Actor's death means job losses for Vancouver film industry
Last Updated: Friday, January 25, 2008 | 11:16 AM PT
CBC News
The death of actor Heath Ledger is causing more cuts for Vancouver's troubled film industry.
The 28-year-old, who was found dead in his New York apartment on Tuesday, was scheduled to be in Vancouver next week to work on his role as the lead in director Terry Gilliam's British-Canadian co-production The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Shooting had already begun in Britain, and Ledger was due in Vancouver on Monday to start filming scenes in front of a green screen, with special effects to be added later.
But with the production now suspended, crews at Bridge Studios in Burnaby, B.C., are facing an uncertain future.
Already, the nearly three-month-long screenwriters strike in the United States has shut down most U.S.-based film and television projects being shot in Vancouver, throwing an estimated 5,000 people out of work and costing the local industry more than $100 million, according to some estimates.
Don Ramsden, a business agent with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents cinematographers and other photographers, told CBC News that people will feel the impact of Ledger's death immediately.
"It's always a tragedy when this kind of thing happens. Our members expected to go to work starting Monday. Today and tomorrow there would have been people prepping, and now that's all up in the air," Ramsden said.
A so-called force majeure clause in the contract covering film workers cuts the producers free from liability in the case of extraordinary circumstances like death or natural disaster, Ramsden said.
"Basically, it's a declaration by the employer, telling people to go home, we're done, we can't proceed. It's a cessation of employment," he said.
Heath Ledger first rose to fame with his nomination for an Oscar for his role as a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain.
