Audio and picture post-production house Theatre D Digital has purchased the historic Regent theatre in uptown Toronto and will relocate its facility into the building, maintaining the movie palace’s exhibition business. The move gives filmmakers, editors and sound mixers what they’ve always said they wanted – the ability to gauge the progress of post work on an actual theatrical screen instead of a small monitor. On a bigger scale, Theatre D envisions its new building as a centre for Canadian filmmaking.

While continuing to screen two films there nightly, Theatre D will close the balcony to the public and set up its Dolby Digital 5.1 mixing board there, giving filmmakers and the audio post crew a great view of the picture to which it is mixing.

‘We want to have the best mix room in Toronto,’ says John Hazen, Theatre D partner and sound supervisor, who had been dreaming of this development ever since he did the sound mix on Patricia Rozema’s When Night Is Falling in the 600-seat Regent in 1994.

The independent neighborhood theatre – an endangered beast – opened in 1928 under the name the Crest, and has since housed innumerable movies and live performances. Of late, the Regent had screened mostly second-run Hollywood fare, but Hazen insists that under its new management, working with longstanding Regent programmer and partner Peter Sorok, the theatre will up its quota of Canadian features and dispense with pre-feature commercials and trailers in favor of Canadian short films. Having established partnerships with the Canadian Film Centre and the Ontario Media Development Corporation, Theatre D intends to screen and promote quality works bypassed by the multiplexes.

‘We want to bring Last Wedding back in here,’ Hazen says of B.C. director Bruce Sweeney’s dark comedy that impressed critics but disappeared quickly off screens.

Hazen sees the venue as also ideal for glamorous premieres of domestic films that previously would have had a hard time drumming up media attention. A space at the rear of the theatre will be designated for press, and a room will be made available for media to conduct talent interviews and digitally file stories. An initiative called Screen Time will allow filmmakers to test screen their projects prior to committing to a negative cut.

The Regent is one of the few remaining theatres equipped to project 70mm prints, which according to Hazen has attracted the attention of the Toronto International Film Festival and the Cinematheque Ontario, which have had special 70mm presentations in the past.

Meanwhile, Theatre D is moving its four Avid Version 10 G4 Film Composers, networked with Avid Unity, into newly formed editing suites in the complex. The facility will be rigged with a suite-to-theatre preview, allowing editors to screen their work daily in high definition on the big screen via a Christie Digital projector.

Hazen plans to have Theatre D, currently located on Toronto’s Sunlight Park Road, open for business in its new digs by March 1. Within the facility, and backstage from the Regent, will be an ADR theatre called the Belsize, scheduled for completion by July 1. Theatre D will host a number of special evenings featuring past employees of the theatre along with actors who have graced its boards.

‘We’re trying to show that we respect the heritage of the building and we’re trying to preserve it and continue with the next chapter,’ Hazen says.

Theatre D’s purchase of the Regent entailed no layoffs among the Regent’s staff of six, some of whom have been at the theatre for many years. Theatre D is using its audio post work on Willow Pictures’ Rub & Tug, starring Don McKellar, as a pilot project to put the new facility through its paces.

-www.theatred.com