![]() ![]() Extras typically are local, although crowd scenes have been scant in recent years. “The citizens and mayors of these small towns have been very welcoming to the film industry – and are generally happy about the economic activity and publicity we bring.” Throughout the pandemic, a scaled-back film crew stands at about 90 people, plus 15 to 20 actors, and then another 20 people to work on post-production. “Canada’s small towns are perfect for these types of movies,” says Jesse Prupas, senior vice-president of development and distribution for Muse Entertainment, who has made, by his own calculation, too many Hallmark movies to count. ![]() Standing in for Denver, Montana, Chicago and the like, we see locations such as Langley and Maple Ridge, B.C., (as well as other picturesque Canadian cities) perform so convincingly that fans of the movies will visit these places in order to feel like they’re stepping into one of them. Of these 41 movies, 34 of them were filmed in Canada with a majority of Canadian actors and crew (get those tax credits). This year alone sees the release of 41 new Christmas movies on its own cable channel in the United States, and on W Network, the Global TV app, and StackTV in Canada. Rather, it flows from one season to the next, getting hotter as it nears the source of its power: the birth of our lord Jesus, but in secular terms. Front Street Picturesįor Hallmark, Christmas never really ends. Paul Campbell and Tamera Mowry-Housley in The Santa Stakeout. Firemen, Christmas trees, herding cats: this is the Hallmark Holiday Experience. “We just rolled cameras and the actors would walk in with the box of kittens … it would just explode like popcorn, and they’d be grabbing them out of midair,” he says happily. “Nobody stepped on those little kitties,” says David Winning, director of the sequel to 2014′s much-loved The Nine Lives of Christmas and another 20 Hallmark movies, “15 or so” of them in the Christmas canon. So begins and ends the most violent scene in Hallmark’s The Nine Kittens of Christmas, which premiered on American Thanksgiving to 3.4 million viewers – the channel’s most-watched original movie of the year at that point. He sighs – “We’re gonna need a bigger box.” The elder assesses where this life has taken him, so unlike what he had planned. “There are only seven kittens here,” exclaims the younger, “but we started with nine!” The kittens gambol and chirp, a plucky score accompanying the men as they try to control the roving felines. Beside him, his silver-haired colleague chuckles as a mewling tabby paws his chest. In a quaint Oregon firehouse decorated with more Christmas trees than would seem fire code compliant, a bewildered fireman places a cardboard box, teeming with kittens, on a table. The Nine Kittens of Christmas is filmed on a street in Clayburn, B.C. ![]()
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