A state-of-the-art wall and ceiling of LED panels and a provincial grant program is making Regina a surprise destination for movie and television production.

The $12 million LED volume wall at the John Hopkins Regina Soundstage displays pictorial or video footage. Actors used the facility in June to film Hostile Takeover, an action thriller starring Michael Jai White (Black Dynamite, The Dark Knight) in the lead role.

The wall was built by Volume Global and unveiled in mid-March. Montreal-born co-founder Michael Wright told Western Standard the technology allows a movie set in New York to be shot in Regina.

“They can actually see the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building,” Wright said of the actors within the wall.

“Their eyeline is great, the actual reflection off the city is on their body, too. So the lighting works perfectly, as opposed to a green screen old method, which you might have a little hazy and some post visual effects.”

The volume wall is a 295-degree circle of 1,800 LED panels measuring 26 metres in diameter and nine metres tall. The facility offers an inexpensive and efficient means of production and is already booked through the end of 2027.

“The technology and the brain bar we have behind this wall here, just far exceeds anything out there today,” he said, citing the higher resolution of the Regina wall.

“You can actually shoot the film closer to the wall in our volume here as compared to the Amazon one in LA where you'd have to be 15 feet back.”

Dante Yore helped build the wall and train locals to operate it. The chief technology officer for the wall has worked on 60 productions elsewhere, including The Mandelorian.

“We sat down and just came up with the craziest design we could think of, and pieced it together,” Yore recalled.

“It’s the first time we've kind of worked with people who've just never experienced the technology before, and taught them from day one how to operate it. But it's worked out fantastic.”

Saskatchewan phased out its film employment tax credit a decade ago, causing a dramatic drop in production. In 2022, the province revived the industry with grants to cover up to 40% of goods and services spent on movie and TV production in the province.

Local filmmaker Cory Maclean helped build the wall and did best play lighting for Hostile Takeover.

“It's good to have film back in the province again with the budgets, and you can see how many bodies are around here, right? Most of them are people in Saskatchewan, people that are working in the industry that have had a long time not working on film,” he said.

“There's lots of talk about the next picture, the next picture after that and after that.”

Saskatoon-born Aimee Stolte co-stars as the lead’s on-again, off-again girlfriend in Hostile Takeover. She said when she left for Hollywood in 2015, she never imagined she could return to shoot in anything like the wall.

“As far as the feeling goes, it's like, a good kind of overwhelmed. You're just like, wow, this is amazing, the scale and the magnitude of this. It's been really fun,” she said.

According to the provincial government, $28 million was committed to 46 productions that will spend over $71 million in the province, generating an approximate economic output of $128 million and over 800 jobs.

Provincial agency Creative Saskatchewan provided $3.3 million in funding for “Hostile Takeover.” The province says the project will result in 140 jobs and economic spinoffs of $14 million.

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