WEBVTT

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Hi my name is Tony
and this is Every Frame a Painting.

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The first time I ever felt like a movie
lied to me, I was eight years old

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and it was
Homeward Bound 2: Lost in San Francisco.

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Because this isn’t San Francisco.

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--"What’s this? I thought
we were going someplace cool."

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--"This is my favorite place
in the entire city."

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This is Vancouver, where I grew up.

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If you watch enough TV or blockbusters,
then chances are you’ve seen my city

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disguised as Santa Barbara

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or as Seattle

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and even one time
as the Bronx.

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--"Something’s always happening here."

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--"That’s New York for you. 
You'll get used to it."

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But no matter how many
movies or TV shows are filmed here

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there’s always been one nagging problem.

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We never actually see the city. It’s
always pretending to be somewhere else.

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--"I'm in Vancouver downtown, Robson
Square on the set of The Interview..."

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--"This is where
Seth Rogen and James Franco..."

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--"...they’re supposed to be
in North Korea, so check it out."

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--"You are fucking stupid and
you are fucking ignorant, Dave."

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--"Mmgh!!
--"Ugh!"

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Vancouver is actually the third
biggest film city in North America.

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But we’re so hidden we have movies about
how we’re not featured in the movies.

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--"My specialty is disguising Vancouver 
so it looks like an American city."

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But how do you fake one city as
another without the audience noticing?

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Well first you need to know the city
and Vancouver is kind of a chameleon.

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In Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol,
it plays Seattle...

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and Eastern Europe…

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and even India, all within
a 15-minute drive of each other.

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Once you know the city, it’s actually
pretty simple to trick the audience.

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Most people don’t question
the establishing shot

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so you can just find the right building
and put a title card onscreen.

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The other option is to shoot 2nd unit
footage of another city and then cut

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to somewhere in Vancouver.

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This is especially common with Seattle
since a lot of the architecture there

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looks pretty similar to here.

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But to really convince the audience,
you're gonna need a lot of help.

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Which brings us to the art department
who control all the little details...

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Like decals on the sides of cars

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American flags in the background

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new signs in front of buildings

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and this one's my personal favorite

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--"I'm not gonna kiss them but
let's just say I might give em some--"

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USA Today vending machines

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Because nothing says America
like USA Today.

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--“I read it every day for
news around the U.S.A."

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The next step in faking a city is
deciding how to light and shoot it.

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One of the best ways to disguise Vancouver
is to film at night in shallow focus.

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This is to avoid pulling a
"Rumble in the Bronx"

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when they pointed the camera north
and you could clearly see the mountains.

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It’s kind of remarkable what
you can get from a location

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by changing the angle and the lighting

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This is the Orpheum Theatre,
on a tripod from a high angle.

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And here’s the exact same entryway
from a low-angle, handheld.

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Last, there’s the VFX team who
composite specific elements in the shot

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Sometimes it’s a landmark
like Alcatraz

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the TransAmerica Pyramid
or the Space Needle.

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But other times, they’ll change
almost the entire frame.

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This is Front Street, playing Japan.

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And here it is again
playing future Chicago.

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And it’s all these little details
that help us believe the illusion.

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So that a character can jump
out of a window in Vancouver…

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and in the space of one cut…

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end up in San Francisco.

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But what does it mean for a city
if it’s always playing somewhere else?

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Well for Vancouver, it means that
our onscreen image is kind of generic.

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What you’ve seen in the movies is
mostly downtown

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like the glass buildings
along Burrard Street.

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And the area around Gastown,
like this alley off of Cambie.

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The city is kind of like
one giant backlot

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a bunch of anonymous buildings
that can stand in for anywhere else.

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Even when the movies go somewhere unique
they have a way of typecasting it.

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For instance, BCIT’s Aerospace Campus
actually looks pretty cool.

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But it’s always turned into some
vaguely dystopian government facility.

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Everybody walks around
waving a special badge

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and they try to maintain order,
but of course they can't.

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Vancouver’s locations are like
weirdly familiar character actors.

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For instance, the city's
two biggest universities

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play opposite roles onscreen.

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SFU, with its concrete staircases,
never plays a university.

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It’s either a military base

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or some evil corporation.

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Meanwhile, UBC always plays a university

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that’s located everywhere else
but Canada.

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This year, it even played
Washington State University

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which means that Vancouver, B.C.
finally got to play…

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Vancouver, Washington

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For me, this is the single
worst moment in local film history.

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I will never forgive this.

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But if filmmaking today is global...

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why do so many of our stories
take place in the same four cities?

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Is it just so we can destroy
the same landmark over...

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and over...

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and over?

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By the way, take a guess where
all four of these films were shot.

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--"Who wants to go to Vancouver?"

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Sometimes, I wonder if local film crews
try to sneak the city into the shot

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As a form of protest.

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To Hollywood, Vancouver is
a location but not a setting.

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It’s a place with talent and scenery
and tax incentives

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but almost no film identity of its own.

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Just other identities it can borrow.

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But maybe there’s some hope.

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For 50 years, there’s been a
local movement of films and TV shows

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where Vancouver does play itself.

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--"We had no idea how to make a film."

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--"We had no idea. We just
went ahead and made the film."

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A lot of these films
aren’t widely distributed.

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But they offer
a completely different perspective.

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For me, they’re often a lot closer
to my own experiences…

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As a child of immigrants who
mostly explored the city on foot.

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--"Come on Dad!"

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--"Oh shit, my camera!"

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These movies treat Vancouver
not as a location but as a setting.

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And they capture the things
that are unique to us.

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So we need these images more than ever.

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Because films can preserve
a particular time and place.

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Not as a documentary but as
a fictional story about the real world.

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And the city deserves better than
the occasional joke about its weather

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--"Pack your winter coat.
We’re going to Canada’s warmest city."

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So this is Vancouver. The third biggest
filmmaking town in North America.

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Onscreen, it is ubiquitous
and it is invisible.

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But offscreen, there are
other angles just waiting to be filmed.

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And I think it’s time we made a push
to create new images of ourselves.

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Because honestly, it’s our city.

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Who else is going to do it?