Tim Moshansky: Scout's honour

It’s Saturday night. You’re sitting in a dark theatre enjoying Will Smith’s newest action flick when it suddenly hits you: the Manhattan highrise he just leapt out of looks exactly like the Scotia Tower on Georgia Street. Sound familiar? If you live in B.C., it has probably happened to you more than once.

Blame it on Tim Moshansky. He’s a location scout that movie and television producers call on to find possible filming locations here in Hollywood North. “I might come in one morning and they’ll say, ‘We need you to look for a grocery store where we can blow up a car,’ ” he says. “I’ve had to find New York, Chicago, places in Europe – all in Vancouver.”

It’s a job that frequently requires him to think outside the box – or the current century. “Futuristic or historical scenes can be challenging,” he notes. “You have to be somewhat creative.”

Standing outside his car – his office, he jokes – on a sunny corner in downtown Vancouver, the casually dressed 43-year-old talks easily about the industry. He got his start as a production assistant and later fell into location scouting after being asked to sort through piles of location photos – a task he liked much more than standing on set for 14 hours at a stretch. Thirteen years later, he’s still at it. “I think I have a good eye for finding things,” he says.

When pressed about the glamour of showbiz, Moshansky insists his job can still feel like, well, a job. In fact, when he’s knocking on doors asking for permission to film in people’s houses, he feels more like a door-to-door vacuum salesman, he says. “Most people say yes, but some can be difficult. You have to have those PR skills.”

Still, he admits, he’s got it pretty good – like the time he was filming the Robin Williams movie RV and got to hike all over Whistler looking for spots that could double as the Rocky Mountains. “That’s when I feel like I’ve got the perfect job, when I’m looking for a nature scene. I’m being paid to do that – walking along a beach or walking through a really beautiful forest and taking great photographs of it.”

There are other benefits too. “My gas is all paid for. Right now that’s a really great perk,” he says with a smile.