X Marked the Sweet Spot For Vancouver Film Crews

Tales from the Set

On July 26, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan presented The X-Files TV series creator Chris Carter with a framed certificate in recognition of his contribution to our city. A framed certificate? It should have been a solid gold key to the city, at the very least, but it’s the thought that counts.

Who is this Chris Carter, and why is he important to Vancouver? Carter, in town for the local premiere of the second X-Files spin off movie, X Files: I Want to Believe, brought his pilot for The X-Files series to Vancouver in 1993. Fox, the commissioning network, liked the results, and followed up by buying another 12 episodes. The rest, as they say, is history.

Over the nine years that followed, the series went from strength to strength and became more than just a mega hit TV series. It won numerous awards and became an international media sensation, with syndication nearly everywhere and cult fan clubs the world over.

Vancouver's notorious grey skies played no small role in the feel of the show - the edgy story lines intertwining the paranormal with governmental conspiracies and unexplained mysteries were enhanced by the look and unmistakable light quality of rain-prone Vancouver. Indeed, when the series packed up and moved to Los Angeles in 1998, many fans noticed the difference in the tone and quality of the show.

From 1993 until 1998, The X-Files was the Vancouver film industry’s flagship. More than any other project, this one put us on the map, and over time brought Vancouver to the ranking of third -- sometimes second -- largest production centre on this continent. Word is that Chris Carter personally endorsed this city and our crews, and sold numerous projects on working here.

While Vancouver’s rainy climate worked well cinematically, it had the unfortunate effect of alienating David Duchovny, who starred as spooky FBI agent Fox Mulder. In 1997, Duchovny infamously remarked on Late Night with Conan O’Brien that “Vancouver is a very nice place if you like 400 inches of rainfall a day”. The city, understandably upset, nimbly exacted its revenge on the actor. With considerable fanfare and media hoopla, a low rent strip joint on the down town east side banned Duchovny from its premises for sullying the city’s reputation, forbidding him from ever again drinking draft beer there and enjoying the shows!

Many people who lived and worked in Vancouver during The X-Files' run have a story to tell about filming, and I'm no different.

In the early '90s, I was working as a fledgling movie props person. When a show needs lots of extras for a particular scene it calls in additional prop people to refill drinks, hand out backpacks - whatever is required. I took two separate ‘extra set of hands’ day shifts on The X-Files in 1994. In both instances as I showed up for work in my big boots, with rain gear in hand, and blond, beach-boy kind of guy rolled up out of nowhere, shook my hand, welcomed me and thanked me for coming to help out – that was Chris Carter!

During one of my shifts, Carter was directing an episode, which was unusual for him. Lunch in the catering tent that day was especially delicious, something ethnic, served on sparkling white table clothes with real cutlery. A live band played music while we enjoyed the food. Chris Carter personally paid for these deluxe crew lunches out of his director’s fees every day of ‘his’ episode.

The following year, I went back to The X-Files, and spent a couple of months working in the props department as a prop buyer. My mandate was to buy the best and most suitable hand props for the actors, not worrying about irrelevant details such as how much they cost. By then, the series was making so much money in international syndication that the word ‘budget’ really never came up in departmental meetings – nice place to work as a buyer!

In the end cast pressures to ‘work at home’ won out, and The X-Files completed its last four seasons in Los Angeles.

The benefits conferred by The X-Files on our film industry here in Vancouver, both during and after the show’s five-year run, cannot possibly be overstated. It was a lucky day for Vancouver when Chris Carter, a true gentleman, first showed up in our soggy rain forest, script in hand.

Around Town

The Butterfly Effect: Revelation (3) has been actively scouting. Word is it will begin prepping in August. It follows after Butterfly Effect 2 and 1, both of which were also shot in Vancouver, in 2006 and 2004, respectively.

Mistresses, a cable TV pilot for Fox/Lifetime, started prepping in late July for an August shoot. The hope is that it will be picked up for a series, maybe also to shoot here.

A real Canadian content piece, oddly, by a Los Angeles company, is still in development but hopes to shoot in Vancouver this summer. Cannabis is the story of a nineteen-year-old Idahoan who makes a fortune smuggling BC bud across the international border.

Kevin Brown has been working in the BC film industry for the past 25 years, as a prop buyer, a set decorator and in other capacities too numerous to list. He has sweated blood over some excruciatingly bad television and some pretty awful feature films too in his time -- but hey, it’s a living! A pioneer of the BC industry, he helped set up film commissions and technicians’ unions back in the early days. Now a freelance writer as well, he is covering Vancouver film industry news and views for www.vancouver.com.