Filming underway in the Kamloops area. (Photo via Thompson Nicola Film Commission)
Despite a downward trend in film productions so far this year, the Thompson Nicola Film Commission (TNFC) still has high hopes for what’s to come.
TNFC Film Commissioner Terri Hadwin says there were 82 production inquiries last year, noting they’ve averaged one a week this year.
“We haven’t had what we would call the movies of the week, as frequently as we had last year — Last year, I think we had six or eight different movies of the week filming throughout the entire year, and this year, we haven’t seen any of those guys,” she said.
“We still have inquiries, and productions reaching out to us with scripts, but we just haven’t had the locations that are fitting their script needs at this point.”
Despite that drop, she says the Film Commission has a few production inquiries underway in the region.
“There’s 16 that I am actively working on at the moment; so trying to find their their location needs and making sure that I sustain them was whatever else I can, as far as services and crew training.”
As for the reason behind the decline, Hadwin suggests there has been chatter that streaming services are reigning in their spending. She explains that comes following the COVID pandemic, which created a spike in the need for new content.
“Streaming service providers were kind of cashing in on that all at once and they were coming out with a show that belonged exclusively to them — so that you needed to pay for their streaming services to get whatever it was that you were seeking out.”
While Hadwin believes it will pick up again, she suggests the streaming services are currently figuring out where their budgets sit and where people are consuming their streaming services.
In 2022, roughly $18 Million was brought into the region from film productions, with Hadwin saying they hope to reach at least that again this year.
“I think we can make that this year, that’s my hope. Always aiming for bigger, but if we can make what we did last year, I would be happy, especially considering that there has been a downturn throughout the entire province.”
