Montreal and Toronto are both pointing to the potential Screen Actors Guild strike to explain why mega-soundstages such as Montreal’s Mel’s Cité du Cinéma and Toronto’s Filmport are basically idle during what is typically the summer service shooting bonanza. However, Vancouver has several big-budget American features shooting over the next few months, including 20th Century Fox’s Night at the Museum 2 (starring Ben Stiller), which is currently in production through to September.

Prep is also underway in Vancouver on Warner Bros.’ Cats & Dogs 2 and Sony Pictures’ $250-million Farewell Atlantis (also known as 2012), directed by Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) and starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet. It was initially headed for a Montreal shoot.

‘Vancouver is busy and Calgary is fairly busy [with domestic product], but the rest of the country is disastrously slow,’ says Paul Bronfman, head of Comweb Group, which counts among its service divisions equipment supplier William F. White International. ‘I have never seen it this quiet in Toronto.’

As for why Hollywood is still heading to Vancouver and not Toronto and Montreal this summer, Doug Barrett, president of PS Production Services, suggests that more than the actor labor unrest is at play.

‘There are firm bookings from Hollywood for Vancouver for the fall, but not in Toronto, and you can’t blame that on the [threat of a] SAG strike,’ he says. ‘We are seeing a growing separation between Toronto and Vancouver in terms of location work.’

Barrett suggests that Vancouver is maintaining an advantage due to its proximity to L.A. (and sharing a time zone with Hollywood), not to mention B.C.’s larger number of purpose-built studios.

Vancouver’s production levels are consistent with summer 2007, according to B.C. film commissioner Susan Croome. The only exception is TV series work, which is down from 19 American and Canadian series shooting at the beginning of July 2007 to 13 series in July 2008.

TV series shooting in Vancouver this summer include NBC/Universal’s Battlestar Galactica and Eureka, USA Network’s Psych, ABC Family’s Kyle XY, Showtime’s The L Word, Sci-Fi Channel’s Stargate Atlantis, The Movie Network and Movie Central’s Sanctuary, The CW’s Smallville and Supernatural, and Global’s The Guard.

Elsewhere, Nova Scotia is back on the service shoot radar this summer.

In Halifax, the $19-million miniseries The Sea Wolf for German broadcaster ZDF, starring Neve Campbell, Sebastian Koch, Stephen Campbell Moore and Tim Roth, is currently shooting with local production company Big Motion Pictures. And location filming on Amelia, coproduced by Toronto’s Don Carmody, just wrapped in the east as well. Finally, another installment in CBS’ Jesse Stone TV movie franchise (starring Tom Selleck) is slated to shoot in Nova Scotia later this summer.

Nonetheless, Hollywood honchos are telling Toronto and Montreal brass that things should look up once the SAG contract situation is resolved.

‘I was just in Hollywood,’ says Quebec film commissioner Hans Fraikin, ‘and every producer was saying that they know the actors [dispute] will finish, that the American dollar will go up after the next election, and the bubble will burst sooner or later in the tax-credit states.’

Fraikin is referring to a growing number of American states offering increasingly significant tax incentives to keep productions in the U.S., including Michigan and Massachusetts (joining New Mexico, Louisiana, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island).

Fraikin remains optimistic that the SAG issues will be resolved quickly.

‘We have several projects that may go in August once the strike is resolved,’ he says. ‘We aren’t talking as big as [The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor], which filmed here last year, but they are substantial projects.’ 

As of July 15, SAG had rejected the latest contract offer from Hollywood producers group the AMPTP.

Ken Ferguson, president of Toronto’s new Filmport mega-studio, which is currently sitting empty, predicts it could be ‘a bleak summer’ if the actor labor unrest isn’t resolved quickly.

‘The U.S. production is non-existent, and it is pretty clear from our discussions with L.A. that nothing will be greenlit until the SAG situation is resolved,’ says Ferguson. ‘And even then, it takes larger productions awhile to ramp up, so we don’t expect to see anything until September or October.’

The good news in both Toronto and Montreal is that indigenous production is strong.

Ferguson’s Toronto Film Studios, meanwhile, is currently housing Shaftesbury Films’ Murdoch Mysteries and MOW The Good Times Are Killing Me, Temple Street Productions’ The Session, White Pine Pictures’ The Border and CBC’s Triple Sensation reality show.

‘If it wasn’t for Canadian shows, it would be very slow,’ says Jim Mirkopoulos of Toronto’s Cinespace Studios. ‘We have had some exploratory calls, but no commitments from Hollywood for late summer or fall.’

Cinespace is near capacity with the CTV/CBS series Flashpoint (Pink Sky Entertainment/Avamar Entertainment) and a new Shaftesbury series, Connor Undercover, currently shooting.

‘These are our bread and butter shows right now,’ adds Mirkopoulus.

Toronto is also busy with summer series shoots including Shaftesbury’s Aaron Stone and The Listener, Barna-Alper’s ‘da Kink in My Hair, WestWind Pictures’ Little Mosque on the Prairie, Epitome Pictures’ Degrassi: The Next Generation and The Nightingale Company’s The Weight for The Movie Network and Movie Central.

Vancouver Film Studios’ Pete Mitchell notes that medium-budgeted American projects are very scarce this year.

‘We have some enormous shows taking up a lot of space,’ says the EVP and COO, ‘but we don’t have all the $40-million features we should have at this time of the year. The SAG issue is putting [these projects] in a holding pattern.’

Since early 2007, the industry has faced consistent labor unrest, from the ACTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes to the SAG issue, so the general consensus is that it hasn’t been possible to accurately assess the impact of the strong Canadian dollar and competition from American states, although both are clearly having an effect.

Peter Leitch, president of Vancouver’s Mammoth and North Shore Studios, says that although business is up by about 5% at his studios over last summer, the strong Canadian dollar is a problem.

‘You have to have a formula to sustain your business, but at the same time, you have to be cognizant that the dollar has risen, and [that] there are not as many dollars to go around,’ says Leitch.

American states allotting huge sums of tax-incentive coin to seduce productions is also of increasing concern to Canadian service outfits.

William F. White, for example, is servicing a show this summer in Michigan, where a 42% rebate was recently introduced.

‘We have to keep our equipment moving and our people employed,’ says Bronfman. ‘Michigan is offering 42% across the board in goods and services, and that blows [Canada] out of the water.’

In the west, Saskatchewan and Alberta both report busy summers, with a mix of indigenous and foreign productions.

In Calgary, shooting this summer are the CBC series Heartland and The Wild Roses, as well as Nomadic Pictures’ TV movie Ransom Pride.

Calgary film commissioner Luke Azevedo says several other significant Canadian and American projects will likely be confirmed in the next several weeks, pending resolution of the SAG situation.

In Edmonton, the NBC series Fear Itself wraps a six-month shoot at the end of July. Meanwhile, Edmonton film commissioner Patti Tucker says she is close to locking two U.S. features (one of which is a Disney movie) for a late summer start.

‘Inquiries are at an all-time high, so I think Alberta is poised for a busy summer,’ she says.

At Manitoba Film & Sound, Louise O’Brien-Moran, manager of film production, says the province has no drama production going on because of the SAG situation. But she has had some producers scouting for starts in August and September, so she anticipates a busy fall.

‘Where we need to be more competitive is at the federal tax-credit level,’ says O’Brien-Moran. ‘The provinces are doing all they can to remain competitive, but the federal government needs to demonstrate that this billion-dollar industry is valuable to the country.’

For their part, Winnipeg producers are waiting to hear from broadcasters whether the locally shot series Less than Kind (for Citytv) and House Party (Comedy Network) will be renewed.

In Saskatchewan, summer shoots include the APTN series Rabbit Fall, the final season of CTV’s Corner Gas and some of CBC’s Little Mosque on the Prairie, which is also shot in Toronto.

Minds Eye Entertainment recently wrapped Dolan’s Cadillac, the feature adaptation of a Stephen King short story, featuring Christian Slater, Emmanuelle Vaugier (CSI: NY) and Wes Bentley (Ghost Rider). The Regina prodco is currently shooting The Shortcut, and has another European-financed movie set for the fall. A $50-million feature with Germany’s Stallion Media, titled Wicked City, is slated for next summer, with Mark Dippé (Spawn) directing.