X-Files set burns
By: Ian Mulgrew
Three-alarm fire guts Vancouver's Shavick studios
VANCOUVER - Part of Canadian film and TV history went up in smoke last week as most of Shavick Entertainment's Vancouver studios were gutted by a fire that consumed everything from standing sets seen by millions to priceless mementoes of a quarter-century career.
A courtroom, police station and a make-believe alley familiar to viewers of The Commish, The X-Files and other television shows, original Ninja Turtle sets, a huge costume department that included authentic L.A. police uniforms, two sound stages, fake signage, phony tombstones, a green screen facility for special effects, a video library of stock shots and $100,000 worth of newly built sets were incinerated.
Some 50 films and hundreds of hours of television series have been shot in the buildings clustered in the warehouse district at Second Avenue and Quebec Street.
Enjoying a thick, end-of-day cigar on his Bayshore balcony overlooking Coal Harbour, company chairman James Shavick compared the experience to losing his father.
"The sense of loss is dramatic," a still-shaken Shavick said. "I lost my dad and had to make decisions about life support and a number of other things. It was a similar eerie feeling. A sense of emptiness. I've not discussed this with anyone -- you're the only one I'm going to discuss it with. I've tried to remain strong and upbeat for my staff."
Among the irreplaceable items he lost was the French poster for his first film, Two Solitudes, starring Stacy Keach, which was a result of Shavick studying with the book's author, Hugh MacLennan.
"It's the only thing I have left from that picture and it burned," he lamented. "That and original memorabilia from every movie I've ever done -- 23, 24 years of stuff. It's very sad, an end of an era, but life goes on. It could have been far worse. People could have been in the building."
The June 25 fire was an uncommonly spectacular three-alarm blaze that drew the 38 firefighters on duty and another 20 called from home. Investigators have determined the blaze was most likely caused by the improper disposal of stain-soaked rags.