Located on the Wahnapitae First Nation, White Owl Film Studios officially opened its doors at the beginning of March.

Billed as the largest studio space available north of Toronto, the facility, which is an inflated building, features 20,000 square feet of clear-span studio space with 64-foot ceilings, full-service rigging and logistics support through Upright Services and 1,000 amps of power.

“It’s an envelope that’s inflated so it’s not pressurized like a tennis bubble,” said Axel Green, public relations and acquisitions manager with White Owl Film Studios. “You can drive a semi truck in one bay door and out the other.”

White Owl Film Studio is led by CEO Roy Roque, who, along with partner Peter Lavigne and other startup partners, invested $2 million in the facility.

While nothing is firmly booked yet, Green said he’s already gotten several calls about shoots in the summer and fall. “I feel confident that we will be booked, though,” he said.

Greater Sudbury already has a film studio – Northern Ontario Film Studios – located in New Sudbury in a repurposed former arena building.

The website for Northern Ontario Film Studios said it features a 16,000 square foot single span main stage floor and 3,000 square feet of office space, among other amenities.

“We want to establish collaborative relationships with other producers and other studio owners in town, obviously, because I think that our studio can complement it nicely, but our studio is massive,” said Green.

“I got a call from a company that was looking to build a small cul de sac with two houses, and they were looking at the size of our facility, and they thought they could build that in the space that we have.”

The studio hopes to foster the growth of the film and television sector in Northern Ontario, said Green.

“I’ve been working in the industry in northern Ontario for about 10 years, and I feel, and this is just my opinion, that it has somewhat plateaued,” he said.

“We’ve reached a limit of the size and budgets of productions that we can do, partly because we were missing key pieces of infrastructure. Because those key pieces of infrastructure couldn’t come in, we couldn’t attract bigger shows or more shows …

“So without there being more shows, we can’t have steady, full-time crew members. It’s a hard industry to work in, and without the volume of productions coming with Sudbury. It’s hard to keep a steady crew going.

“But having this kind of infrastructure allows for the growth, allows for the amount of technicians that are in town.”

For more information, visit www.whiteowlfilmstudios.ca.

Article by: Heidi Ulrichsen – www.sudbury.com

Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.