– Water tank for Surrey studio

Surrey Film Studios – a new company developing what could eventually be Canada’s largest production complex in Surrey, b.c. – has won Surrey City Council approval to build 48-meter by 60-meter water tank. Excavation is already underway.

Lake Placid, a big-budget service feature by l.a.-based Phoenix Pictures, requires the water tank to film sequences involving a rampaging crocodile.

Production runs July 27 through October.

Phoenix is financing the construction of the water tank – which is roughly two-thirds the size of a football field – and Surrey Film Studios will own it at the end of the project.

Studio principal Mario Battista – who was previously involved in a failed studio project at some Surrey junk yards last year – assembled the 12-acre site on 104th Avenue, east of Scott Road, in suburban Surrey. The property includes buildings from the Expo 86 fair in Vancouver which are suitable for conversion into sound stages.

The development plan calls for 10 soundstages operating by year end, including two effects stages retrofitted in existing warehouses on the site.

– Behaviour placement

Montreal-based Behaviour Communications has arranged a private placement of 9,900,000 class b subordinate voting shares at $1.40 per share, for a total of $13,860,000.

Behaviour says it intends to use the proceeds from the offering to partly finance the mdp merger, as well as to ‘finance other future potential acquisitions of businesses and products that would complement or expand Behaviour’s business.’