Vancouver: In researching his book Reel Vancouver, author Ken MacIntyre took a walk one day and stumbled onto a half-dozen productions. ‘I had no idea how pervasive filmmaking is in this city,’ he says. ‘Everywhere you go you run into locations. The business seems to be growing.’

A writer and broadcaster who has production assistant credits on Madison, MacIntyre has compiled a breezy handbook that chronicles the history of the local film and television industry and the people, places and spin-off businesses that make the $500 million machine tick.

There is a special section dedicated to the Vancouver-shot series The X-Files, of which MacIntyre is a fan, and a chapter outlining a 12-step program on how to crash a location shoot. A trivia hound will focus on the section that summarizes by year the hundreds of projects that have shot here since the drama The Cowpuncher’s Glove kicked it all off in 1910.

According to Reel Vancouver (published by Whitecap Books, $16.95), celebrity watching is best at the jazz spot Chameleon Urban Lounge, CinCin Restaurant, Fitness World (on Howe Street), Italian eatery Il Giardino di Umberto, The Sutton Place Hotel and sushi bar Tojo’s, among other hot spots.

The Seymour Demonstration Forest has film crews shooting almost one day out of every three, while historic Gastown, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Stanley Park, Chinatown and Versatile Shipyards are among the other frequent backdrops for moviemakers.

‘Vancouverites give the impression of being blase about the film business,’ says MacIntyre, ‘but it’s still a novelty and bragging point with people here.’

One of the businesses he mentions in the book is new on the block. Biz Books opens later this month and will provide the venue for the official launch of Reel Vancouver.

‘Vancouver is a major center for film and television and a growing center for theater, yet we have no central resource, nowhere to go for current information on a regular basis,’ says proprietor and actress Catherine Lough-Haggquist. For commercial inspiration, she looks to Toronto’s Theatre Books, New York’s The Drama Bookstore and l.a.’s Samuel French.

The opening of Biz Books has been funded through the support of the book publishers and out-of-pocket cash.

‘The store will attract everyone from the film and television watcher to the film and television maker,’ says Lough-Haggquist, who owns Biz Books with her husband Neil Haggquist and a third partner, Patricia Cameron.

The 1,000-square-foot space on East Cordova in Vancouver will feature 500 titles running the gamut from kids’ books on film to plays and technical manuals.