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www.postmagazine.com 35 POST FEBRUARY 2015 for House of Cards. "We're in the process of understanding how things work there, how we can help clients who require tax incentives," Iturriaga says. "We have been working in two locations for years so we have a roadmap for transferring data and sharing resources." Tax incentives aren't the only financial benefit for productions. With the Cana- dian dollar currently valued at approx- imately 84 cents to the US dollar, "the exchange rate alone" is advantageous to clients, Orloff says. WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE? A seaport town hugging the mainland of BC, Vancouver is a bustling modern city endowed with great natural beauty. It's known as a very desirable place to live and work. "Artists really like Vancouver," says Orloff. "It's more like an East Coast city in style: it's a real walking city that has good public transportation, too. There are lots of independent neighbor- hoods and stores." Vancouver can double for locations worldwide, both quaint and contempo- rary, and there's a wide array of terrain just outside the city. "Production can get a lot of value from a diversity of loca- tions — the cityscape, neighborhoods like Gastown that can play New York, and the forest primeval is a short drive away," says Orloff. The area is also well-equipped for stage-based shoots. "Vancouver is well positioned to capitalize on virtual production, especially for TV, with stage space and the production apparatus to handle big greenscreen sequences," he notes. ABC's Once Upon a Time, a Zoic client, is a "big, virtual-set show" that's based in town. Some may believe that the cost of doing business and the cost of living in Canada are higher than in the US, but Orloff finds real estate and utility prices "a little cheaper" than the LA area. Vancouver is also a straight run up the Pacific coast from LA, so it offers the benefit of proximity. "It's a two-and-a- half hour plane ride," says Orloff. "We can be in an LA edit room or at a pitch meet- ing tomorrow. And we can communicate by phone in realtime. Fiber on the West Coast is very good for sharing media and files in pretty much realtime, too." "Being in the same time zone as Hollywood offers a lot of workflow ad- vantages," agrees Lake. "The amount of productivity lost with even small differ- ences in time adds up." ATTRACTING TALENT VFX studios opening in Vancouver need to be assured of a deep pool of talent to maintain their facilities on a full-time basis and enable them to bulk up as projects demand. Historically, Vancouver has had a tal- ent pool of Canadian animators working on television or direct-to-DVD content. "There was a nice solid base of anima- tors, modelers and CG specialists here," says Orloff. "Now, the talent base has ex- ploded, and the last couple of years have seen an influx of compositors. We're at a tipping point with more Canadian artists who have at least five solid years of production experience. And people are coming in from all over the world." SIGGRAPH returned to Vancouver in 2014, in response to an "overwhelming attendance [in 2011] and community support" reported by show organizers. The 2014 show attracted more than 14,045 VFX artists, animators and designers to the convention center, which sports a waterfront view.