[jacquesm]

I've lived in Toronto and more than once accidentally found myself on a badly demarcated set near the Carpet Factory (which is used every other week for a shoot it seems because filming in Canada is cheaper than in the USA and it is large enough that you can pan a camera without immediately having a couple of modern buildings in view).

The degree to which this inconvenienced the locals was quite high, we didn't get any compensation at all for this use of the space that we were already paying for and more than once were unable to leave or enter the building because some hotshot director wanted to do things all over again.

Whether film crews are underpaid and overworked or not is really none of my concern, it is up to them to stand up for their rights and whether they work in terrible conditions or not I can't verify but I can tell you that what they spent on catering in a day probably dwarfs the budget of some African countries to feed thousands of times more people (and don't get me started on the amount of stuff they threw away afterwards).

So if someone accidentally walks on to a set then that's just too bad. Some people have a life and/or a job and that counts as well.

[Cd00d]

It's possible you are compensated for this though. It's not unlikely that the shoot pays your locality for the inconvenience and in turn your taxes are lower than they may otherwise be.

[softfalcon]

I live in Canadian city, I know some of the officials for my city who manage the budgeting and scheduling for film crews in our city. I also know some of the music and film production studios that are hired out for these shoots. We are also one of the primary cities for filming in Canada.

I know for a fact that we subsidize film production into our city. Us tax payers literally pay money to the film companies to subsidize their costs. They do not pay us or our city. The idea is that this would promote more use of local businesses. It does not usually work out that way though.

A bunch of investigative reporting has been done in our local news that indicates that the majority of the companies filming here do not even hire local businesses, even going as far as to have their food frozen and flown in with their gear because they can treat it as a subsidized cost.

In short, they frequently do not help our community, they actively tie up our streets, don't employ local businesses, and exploit our tax system to make a profit on their shoots. Never underestimate corporate greed and its ability to subvert tax laws for their own gain.

To make matters worse, from the folks I know who run local film, recording, catering, etc, they indicate that they have to aggressively cut their prices down and make almost no profit because the corporations hiring them are unscrupulous in negotiation. If they don't cave to their demands, they corporation walks away and brings in their own stuff from outside the province/Canada and writes it off as further subsidized costs.

[Cd00d]

Thank you for your comment. I had no idea, and appreciate the correction and lesson.

My old neighborhood in Brooklyn always had filming, and my current town is on its third movie shot on main st so far this year - I wonder if those are usually subsidized too.

[mynameisvlad]

> The idea is that this would promote more use of local businesses. It does not usually work out that way though.

Great Youtube video on this topic, especially since you're likely talking about Vancouver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojm74VGsZBU

[ausbah]

isn't another reason tourism? see cool place in a movie and people want to come?

[jacquesm]

That definitely wasn't the case.