When Hollywood North came to Vernon, B.C., this past summer, it found itself in an old garment factory where Wesley Snipes was shooting a sci-fi flick.
The “bread and butter” of the Okanagan region’s film industry has always been these types of mid-level productions, according Tim Bieber, the general manager of Okangan Studios.
But with Okanagan Studios’ official launch in November, Bieber hopes to help usher in a new era for the region’s film industry.
After filming wrapped on the Snipe’s movie, Bieber oversaw extensive renovations at the 50,000-square-foot garment factory that added 34 offices and fibre optic Internet for production stuff.
Meanwhile, an updated 10,000-square-foot stage is now available to production companies along with a 12,500-sqaure-foot warehouse for flex space.
Bieber also plans to add a third, purpose-built stage.
“A studio now with this much stage space, a four-acre lot for parking, access to all the locations that exist in the north Okanagan…we can really step it up,” he said.
The loonie’s decline following the 2014 oil crash helped renew activity in the B.C. film sector.
Studio space in Vancouver has been booked solid all year, with productions forced to rent out space in makeshift warehouses to capitalize on the region’s lucrative tax incentives and low dollar.
Okanagan film commissioner Jon Summerland told Business in Vancouver in July local crews were poached by Vancouver-based productions when the industry was reignited.
But Bieber said he now expects the launch of Okangan Studios to draw back some of those wayward crews, as well as other industry workers from elsewhere in Canada.
“Metro Vancouver is facing this massive influx of demand which is not going away,” he said.
“We’re in a beautiful, high-demand area that I think can really scale.”
