Foreign location dollars are flowing into Montreal this summer and service providers are scrambling to meet the unprecedented opportunities.

The foreign investment – led by Universal Pictures, offshore producers coventuring and coproducing with Montreal partners, and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, among others – is projected at $200 million this year, almost three times the level in ’96.

The progressively hot environment is a relatively new phenomenon in this market and brings with it infrastructural growing pains, along with the opportunities. At the same time, growth in foreign location activity has accentutated fundamental divisions between domestic producers, who complain of being cost out of the best facilities and crews, and service providers eager to sell to the highest bidder. (See news story on p. 8.)

At this point, attracting more major studio action to Montreal – particularly for ’99 – hinges primarily on the availability of additional large-surface studio facilities.

Marquee-sized talent

As a minimum, major studio shoots require soundstages which are fully soundproofed and air-conditioned, and suitably equipped for the comfort of marquee talent and Hollywood production executives, says Michel Trudel, president of Locations Michel Trudel, the city’s leading film rental company.

Trudel and industry veteran Mel Hoppenheim, owner of Cite du Cinema, are the promoters behind a new $6-million studio complex planned for Montreal’s Technoparc. Trudel says it will include two new state-of-the-art 15,000-square-foot soundstages, as well as production and executive facilities.

The promoters have approached the government for what is estimated to be close to half the financing, and Trudel says the goal is to be ready for big American shoots by spring ’99.

Cite du Cinema is booked solid through to at least late October, and Trudel currently has as many as 25 camera packages in service, both 16mm and 35mm.

‘We are not [losing] shoots because of equipment or technicians,’ he says. ‘If we’re missing out on some shoots, it’s because we need studios.’

Hoppenheim’s Cite du Cinema has four soundstages, including two at 9,000 square feet and one over 14,000 square feet.

Studio Lasalle, a coventure between Covitec-Eclair and Moliflex-White (Comweb Corp.), is also looking closely at an expansion, up to 20,000 square feet, says coordinator Jean-Francois Leclerc.

Leclerc says managing the rising needs of foreign production has been a real scramble.

Playing catch-up

It’s come too fast,’ he says. ‘We’re all trying to catch up.’

Lasalle has two 10,500-square-foot tv studios with control rooms and electrified lighting grids, and a 14,000-square-foot film studio with cycloramas.

According to Leclerc, many in the industry here are speculating investment in new Montreal studio facilities will come from the primary ‘clients,’ namely the u.s. majors. None of the planned expansion projects intend to proceed without some form of public participation.

Studio Cine St-Hubert, a partnership between Moliflex-White and private investors, is located in a converted suburban military air base. It has several large un-soundproofed soundstages including two at 12,500 square feet and one at 15,000 square feet.

Jacques Auclair, gm at Moliflex-White, says a soundproofing project for one or more of the St-Hubert soundstages is under serious consideration, but Auclair says the investors will need to be assured of a client base, as well as government participation.

Part of Studio Cine St-Hubert’s appeal is that as a former air base marquee talent could – at least in theory – easily be moved in and out.

Montreal soundstages include Studio Moliflex-White, a 5,000-square-foot facility with lighting grid, an overhead catwalk and cyclorama; Studio Centre-Ville, which has built-in picture and audio post facilities; Studio Tele-Quebec, available to independent producers; and Studio PMT Video, a tv post facility with newly refurbished cameras and soundstages.

The conversion option

One of the big problems with converted warehouse and hangar facilities, Leclerc says, is the echo, made even worse when the decor elements only fill half the space. A professional soundstage becomes essential, he says, if original dialogue is a key requirement and producers seek to avoid many days in post synch with pricey talent.

According to Trudel, converting a warehouse for location sound recording is inefficient in terms of cost. ‘It will cost more than if you build from the ground up,’ he says.

Whether it’s out of necessity or by choice, many drama productions this summer are using converted facilities.

Among them, Rose Films’ Juliette Pomerleau, located in a converted warehouse in suburban Ste-Basil Le Grand; The Secret Adventure of Jules Verne, a Canada/u.k. coproduction series partnered with Filmline International, which recently began taping in high definition at facilities in the old Angus Yard (a former cpr rail maintenance/terminal facility); and Les Enfants d’Ailleurs ii, the Match tv/Neofilm drama shot on Digital Betacam and housed in a converted hockey arena in east-end Montreal.

If soundproofing is not a major issue, the extra space associated with converted industrial facilities can be a major asset.

As many as 16 sets were built and mounted simultaneously for Juliette Pomerleau, a very efficient approach, according to producer Marie-Jose Raymond. And Louise Jobin, the designer on Les Enfants d’Ailleurs ii, says she had the budget and space to construct and install virtually all her sets in the converted arena.