lived in Vancouver the past year... my rent was $375 for a room in a house in both East Van (Joyce-Collingwood; same as syee's brother it seems) and West Vancouver (lucked out finding a great place for really cheap there).
If you want to live alone; Vancouver proper would be $1000-$1200 for anything decent 1-bdr type. Many people rent out their 1-bdr condos downtown and have a person sleep in the living room area for rents around $500-$600 in a nice, new place. Houses are shared between many people usually and for my Collingwood place there were 6 of us for the whole house.
Job market is booming in BC. If you're going into films theres lots of work on smaller productions - made for TV movies, cable series shows, commercials, and B-movies. I worked in North Vancouver and my mountain was being used for commercials, films, and tv shows all the time (not to mention the surrounding area as well).
Living quality is excellent. There's quite a bit of construction going on right now for the 2010 Olympics and traffic can be bad. For me; the Skytrain from Collingwood to downtown only took about 15 minutes and is fast, cheap, and convenient. Culturally I find Van to be a bit lacking compared to Toronto for live dramas, shows/concerts but has excellent cuisine as well as great neighbourhoods. Cars were an afterthought and much planning went into improving mass transit and enticing people to live in higher density areas close to their work than commute from suburbs an hour away.
I loved my time in Vancouver. There's an incredible amount of outdoor activities to take part in on the North Shore 10 minutes from downtown, Squamish, or Whister an hour and a half away. Not to mention the city is beautiful, people are more friendly than any city I've been to. The health-oriented, socially conscious, and more liberal attitudes generally fit my own make it a place that I could easily end up living in for the rest of my life (once I get my mid-20's traveling out of the way)