Winnipeg film industry concerned about lasting impacts of L.A. wildfires

The L.A. wildfires have many people in Winnipeg’s film industry concerned about their friends and loved ones.

It also has them wondering about the impact the fires will have on the city’s movie business.

“People sometimes forget that even though Los Angeles is in another country and is a fair distance from Winnipeg, we regularly have professionals in the film and television industry coming to Winnipeg all the time,” said Adam Smoluk, the executive director of Film Training Manitoba (FTM).

“In the last number of weeks since the wildfires have been taking place, our organization, Film Training Manitoba, has been reaching out to a lot of our past instructors that are living in Los Angeles.”

One of those instructors was Winnipegger Collin Friesen, a director, screenwriter and freelance instructor with FTM now based in the Silver Lake neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

“I was actually kind of touched,” Friesen told CityNews. “You see a lot of people going through a lot of stuff down here and some people’s reaction is, ‘oh, Hollywood had it coming, they’re all a bunch of rich jerks.’ Except they don’t use the word jerks. So it was kind of nice to see our friends in the entertainment business just reach out.”

RELATED: Winnipeg man living in Los Angeles speaks on experience with California wildfires

Smoluk says he’s hearing many stories of loss from his friends. He’s worried about long-term impacts, both personally and professionally.

“This is going to have a huge effect for our industry, in the film and television industry,” he said. “Really, globally, because so many people work in that industry, in Los Angeles. It’s the epicentre for film and television.

“It’s going to be a lot more challenging for the industry right across North America, globally — because of how critical Los Angeles is. It’s the main port for production.”

Firefighters are continuing to battle the Palisades and Eaton fires, which have killed at least 28 people and destroyed more than 14,000 structures since they broke out Jan. 7.

Another huge and fast-moving wildfire broke out in the mountains north of Los Angeles, sending up an enormous plume of dark smoke near Lake Castaic.

“To see a whole suburb completely destroyed and a number of other areas within Los Angeles destroyed, it would be like Winnipeg losing St. Vital or Winnipeg losing St. James. That’s really the scale and scope of that particular neighbourhood,” Smoluk said.

“At least a couple of our friends have lost their houses, and at least one actor from a movie I shot in Winnipeg lost his house as well,” said Friesen.

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Friesen, who travels to Winnipeg regularly, says he hopes to hear good news soon — especially since it’s been rough for the industry in L.A. for years.

“L.A. has been plagued with a bunch of false starts over the last little while,” Friesen said. “We had the writers’ strike last year, then we had the actors’ strike. Before that it was COVID.”

IN PHOTOS: Los Angeles wildfire destruction

Winnipegger Alvin Catacutan with FilAm Arts, which advocates for Filipino-American artists, says the biggest impacts may not lie with the industry directly, but in how the fires have affected people’s capacity to work.

“Hollywood is what everybody gets to see, but we’re families with kids and pets and just working-class individuals all the way to the most famous celebrities and wealthy celebrities,” said Catacutan. “But it’s affected all of us in many ways. A level of compassion helps a lot. We are aware that people are thinking about us and hopeful that we’ll recover. The city is strong. We rallied together during these fires and continue to support each other to help with the recovery.

“The challenge for a lot people who are in the business working on crew, is that some of them don’t have a home to go back to if they’re working. And if they’re not working as much as they used to, they’re going to have limited resources for recovery.”

Smoluk agrees there’s a misconception about people who work in Hollywood being all affluent.

“I think people lose sight of the fact that there’s a lot of middle-income working people that work and make films,” Smoluk said. “Whether you’re talking about working crew members or performers, actors, people who works as agents or work at agencies. This particular event is going to affect those folks in a major, major way.”

Film Training Manitoba has created a list of resources and places to donate to help those affected by the wildfires.

“It’s just very deeply concerning for everyone in our industry and we felt that this was a very appropriate thing to do as an outlet for people to do something positive,” Smoluk said.

Possible rain is expected over the weekend in parts of southern California, like the Altadena area where Catacutan lives.

“We’re praying for rain,” he said. “That’ll help a lot. We’re praying that the winds die down, because that was a major factor into why these fires exploded the way they did.”

“It’s gonna take an awful long time to rebuild everything, but it seems the return to normalcy is just starting out,” added Friesen.