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Blackcomb Aviation at the movies

Whistler helicopter company part of the Hollywood North industry in B.C.
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heli team During filming of The A-Team near Kamloops Rob Fournier (left) and Steve Gray were extras along with the AS355 Twinstar helicopter they are pictured in. Photo suBmitted

Finding out that longtime Whistler company Blackcomb Aviation is firmly entrenched in the B.C. film industry is a bit like finding out that an old friend is a professional movie extra, dancing around in the background in some of Hollywood's biggest flicks.

First you think, "Ah, have you been in anything I've seen?" Then, as the list of credits gets longer, thoughts turn to "Oh! Wow. Really? REALLY?"

The company has worked on some major productions, either providing background helicopters or taking part in aerial filming. The A-Team, Elf, Eragon, The Fantastic Four, X-Men, The Bourne Legacy, the X-Files and dozens more make up their resumé. There has been a lot of studio money riding on their rotary blades over the years.

Steve Wright provides the long lens of history into how the growth of film has impacted his helicopter company and the aviation industry in general. Now vice president and aerial film coordinator for Blackcomb Aviation, he was there when Hollywood first came knocking on B.C.'s door.

Blackcomb Aviation has been doing film work since shortly after its founding in Whistler in 1989.

"I remember one of the first projects I worked on was in 1979 or 1980, just as the industry was getting going here. It was a TV series, ironically called Whistler.... We were using a helicopter with bungee cords hanging off it. We're doing all this stunt work that hasn't been done before," Wright recalled.

"Then we saw the industry go up, and at one point in the 80s we had helicopters on eight shows simultaneously."

And technologically speaking it has also flown higher, growing from ad hoc creative uses of paint shakers on plywood to stabilize cameras to "multi-gyro stabilized using GPS technology." Requiring professional qualifications and certifications in those being employed on aviation shoots became de rigueur with American companies like NBCUniversal or Disney, which led many in the industry to seek formal training.

Wright's colleague Steve Gray is the Whistler Base Manager and Blackcomb Aviation's principal film pilot. He said his work varies from shooting ski films and documentaries in the Whistler and Pemberton areas to shooting feature films throughout the Sea to Sky corridor and around the rest of B.C.

"It's a wide spectrum of work that we do," he said. "Our work seems to be very cyclical... we get sudden flurries of activity. For example, last year we got many more car commercials than we've gotten in the past. Kia, Ford, Dodge Ram, Lincoln — all in the last 12 months."

At the moment, he is in the middle of working on seasonally dependent ski and snowboard films.

"But coming in the spring we'll get into more feature films. This winter we worked on The Last Ship, a TV series," he said.

Gray said three pilots carry out the film work for Blackcomb Aviation.

"You have to be able to fly and do the shot and take the director's instructions at the same time... and learning how to act in high-stress situations," he said. "For many pilots, being part of a big budget film is a wake-up call, very different from what they are used to. Not everyone likes it."

Doing multiple takes over and over is a "skill in itself," Gray added.

And it's not just pilots being used; there is the aircraft engineer, the aerial coordinator, and others. The significance of relationships and teamwork in the helicopter work involved cannot be underestimated.

"I think that is one of the reasons we've been successful. We show up on set with a professional crew that is experienced," he said.

Some of the challenges include trying to satisfy the demands of producers and directors.

"But we've had some very interesting shoots. Shooting The A-Team in Whistler and Ashcroft (in the B.C. Interior), that was a great project that lasted two, three weeks on set. We had camera work, stunt aircraft and it was one of my first chances to fly both camera and stunt. That was fun," Gray said.

"A lot of people think stunt work is flying acrobatics with the aircraft and doing highly dangerous manoeuvres, when in fact it's really broken down into small bits. What you see on screen is a patchwork quilt of many shots done over several weeks.

The opening scene of The A-Team is a helicopter chase using all Blackcomb Aviation aircraft and took two weeks to film.

"It made me realize what goes into making a feature film," Gray said. "You can really step back and break it down and look at what the director wants you to do and then do it in a safe way, yet it can look dramatic on film."

The pressure on B.C. film

Suppliers of services to filmmaking in B.C. like Blackcomb Aviation have felt some pressure due to fewer films being made in the province.

Pete Mitchell is in a better place than most to judge the impact. As president and COO of the Vancouver Film Studios, he said the unwillingness of the provincial government to broaden its tax credits and incentives system sends filmmakers elsewhere.

"The incentives that we have here in B.C. are pretty generous but not good enough to put us in the same league as the other people, despite the fact that people in Los Angeles tell me regularly that they are dying to shoot here, that we have the best people, it's close to home," Mitchell said.

"It's just not enough to bridge that gap created by the tax and credit system at this point."

As a result, the B.C. film industry is losing out as a location to places like Ontario, Quebec, Louisiana and even the U.K.

For example, the current X-men 5 movie is now being shot in Montreal largely due to tax credits, Mitchell added, saying that in a $200 million movie this would mean about $100 million being spent in Quebec, including millions on salaries.

"Some competitors of ours have increased their incentives to attract film and television work. That put us at a pretty substantial competitive disadvantage," he said.

"The U.K., the seventh-largest economy in the world, is smart and serious. They looked at the film industry incentive they've got there and on balance the economic and jobs advantages that it brings well outweigh the costs, so now they've expanded to television and doubled their program in October. Clearly the U.K. is going to be big competition for us in the future."

Steve Wright at Blackcomb Aviation said their work is more dependent on trends in films being made.

"It's a little bit ebb and flow that way. If there are 30 productions shooting, the chance is that there will be more aviation work is obviously going to be there," Wright said. "At the moment, though, we hear from the various cameramen and directors who come here to shoot that they are working a lot more in Toronto."

Mitchell said the industry here wants a level playing field.

"We just need to go halfway there in the differential between us and Ontario, for example, because we're better. I had an executive from Sony the other day tell 'if you want to shoot an action adventure picture with a lot of visual effects in it, the best people in the world are in Vancouver.' So when he took a picture to Toronto and another one to Montreal last year, he took people from B.C.," he said.

The May 14 provincial election has B.C. film industry eagerly watching for party positions on their sector. Ironically, Mitchell added, the following day, May 15, is when L.A.-based TV executives find out if their new series plans are being picked up.

"At that point, very quickly, they're going to place the series around the world. We really want to be in that game at that point," Mitchell said.

(Full disclosure: Blackcomb Aviation is co-owned by John Morris and the McLean family of the McLean Group. The McLean Group also owns the Vancouver Film Studios.)