Halifax: In an abandoned manufacturing plant, once employed in the construction of some very safe, comfortable, reassuring machines – Volvos, to be exact – there are now some wildly different things being created and there’s nary an assembly line in sight. The space was recently occupied by the makers of The Dark Zone, who are proceeding to turn it into a studio that will eventually spawn some very un-Volvo-like creations and situations, built with an unprecedented amount of computer assistance.

The Dark Zone, which sprang from the well-lit corridors of the mind of Salter Street’s Paul Donovan, presently consists of four two-hour movies, budgeted around $12 million and scheduled to air on Showtime in the u.s. and Citytv in Canada.

It is, according to those involved with the project, like nothing on tv, or anywhere else, from the standpoint of both the story and the degree of computer graphics used in bringing it to life.

According to line producer Stephen Turnbull, a comparatively huge portion of the The Dark Zone will be wholly or partially computer-generated.

‘We reckon that in the final product, about 65% of every frame will be enhanced in some way by cg,’ says Turnbull.

C.O.R.E Digital Pictures in Toronto is dedicating a large part of its operation to the project over the next 15 months and has set up another office in Germany, the show’s second home. Animators from pixelMotion in Halifax are also contributing their skills to the mammoth project.

Caleb Howard, director of animation at c.o.r