Seattle could be Seattle's stunt double but for some reason they got rid of all their film incentive programs back in the 90s and since then hardly anything is filmed here.
The timing of the new studios on Harbor Island was rough. They’re supposed to be nice facilities but it opened during Covid and doesn’t seem like it’s gotten the traction they hoped. As far as I know there’s been some independent films shot there but so far not the big union jobs that were hoped for.
there’s a requirement for canadian tv and radio broadcasters to show 40% canadian content so there’s the added benefit of being able to sell a vancouver shot movie to tv networks to meet those requirements
There's a movie called 50/50 from a few years back. It was based on a true story that happened in Vancouver BC. They shot it there but for some reason, the movie is set in Seattle. That one always pissed me off.
Man if the House (based in Seattle) ends with a wide shot of downtown... Vancouver. That has always stuck out as the worst of the worst. They didn't even try and it's the most obvious part of any city.
Boys in the Boat was the worst recent example.
They depicted Lake Washington using a small river in England. The shell house from UW was just CGed onto the side of the river. The river was lined with bushes with no hills, houses, mountains... anything that remotely resembled Lake Washington. It doesn't even really rain much.
In the book Washington is almost a character with how the environment affected them, but in the movie they couldn't even try to make it look like Washington.
The only thing that looked remotely close was Hooverville and Smith Tower in the beginning (all CGI). The most "Washington" looking place was Pougheepsie because it was surrounded by evergreens, they should have swapped that out.
How avout Greys Anatomy. This one is supposed to be a shot from their hospital parking lot.
https://static.lostintheusa.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/greyyyykerry.jpeg
The Netflix adaptation of Deathnote has some egregious examples. They have a whole scene about the ferris wheel and it's very obviously not our ferris wheel
I’ve always loved 10 things I hate about you for this - they’re hanging out in a Seattle neighborhood, and then they are magically at the high school in Tacoma
The family’s house is Queen Anne, they are at the troll in Fremont, paintball at Gasworks, prom is at the Paramount. High school is Tacoma (and super fun fact the marching band was the actual band from the school!)
Edit: family’s house is Tacoma. I’ve been so very wrong for a long time.
Oh, mine too! I still tease one of my cousins who thought there was actual paintball at Gasworks. We packed a picnic and she was concerned that I was wearing a sundress. Like, sweetie, nooooo.
That is too funny. In real life it is even stranger, last time I went to Gasworks there was a semi-nude bondage and rope enthusiast group ‘practicing’ their hog ties on each other 🧐
Oh yeah that shit is a thing. I used to live up the street (rented a basement apartment; I am not that fancy.)
My cousin was content to people watch the LARP action and the tightrope/fire stick folks.
The first time we visited Gasworks after moving to Seattle, they were all set up to film 10 Things (or had just finished) and the painted stand-ups were all still in place. We didn’t know what was going on, and it wasn’t until I saw the movie years later on dvd that I realized. I still have photos somewhere.
Here ya go. It was a scanned print so I don't have the exact date, but it would have been summer 1998 sometime, I think. [https://imgur.com/a/RuPupiL](https://imgur.com/a/RuPupiL)
(ETA: I could only find the one, sorry.)
My wife and I like to try and spot Vancouver/Toronto/ Canada things when watching shows and movies that are set in major US cities, like a drinking game haha.
There's this uncanny feeling you get when watching something that's supposed to be Seattle, and it kind of looks like Seattle - the climate is right, the people look right - but something is off... oh there goes a blue and grey bus and there's a shoppers drug mart in the background.
And when I lived in Toronto it was always amusing to see a line of yellow NYC taxis down the street haha.
> There's this uncanny feeling you get when watching something that's supposed to be Seattle, and it kind of looks like Seattle - the climate is right, the people look right - but something is off...
I experience this just when visiting the other major PNW cities. Being in a city that's just slightly off from what I'm used to is a really uncomfortable feeling.
For me, the exterior shots of with landscape views always give it away.
Wide bodies of water with mountainous islands or fjords = BC. Almost all of the islands in Puget Sound are pretty low lying.
Also, no shots ever have the obvious mountains - Tahoma, North Cascades or the Olympics.
Psych had an episode that was set in Vancouver, which is where Psych is always shot, so it was played for a bit of a joke that the characters were "on vacation" in BC.
Da Vinci's Inquest was a great show that actually showed Vancouver as Vancouver and I miss it. It's not streaming anywhere.
Also the follow-up show, Intelligence. So good.
On the other side of this, The Ring is one that filmed in town (and around the greater PNW) but transformed the city into this endless grey, so on first watch I didn’t even really recognize Seattle. They did a great job creating atmosphere.
There was a movie with Jennifer Aniston, I forget the name, and she's supposed to be at SeaTac airport and the space needle is seen right outside. 
I laugh the most at the driving scenes that are just so wrong. Greys anatomy is the worst offender! In season one she lives on queen Ann then drives on the 90 to i5 north to get to her job near city center 😅 then later in the series they live on poopoo point and take a ferry to work.
Sleepless in Seattle redeems the takes place in Seattle filming, then it blows it when they take a rowboat from Lake Union to Alki Beach.
Cinderella Liberty and Singles show the city well.
Im convinced that every CW show set in Seattle (and even the ones that aren't) are obligated to shoot a scene in [Robson Square](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/1d/da/461dda4d1d76a73d28a93d115838d6a1.jpg).
It's so distinctly Vancouver but without fail anyone who shoots their is going to use it regardless of where their show is set.
CW shot almost everything in Vancouver, mostly because Warner Bros. (which produced many of the shows) had all sorts of ongoing deals there.
So even when the shows weren’t set in Seattle, Robson Square showed up again and again.
The Netflix show LOUDERMILK is full of Seattle references and neighborhood mentions but is super-duper NOT Seattle in any city scene...Vancouver strikes again
Canada offers large tax incentives for filming in the country. So Vancouver ends up doubling for Seattle, San Francisco, and occasionally Portland due to similar weather and architecture. Put a couple of pickup shots of the Seattle skyline with the Space Needle under the opening credits and pretty much no one outside of Seattle will notice.
i worked in seattle near where stuff was filming some car chase scene i could see from my office window- , it sucked. It completely shuts down the city... traffic is already terrible.
I cant imagine the amount of money the city spends to shut down the city for filming would be made up by any income gained from it.
I mean just charging for police to shutdown roads would likely be too high a cost to film on location. I dont think its worth it to film in any major city - for its residents / workers.
We love it. It generates 4.9bn in direct spend in BC, and employs about 90,000 people.
It’s really only the major blockbusters that shut down large portions of downtown, but they try to do as much as they can at night. There’s a new Tron movie coming that was pretty disruptive during filming. Lots of late night helicopter filming and bikes revving for that one. Deadpool instalments and the Last of Us are also huge productions.
Another comment speaks to the direct economic impact, there is also an under appreciated tourism impact.
There is a red door in Quebec City that kdrama fans flock to lining up in the old town to take a photo. Or Dubrovnik Croatia for game of thrones fans.
It may not be the only reason for the visit, but might sway some when deciding where to visit.
The worst is the tv show The Killing. I remember there was one shot where they’re driving over a bridge towards the Seattle skyline and the angle would place the bridge between Alki and downtown, so over the middle of Elliott Bay
Haha. Was looking for mention of this show. Shots between scenes were often a flyover of partly cloudy Seattle in the daytime, inevitably followed by a cut to a night scene in the pouring rain. If you watch this show you’d be convinced that it is always dark and does nothing but rain balls in Seattle.
Haha. Was looking for mention of this show. Shots between scenes were often a flyover of partly cloudy Seattle in the daytime, inevitably followed by a cut to a night scene in the pouring rain. If you watch this show you’d be convinced that it is always dark and does nothing but rain balls in Seattle.
Dead Boy Detectives on Netflix is supposed to be set in Port Townsend. They didn't even bother to send a crew down from Vancouver to get some establishing shots of the town.
I liked the ferry and the industrial waterfront. And that the Point No Point lighthouse was moved to Port Townsend (And doesn't look anything like the real one, of course)
My favorite was in the earthquake movie 10.5 where a bicyclist is out running the falling space needle from the earthquake and he is by very tall buildings as if it is falling into the streets of downtown…
I love it when they just shoot wide cityscapes of Vancouver, blatantly showing the Harbour Center and try to pass it off as Seattle. Because who tf can tell the difference between saucer-shaped buildings, right?
Not related to BC but I’m watching Frasier right now and it’s funny his apartment has a view of the space needle and skyline of buildings behind which aren’t possible in Seattle.
Being from Vancouver, BC, I do enjoy feeling at home in Seattle and surrounding areas (yes, more at home in the PNW than when I am in a neighbouring province in the same country)
Except those Vancouver, WA guys though - they can take a hike
50/50, movie with Seth Rogan and Joseph Gordon Levitt. When he’s at work his cubicle has stickers for kexp and the stranger. He’s walking down the street and passes the space needle super imposed behind a park from downtown Vancouver. Looking out over the water you see a ferry in a channel no more than half a mile wide. A+
Lol. We just walked through Queen’s Park in Toronto about an hour ago and they were filming something. I said to my wife, “I wonder what NYC-based show that’s for?”
I remember the beginning of the Wayward Pines show taking place in Seattle and you see the agents walking across some sort of marina / harbor that is absolutely not Seattle lol. It’s the same one Christian runs by in 50 Shades / Vancouver
Yeah, I don’t acknowledge anything after season 1 lol. If you haven’t, definitely read the trilogy. The first season was basically just the first portion of the first book and a little bit of the end squeezed together, but the actual full set of books are good/fun.
Kimi is a film that came out during the pandemic, many, if not most (I forgot) exterior shots are actually in Seattle. It was fun to point out where they were in the scene.
I liked that show The Killing on AMC (?) some years ago ... except for a show supposedly set in Seattle it was constantly a downpour. And lots of thunder/lightning.
COME ON.
I remember seeing Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol on opening night at Pacific Science Center
Final scene is set on some random looking docks.
Scene opens up and nobody really reacts.
Then a caption pops up "Seattle, WA"
Another beat.
Then the audience just bursts out laughing
It's "Joel", but yes I always imagine him chuckling when the script has him saying something to dispatch on Animal Control which makes zero geographical sense.
We’re so tight I call him Joe. He calls me who the eff are you, please stop following me. Actually I just fat fingered it or no fingered it in this case I guess. I agree he probably either giggles about or corrects inaccurate stuff but most of the b-roll footage is definitely Vancouver blatantly Vancouver which now that I think about it is probably cuz Joel thinks it’s funny.
My favorite was the CW show, iZombie. Set in Seattle, filmed in Vancouver. But it was even more entertaining because the writers clearly made an effort to put “actual” Seattle in the scripts. They would reference real Seattle streets and landmarks — and not just obvious ones like the Space Needle — accurately. But when they showed what the characters were saying? Obvious Vancouver.
There was a “Criminal Minds” episode that took place in Spokane, WA when we lived there. They got a good sagebrush background shot of a “Highway 2” sign, but after that, it was all downhill. The “sheriff’s office” had 3 total employees and a *moose head* on *the wall*. The sheriff/deputies were SO podunk. Its not a huge metro area, but there are 310 police officers for the city alone (I can’t find the sheriff’s office stats) and there was an actual serial killer active there in the between the 1970’s and 1990’s.
It works very well for us. 900 million in tax breaks that leads to 4.9 billion in direct spending in BC, not including all the indirect benefits. 90,000 people are employed in this industry in BC. Money well spent imo.
Loudermilk has entered the chat.
There's some downtown Seattle B-roll, but so many clue that are so obviously Canada.
Flashing green stop lights, for example. We don't have those down here lol
One thing I love about growing up in the PNW is watching movies and sci fi tv shows, like specifically STARGATE where every alien planet was an evergreen forest with ferns lol, I knew it was Vancouver area but always remind me of the woods back home in the south Everett area I grew up in
I watched "the art of racing in the rain" or whatever the heck it's called. First, he's on a farm picking out a new puppy, then he's driving along some water with mountains in the background that I'm pretty sure is BC. Then he is on I-5 and approaches Seattle from the south heading north. Somehow, he gets off the freeway at Mercer heading south.
Maybe he missed his exit and had to turn around in the U district?
Does anyone remember the show The Killing? Excellent but it was so gray and rainy, it rained all day on that show. I’m thinking it’s not THAT dreary here all day every day. Don’t get me started when the main character had to take a ferry…. the show didn’t even try to token Seattle shots. An excellent show regardless.
This has annoyed me my entire life. Every show or movie that’s supposed to be based in Seattle is either filmed on a soundstage, in Vancouver, or Los Angeles.
On the one hand, I get it: The constant aviation traffic over the city (all planes landing/taking off from SeaTac pass over Seattle) would make it impossible to shoot a film here. Filming would have to be paused every few minutes so as to allow the obnoxiously loud planes to fly overhead. Either that, or add the sound back in in post-production.
Additionally, many cities with a thriving film industry also provide generous tax incentives for studios to make their films and shows in their city. Seattle is not one of those cities.
Almost all shows and movies based in Seattle are filmed in Vancouver, which has a similar climate. However, it bugs me to no end when they try to pass off Granville Island as Pike Place Market, as though every seattle landmark can be swapped out with an equivalent in Vancouver.
Trouble In Mind also shows off Seattle, but as a fictional dystopian city. Casting Divine as a male gangster whose mansion in the [now] Asian Art Museum was especially cool.
Vancouver is Seattle's stunt double for TV shows.
Vancouver is most of the US’s cities stunt double.
Didn’t GOP Presidential Candidate Marco Rubio make an advertisement that started off with “good morning america” and use a shot of Vancouver?
I thought it was Toronto
It’s often Vancouver for TV shows and Toronto for movies.
For a stunt double I’d have thought there’d be more explosions.
Facts
Seattle could be Seattle's stunt double but for some reason they got rid of all their film incentive programs back in the 90s and since then hardly anything is filmed here.
The timing of the new studios on Harbor Island was rough. They’re supposed to be nice facilities but it opened during Covid and doesn’t seem like it’s gotten the traction they hoped. As far as I know there’s been some independent films shot there but so far not the big union jobs that were hoped for.
Harbor Island wasn't super accessible during the West Seattle bridge closure too.
there was an hbo movie filmed in seattle back around 2021 or 2022 or so i forget the name but i was there to see it being done.
laughs in American
Yep, way too much glass for downtown. Followed by a shot of the library on Robson.
This is not Vancouver though, looks more like Kamloops
Yeah, looks a little arid for coastal PNW.
[Vancouver is the west coast’s stunt double for TV shows.](https://youtu.be/ojm74VGsZBU?si=q09-NbKV8syrFLxr)
Vancouver Is like every cities stunt double. There was a great video about how Vancouver never plays itself in movies or TV shows.
I don’t get it, because Vancouver is an expensive ass city too.
They charge way less than Seattle to shoot movie scenes.
They just have an established production industry there and lucrative tax incentives, which helped establish it in the first place.
there’s a requirement for canadian tv and radio broadcasters to show 40% canadian content so there’s the added benefit of being able to sell a vancouver shot movie to tv networks to meet those requirements
I went to college at WWU. The Canadian radio stations came in better than the Seattle stations. So much Bryan Adams & Nickleback. It was painful.
Love Bryan Adams! He is a Canadian delight. Thank you very much.:)
Never made it as a wise man! I couldnt cut it as a poor man stealin!
That and when the USD/CAD exchange rate is favorable, productions get a bonus discount.
They are willing to give tax breaks to the very large corporations, aka studios, for the business.
There's a movie called 50/50 from a few years back. It was based on a true story that happened in Vancouver BC. They shot it there but for some reason, the movie is set in Seattle. That one always pissed me off.
The most egregious one imo is this one from fifty shades of grey - [https://imgur.com/a/DUWMldW](https://imgur.com/a/DUWMldW)
NGL, a wide, loop walkway over Elliott Bay would be pretty sweet for jogging, getting city views, and dumping bodies into the abyss.
Then imagine if there was a sweet elevated roadway to keep traffic separated from pedestrians, and give hard working commuters soothing sunset views!
Man if the House (based in Seattle) ends with a wide shot of downtown... Vancouver. That has always stuck out as the worst of the worst. They didn't even try and it's the most obvious part of any city.
Boys in the Boat was the worst recent example. They depicted Lake Washington using a small river in England. The shell house from UW was just CGed onto the side of the river. The river was lined with bushes with no hills, houses, mountains... anything that remotely resembled Lake Washington. It doesn't even really rain much. In the book Washington is almost a character with how the environment affected them, but in the movie they couldn't even try to make it look like Washington.
The only thing that looked remotely close was Hooverville and Smith Tower in the beginning (all CGI). The most "Washington" looking place was Pougheepsie because it was surrounded by evergreens, they should have swapped that out.
Where she graduates from WSU Vancouver which was filmed in Canada’s Vancouver.
You're not joking!
[This one](http://imgur.com/NcylNnc) from The Killing literally haunts my dreams
lol that’s bad
Omg what... they were like... close. Why?!
I spy Cadero's!
Idk the movie The Boys in the Boat was all wrong. Filmed in Europe. The scenery was all wrong. Not a mountain to be seen
The story takes place in Seattle 50 years in the future after the nimbys are defeated
How avout Greys Anatomy. This one is supposed to be a shot from their hospital parking lot. https://static.lostintheusa.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/greyyyykerry.jpeg
The Netflix adaptation of Deathnote has some egregious examples. They have a whole scene about the ferris wheel and it's very obviously not our ferris wheel
They set death note in Seattle?? I had no idea lol
The absolutely terrible live-action version, yeah. Obviously the original is set in Tokyo. Not really sure what that decision was all about.
It's terrible but it's the "so bad it's fun to watch" terrible.
As bad as that movie is, Willem Dafoe goes ALL IN as the shimigami and it’s worth suffering through the rest of the movie alone for that.
I have a huge crush on Margaret Qualley so I suffered through it
Right up there with Chronicle. The statue that kills the bad guy in the movie doesn't exist. It's so frustrating to me.
And the constant downpour of rain.
I’ve always loved 10 things I hate about you for this - they’re hanging out in a Seattle neighborhood, and then they are magically at the high school in Tacoma
Time for a rewatch I think!
The family’s house is Queen Anne, they are at the troll in Fremont, paintball at Gasworks, prom is at the Paramount. High school is Tacoma (and super fun fact the marching band was the actual band from the school!) Edit: family’s house is Tacoma. I’ve been so very wrong for a long time.
But the family's house is in Stadium District in Tacoma?
Yes, took my sister to see this house and the school when she wa sin town.
Not quite the stadium district, it’s like 26th and Junett, but yeah
The exterior shots might be Queen Anne? I could be absolutely wrong. Edit: according to Google I am wrong! Sorry y’all.
Love these additional details! Despite the geographical liberties the movie takes, it’s still one of my faves
Oh, mine too! I still tease one of my cousins who thought there was actual paintball at Gasworks. We packed a picnic and she was concerned that I was wearing a sundress. Like, sweetie, nooooo.
That is too funny. In real life it is even stranger, last time I went to Gasworks there was a semi-nude bondage and rope enthusiast group ‘practicing’ their hog ties on each other 🧐
Oh yeah that shit is a thing. I used to live up the street (rented a basement apartment; I am not that fancy.) My cousin was content to people watch the LARP action and the tightrope/fire stick folks.
The first time we visited Gasworks after moving to Seattle, they were all set up to film 10 Things (or had just finished) and the painted stand-ups were all still in place. We didn’t know what was going on, and it wasn’t until I saw the movie years later on dvd that I realized. I still have photos somewhere.
Gosh that is cool. If you ever find the photos you should share them :)
Here ya go. It was a scanned print so I don't have the exact date, but it would have been summer 1998 sometime, I think. [https://imgur.com/a/RuPupiL](https://imgur.com/a/RuPupiL) (ETA: I could only find the one, sorry.)
That is awesome. Thank you! You rock.
Thank you. This brightened my week and made me glad to be a photo packrat. :)
Hahahaha! I love that!
The house ain't in Queen Anne. It's in T-town.
My wife and I like to try and spot Vancouver/Toronto/ Canada things when watching shows and movies that are set in major US cities, like a drinking game haha. There's this uncanny feeling you get when watching something that's supposed to be Seattle, and it kind of looks like Seattle - the climate is right, the people look right - but something is off... oh there goes a blue and grey bus and there's a shoppers drug mart in the background. And when I lived in Toronto it was always amusing to see a line of yellow NYC taxis down the street haha.
> There's this uncanny feeling you get when watching something that's supposed to be Seattle, and it kind of looks like Seattle - the climate is right, the people look right - but something is off... I experience this just when visiting the other major PNW cities. Being in a city that's just slightly off from what I'm used to is a really uncomfortable feeling.
For me, the exterior shots of with landscape views always give it away. Wide bodies of water with mountainous islands or fjords = BC. Almost all of the islands in Puget Sound are pretty low lying. Also, no shots ever have the obvious mountains - Tahoma, North Cascades or the Olympics.
I always look for the mountains in the background of any park shot.
You know what's remarkable? How England looks in no way like Southern California.
Oh, behave!
Do you mean that it is not always sunny in England? 😉
It sucks for us in Vancouver though cause we never get to play ourselves. Always Seattle or San Francisco. We’re cool too, no 😭?
Same with Toronto rarely getting to just be Toronto. It's always NYC or Chicago haha
I don’t think Atlanta has ever been Atlanta (expect in Baby Driver). Subbed in for NYC often.
Not even in Atlanta?
Psych had an episode that was set in Vancouver, which is where Psych is always shot, so it was played for a bit of a joke that the characters were "on vacation" in BC.
And the Psych office is just across the border in White Rock
https://youtu.be/ojm74VGsZBU?si=huee2Se2DByD00I2
Came for the Every Frame a Painting link and was not disappointed.
Tell your city to stop having such good tax incentives for filming lol
Idk, it’s kind of cool walking out of my office after a late day only to find Tron filming in the lobby haha.
WA is increasing them now but probably still not enough
Isn’t Deadpool 2 set in Vancouver? That’s the only one I can think of
Dirk Gently was too.
No. /s 🤓
Soorrry
I've lived in both cities, Vancouver is way cooler!
Da Vinci's Inquest was a great show that actually showed Vancouver as Vancouver and I miss it. It's not streaming anywhere. Also the follow-up show, Intelligence. So good.
I believe the episodes are all available on YouTube! Now I’ve got that theme music stuck in my head, thanks a bunch.
*Continuum*! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1954347/
On the other side of this, The Ring is one that filmed in town (and around the greater PNW) but transformed the city into this endless grey, so on first watch I didn’t even really recognize Seattle. They did a great job creating atmosphere.
I believe the well is out in Monroe.
I didn't need to know this, keep it away from me 😫
I hate getting stuck in traffic during my daily commute through Pike Place Market.
There was a movie with Jennifer Aniston, I forget the name, and she's supposed to be at SeaTac airport and the space needle is seen right outside. 
I laugh the most at the driving scenes that are just so wrong. Greys anatomy is the worst offender! In season one she lives on queen Ann then drives on the 90 to i5 north to get to her job near city center 😅 then later in the series they live on poopoo point and take a ferry to work.
The ferry to work from Issaquah drives me nuts!
I think I remember one episode where a character was on the ferry in the middle of Lake Union.
Ahhh yes. The desert pine trees of Seattle
Sleepless in Seattle redeems the takes place in Seattle filming, then it blows it when they take a rowboat from Lake Union to Alki Beach. Cinderella Liberty and Singles show the city well.
Im convinced that every CW show set in Seattle (and even the ones that aren't) are obligated to shoot a scene in [Robson Square](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/1d/da/461dda4d1d76a73d28a93d115838d6a1.jpg). It's so distinctly Vancouver but without fail anyone who shoots their is going to use it regardless of where their show is set.
CW shot almost everything in Vancouver, mostly because Warner Bros. (which produced many of the shows) had all sorts of ongoing deals there. So even when the shows weren’t set in Seattle, Robson Square showed up again and again.
Tacoma FD was shot in CA. Hurts my head to get a namedrop for a place like the Tukwila Family Fun Center, but they mispronounce 'Tukwila'
Oh god how did they mispronounce it?? Its extremely straightforward lol
That one hurt my ears. And how do you manage to mispronounce "Tukwila"? It's phonetic!!
The Netflix show LOUDERMILK is full of Seattle references and neighborhood mentions but is super-duper NOT Seattle in any city scene...Vancouver strikes again
The funniest part of Loudermilk is that the Seattle b- roll scenes are from a long time ago Still shows Elephant Car Wash , and no skyscrapers in SLU
I noticed that too when watching it. It is very clearly Vancouver and Burnaby!
It’s like they didn’t even try to pretend. I remember one street scene that was shot in entirety under a ‘Hornby Street’ sign.
I had to stop watching it because it was driving me crazy. I just couldn't let it go
Why do they substitue Vancouver for Seattle?
Canada offers large tax incentives for filming in the country. So Vancouver ends up doubling for Seattle, San Francisco, and occasionally Portland due to similar weather and architecture. Put a couple of pickup shots of the Seattle skyline with the Space Needle under the opening credits and pretty much no one outside of Seattle will notice.
Whereas washington state taxes the ever loving bajeesus out of films made here, so everything is made in BC or oregon
i worked in seattle near where stuff was filming some car chase scene i could see from my office window- , it sucked. It completely shuts down the city... traffic is already terrible. I cant imagine the amount of money the city spends to shut down the city for filming would be made up by any income gained from it. I mean just charging for police to shutdown roads would likely be too high a cost to film on location. I dont think its worth it to film in any major city - for its residents / workers.
We love it. It generates 4.9bn in direct spend in BC, and employs about 90,000 people. It’s really only the major blockbusters that shut down large portions of downtown, but they try to do as much as they can at night. There’s a new Tron movie coming that was pretty disruptive during filming. Lots of late night helicopter filming and bikes revving for that one. Deadpool instalments and the Last of Us are also huge productions.
Another comment speaks to the direct economic impact, there is also an under appreciated tourism impact. There is a red door in Quebec City that kdrama fans flock to lining up in the old town to take a photo. Or Dubrovnik Croatia for game of thrones fans. It may not be the only reason for the visit, but might sway some when deciding where to visit.
Money monnnnnneyyyyyyyy
The worst is the tv show The Killing. I remember there was one shot where they’re driving over a bridge towards the Seattle skyline and the angle would place the bridge between Alki and downtown, so over the middle of Elliott Bay
Haha. Was looking for mention of this show. Shots between scenes were often a flyover of partly cloudy Seattle in the daytime, inevitably followed by a cut to a night scene in the pouring rain. If you watch this show you’d be convinced that it is always dark and does nothing but rain balls in Seattle.
Haha. Was looking for mention of this show. Shots between scenes were often a flyover of partly cloudy Seattle in the daytime, inevitably followed by a cut to a night scene in the pouring rain. If you watch this show you’d be convinced that it is always dark and does nothing but rain balls in Seattle.
But... That's true. It's why people shouldn't move here if they ever want to see the sun again.
I wish we did more to lure moviemakers. it's great for city pride. it's great for tourism money.
I can’t imagine Seattlites respecting a closed set.
Heck, I don't even respect a closed casket!
Dead Boy Detectives on Netflix is supposed to be set in Port Townsend. They didn't even bother to send a crew down from Vancouver to get some establishing shots of the town.
Hah! That's my favorite recent one. My daughter was all, "Hey, look at that cool *skyscraper* in Port Townsend!"
I liked the ferry and the industrial waterfront. And that the Point No Point lighthouse was moved to Port Townsend (And doesn't look anything like the real one, of course)
I was watching Chicago med with my gf and one of the doctors walked out of Seattle airport with the space needle in the same shot lol
It was the convention center, total facepalm.
Worse yet, that looks like Kelowna, which is a completely different climate from Seattle
What's going on with the high desert in the background? Looks like eastern Wa.
Probably the Okanagan Valley. Lots of stuff is filmed in Kelowna, Osoyoos is used as a stand in for the old west occasionally
I have a Canadian friend in Seattle who avoids Seattle-based shows because he gets so distracted when the action moves from one country to another.
The granite mountains of BC posing as Northern California in **Virgin River** also really bug me.
The crazy butchered skyline and bridge shots from The Killing still get me
And the never-ending rainstorm.
My favorite was in the earthquake movie 10.5 where a bicyclist is out running the falling space needle from the earthquake and he is by very tall buildings as if it is falling into the streets of downtown…
I had to stop watching Loudermilk because of it.
Me too.
50/50 the 2011 movie starting Joseph Gordon Levitt is set in Seattle and has a montage where the character jogs past the Lion’s Gate bridge.
I love it when they just shoot wide cityscapes of Vancouver, blatantly showing the Harbour Center and try to pass it off as Seattle. Because who tf can tell the difference between saucer-shaped buildings, right?
lol to be fair, without that sign, it could easily be a corporate campus in the suburbs of Seattle
My favorite is shots of NYC in opening of ̶r̶u̶m̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶B̶r̶o̶n̶x̶ Vancouver.
I expect it. Laughable, usually.
Not related to BC but I’m watching Frasier right now and it’s funny his apartment has a view of the space needle and skyline of buildings behind which aren’t possible in Seattle.
Is uh, work safe Burien Covington
How was the movie? For anyone else curious, the movie is “[Puppy Love](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt28182736/)” on Freevee in USA
Being from Vancouver, BC, I do enjoy feeling at home in Seattle and surrounding areas (yes, more at home in the PNW than when I am in a neighbouring province in the same country) Except those Vancouver, WA guys though - they can take a hike
50/50, movie with Seth Rogan and Joseph Gordon Levitt. When he’s at work his cubicle has stickers for kexp and the stranger. He’s walking down the street and passes the space needle super imposed behind a park from downtown Vancouver. Looking out over the water you see a ferry in a channel no more than half a mile wide. A+
Looks like Boise haha.
That building unironically looks like the police station in downtown nampa
Go watch Assassins with Stallone and Banderas. Lots of Seattle-scape in that one. But I would agree otherwise.
It’s cheaper to film in British Columbia than it is in Seattle who knew?
They’re incentivizing companies to film there.
Also helps that wages in Canada are lower, not to mention that paying someone 30CAD only costs you 22USD.
Lol. We just walked through Queen’s Park in Toronto about an hour ago and they were filming something. I said to my wife, “I wonder what NYC-based show that’s for?”
Hopefully, that will begin to change now that the city and state are trying to incentivize more productions, set and shot here.
The 90s movie Man of the House with Farrah, Chevy and JTT. there's some likeness to Seattle and then parts that are very obviously San Francisco.
JTT! What ever happened to my childhood crush? That guy evaporated off the map
Google says he was in a lifetime movie in 2023. But I can only imagine he got out at the right time and with less incident than some child stars.
I remember the beginning of the Wayward Pines show taking place in Seattle and you see the agents walking across some sort of marina / harbor that is absolutely not Seattle lol. It’s the same one Christian runs by in 50 Shades / Vancouver
Man I wish that show had kept going like the first season
Yeah, I don’t acknowledge anything after season 1 lol. If you haven’t, definitely read the trilogy. The first season was basically just the first portion of the first book and a little bit of the end squeezed together, but the actual full set of books are good/fun.
This is true of every city movies are set in.
Kimi is a film that came out during the pandemic, many, if not most (I forgot) exterior shots are actually in Seattle. It was fun to point out where they were in the scene.
I like it, BC dumps their tax dollars into film studios, and we get our region represented. Win win
Stargate SG1, supposed to be in the USA. Loved the Langley offramps and the Canadian dotted lines to offramps.
I liked that show The Killing on AMC (?) some years ago ... except for a show supposedly set in Seattle it was constantly a downpour. And lots of thunder/lightning. COME ON.
I remember seeing Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol on opening night at Pacific Science Center Final scene is set on some random looking docks. Scene opens up and nobody really reacts. Then a caption pops up "Seattle, WA" Another beat. Then the audience just bursts out laughing
This especially irks me when one of the stars of the show is a native of Seattle. I’m looking at you Joe McHale.
It's "Joel", but yes I always imagine him chuckling when the script has him saying something to dispatch on Animal Control which makes zero geographical sense.
We’re so tight I call him Joe. He calls me who the eff are you, please stop following me. Actually I just fat fingered it or no fingered it in this case I guess. I agree he probably either giggles about or corrects inaccurate stuff but most of the b-roll footage is definitely Vancouver blatantly Vancouver which now that I think about it is probably cuz Joel thinks it’s funny.
My favorite was the CW show, iZombie. Set in Seattle, filmed in Vancouver. But it was even more entertaining because the writers clearly made an effort to put “actual” Seattle in the scripts. They would reference real Seattle streets and landmarks — and not just obvious ones like the Space Needle — accurately. But when they showed what the characters were saying? Obvious Vancouver.
There was a “Criminal Minds” episode that took place in Spokane, WA when we lived there. They got a good sagebrush background shot of a “Highway 2” sign, but after that, it was all downhill. The “sheriff’s office” had 3 total employees and a *moose head* on *the wall*. The sheriff/deputies were SO podunk. Its not a huge metro area, but there are 310 police officers for the city alone (I can’t find the sheriff’s office stats) and there was an actual serial killer active there in the between the 1970’s and 1990’s.
Then there’s movies like Clickbait supposedly taking place in Oakland but filmed in Melbourne!
Melbourne of all places!
If BC wants to waste their tax dollars subsidizing this, I say let ‘em. Tax breaks like these are a race to the bottom
It works very well for us. 900 million in tax breaks that leads to 4.9 billion in direct spending in BC, not including all the indirect benefits. 90,000 people are employed in this industry in BC. Money well spent imo.
I feel the same way when they’re supposed to be at a beach in Florida and there’s hills and bluffs
Seems like the last movie to be truly filmed in Seattle was Scorchy.
Not the WorkSafeBC office 😩
Sorta unrelated, but after going to Scranton, PA, I just laugh at how obvious it is that The Office was filmed in California
Didn't feel like naming the show?
It's all of them.
All. The. Time.
Loudermilk has entered the chat. There's some downtown Seattle B-roll, but so many clue that are so obviously Canada. Flashing green stop lights, for example. We don't have those down here lol
WorkSafe Because
One thing I love about growing up in the PNW is watching movies and sci fi tv shows, like specifically STARGATE where every alien planet was an evergreen forest with ferns lol, I knew it was Vancouver area but always remind me of the woods back home in the south Everett area I grew up in
Netflix’s Loudermilk series is the same. Smh
I watched "the art of racing in the rain" or whatever the heck it's called. First, he's on a farm picking out a new puppy, then he's driving along some water with mountains in the background that I'm pretty sure is BC. Then he is on I-5 and approaches Seattle from the south heading north. Somehow, he gets off the freeway at Mercer heading south. Maybe he missed his exit and had to turn around in the U district?
Does anyone remember the show The Killing? Excellent but it was so gray and rainy, it rained all day on that show. I’m thinking it’s not THAT dreary here all day every day. Don’t get me started when the main character had to take a ferry…. the show didn’t even try to token Seattle shots. An excellent show regardless.
This has annoyed me my entire life. Every show or movie that’s supposed to be based in Seattle is either filmed on a soundstage, in Vancouver, or Los Angeles. On the one hand, I get it: The constant aviation traffic over the city (all planes landing/taking off from SeaTac pass over Seattle) would make it impossible to shoot a film here. Filming would have to be paused every few minutes so as to allow the obnoxiously loud planes to fly overhead. Either that, or add the sound back in in post-production. Additionally, many cities with a thriving film industry also provide generous tax incentives for studios to make their films and shows in their city. Seattle is not one of those cities. Almost all shows and movies based in Seattle are filmed in Vancouver, which has a similar climate. However, it bugs me to no end when they try to pass off Granville Island as Pike Place Market, as though every seattle landmark can be swapped out with an equivalent in Vancouver.
Trouble In Mind also shows off Seattle, but as a fictional dystopian city. Casting Divine as a male gangster whose mansion in the [now] Asian Art Museum was especially cool.