There is movie-making excitement in the air of Ottawa’s film industry. Dreams of a local sound stage, is finding new life in a west-end field.
“What a sound stage allows you to do is to take your dramatic production, put it into a controlled environment where the sound is controlled, there’s no worry about rain or anything else,” said Bruce Harvey, Film Commissioner at the Ottawa Film Office.
So envision a 40-million-dollar warehouse on 9.58 ha of land; one big enough to recreate the halls of Parliament or the restaurant layout of the Corner Gas diner.
It could attract bigger productions being turned away because soundstages in other cities like Toronto are booked solid. Harvey estimates that could translate into hundreds of construction and technical production jobs, as well as bigger opportunities for Ottawa actors.
Casting director Ilona Smyth says the talent is here.
“I always tells the actors that I coach or that come in and audition for me, that talent isn’t geographical but opportunity is.” Smyth added “this would definitely be a change in that.”
Thousands of Ottawa residents drive past the area daily, but across the street from the Nepean Sportsplex on Woodroffe Avenue resembles nothing more than an open field.
The address of 1740 Woodroffe was once home to the Greenbelt Research Farm but hasn’t hosted experiments for at least two decades.
The National Capital Commission is preparing to hold consultations while reassuring the public that the greenbelt isn’t at risk.
“It is roadways. It’s buildings. It’s underground infrastructure,” said the NCC’s director of real estate management. “It is not the prime agricultural land that is actually surrounding it.”
Right now, building a soundstage would require a zoning amendment. Following next week’s public consultation, feedback wouldn’t be brought to the NCC’s board of directors until November.
So, while there is much-anticipation since first talking about an Ottawa soundstage in 2012; if approved, it could be years to come.
The first public consultation is scheduled to take place Wednesday, September 5 at 5pm on the grounds of the proposed site: 1740 Woodroffe Avenue.
With a report from CTV’s Stefan Keyes