When Zoic Studios opened a satellite office for the L.A.-based visual effects (VFX) house 12 years ago, Vancouver wasn’t exactly known as a bastion for qualified artists.
“It takes three to five years of industry experience, I feel, for a visual effects artist to really start to show a large degree of value,” said Andrew Orloff, Zoic’s co-founder and executive creative director.
“Now you can just talk to anybody. It [Vancouver] is one of the few premiere markets for visual effects in the world.”
While the city might be competitive when it comes to talent, Orloff says other provinces are gaining ground as their talent pools mature along with competing tax incentives.
In 2016 the provincial government cut the Digital Animation, Visual Effects + Post-Production (DAVE) tax credit from 17.5% to 16% for new productions.
It also took aim at physical productions after costs reached $500 million during the 2015-16 fiscal year, cutting those incentives for new productions from 33% to 28%.
Since then, the new provincial government introduced a 35% scriptwriting credit.
Liz Shorten, senior vice-president of operations and member services for the B.C. chapter of the Canadian Media Producers Association, said B.C. still remains a top global film and TV hub due to investments made over the years by private companies in studio infrastructure.
But she added it’s important for industry to support the independent and B.C.-owned creative sector to complement the foreign production services work that the province is most famed for.
“We need both sectors to be healthy in order to keep creative and technical talent working in the province,” she said.
Meanwhile, the gaming industry has been raising concerns over tax credits offered in other provinces.
B.C.’s interactive digital media tax credit comes in at 17.5% – the lowest among all jurisdictions in the country, according to data provided to Business in Vancouver by the DigiBC industry association.
Ontario’s tax credit is 40% and Quebec’s is 37%.
Meanwhile, the Alberta government announced in March the creation of a new 25% incentive, the Alberta interactive digital media tax credit, aimed at spurring growth in the province’s gaming sector.
“If you want to talk about risk to the video game industry in British Columbia, it’s Alberta,” Brenda Bailey, executive director of the DigiBC, told BIV in September.
