um and then there's there's there's auditioning classes you can take in that in
00:21:29.240 calgary and edmonton and um auditioning and set etiquette classes and even acting classes of
00:21:35.720 course lots people can do and probably uh you'd be encouraging that just to absolutely i mean again
00:21:44.920 you hear these stories of you know these movie stars that hit it big as they're walking in a
00:21:49.560 mall or something but you know those stories are few and far between a lot of the you know to be
00:21:54.440 a working performer um yeah you have to get training you have to understand your craft and
00:21:59.800 a lot of our members that even have seen great success and work on a lot of these projects
00:22:04.200 they're always working on the craft always taking training um one of the thing one of the workshops
00:22:09.800 we've been doing a lot of um through the summer and into the fall was a dialect workshop so with
00:22:15.400 fargo shooting here they have they need to have a minnesota accent oh yes right which is slightly
00:22:22.680 different than our canadian a accents right and so we've been running a ton of workshops with our
00:22:28.200 members on how to have that minnesota accent and it's working right we're hearing from the casting
00:22:33.960 directors and the producers that um our members are nailing it right that's pretty fun yeah yeah
00:22:41.960 so it's exciting yeah for sure and uh and with the boom of course there's there's demand so hey
00:22:48.360 if you are interested in learning a little bit more about the film and television industry here
00:22:54.040 in alberta it's booming it needs you so i think actor is a good place to start the website has
00:22:59.560 lots of click-through resources for you anything else you can suggest for people that are perhaps
00:23:05.720 interested in learning a little bit more uh well yeah probably just start i mean if you're based
00:23:11.000 down here in calgary uh you can check out the calgary economic development website they have
00:23:16.680 a lot of information there and a lot of information that'll link you off so you can find actor you can
00:23:21.240 find the technical unions and if you're in edmonton it's the edmonton screen industries office
00:23:28.920 their website has a lot of information on there too um so yeah just i mean there's a lot of
00:23:33.480 information on the on the interweb and uh yeah just start there it'll definitely keep you busy
00:23:39.880 and we're definitely always looking for people to come and join the fun in our booming sector
00:23:46.840 well it is it is fun and it is exciting and uh you know i think um i think there's going to be a lot
00:23:52.280 of work to come so i definitely encourage people to look into it as well tina alford uh branch
00:23:58.520 representative for alberta actra and uh and thank you very much for kind of sharing a little bit
00:24:04.920 about what's to come and and what we're seeing and it's uh i think it really is a good especially
00:24:10.280 coming out of a pandemic where you know a lot of people um weren't able to work uh fortunately there
00:24:17.480 there was still filming happening and uh and there was opportunity there as well so good to see it
00:24:23.880 being so robust yes yeah it's a it's a great great time right now in the screen industry in alberta
00:24:31.320 Well, thanks for joining us, Tina, and thanks for the update on our film and television industry in Alberta.
00:24:37.260 Thank you.
00:24:38.040 Here's an update on the current commodity prices around Lethbridge.
00:24:41.060 Cash barley and wheat are both unchanged, with barley at $4.55 per metric and wheat at $4.80 per metric.
00:24:47.180 Corn is down $2 a tonne to $4.73 per metric.
00:24:50.580 Moving to the milling wheat markets, December Minneapolis futures are down $0.02 to $9.49 per bushel,
00:24:57.040 with local hard red spring bid for December movement at $12.20 per bushel delivered.
00:25:02.200 Nearby canola futures are down $15.20 per tonne to $8.41.90
00:25:07.160 with deliver values for December movement at $18.86 per bushel.
00:25:12.460 Continuing on to the pulse markets, nearby red lentils remain steady at $0.33.5
00:25:16.680 and yellow peas are remaining at $13.00 per bushel.
00:25:20.680 Taking a quick look at the cattle markets,
00:25:22.700 december live cattle are up half a cent to 153.60 per hundred weight for more information on pricing
00:25:29.740 and picked up on farm options give me a call at 403-394-1711 i'm mike van dyke at marketplace
00:25:36.860 commodities accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options
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