To rent or own – it’s a question that hangs over the housing market, those in frequent need of a tuxedo, and production companies in search of a studio. Sure, it would be great to have rent-free year-round access to a 35,000-square foot, custom-built, clear-span soundstage with extra camera lockup and a wraparound blue screen. But owning property is expensive, risky and complicated. Is buying worth the hassle?

Greystone Studios thinks so. The Mississauga, ON-based prodco, formerly Danforth Studios, is nearing completion on a four-studio complex with 92,000 square feet of space, located near Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. The former warehouse cost $2 million to renovate and is the new home to Greystone’s Starhunter sci-fi series, the first season of which was shot in New Brunswick.

‘The idea was to have a permanent home,’ says president Daniel D’or. ‘We’ve constructed sets in just about every [rental] building in Toronto, and there’s always something going against you, whether it’s the size of the studio, the sound, the location, the production office space or the quality of the building. You try to find something that gives you everything you’re looking for and that’s what we’ve [now] got.’

CEO Tony DePasquale says few independent studios could accommodate the large sets and technical demands of the F/X-heavy series. ‘To do it in an existing facility, we’d be renting 12 to 14 different little studios,’ he says, ‘whereas this way we’re all under one roof.’

Most of the space at Greystone Studios is earmarked for the series, and the company plans to bring in extra revenue by renting its remaining space to outside productions by 2003.

B.C.’s Lions Gate Films, which has a loaded production slate including the series Mysterious Ways and Tracker, has 10 large soundstages of its own, but outside productions take over the lion’s share. ‘If we can accommodate one of our shows and it makes sense, we’ll do it. But we run such a high occupancy we’re generally full,’ says Lions Gate Studios VP and GM Peter Leitch.

Leitch says the company acquired its eight soundstages in North Vancouver and two in nearby Burnaby to mimic the vertical integration of the majors in Hollywood. ‘It’s based on the U.S. model,’ he says. ‘It’s been a good investment and is generating cash.’

But while buying property seems like a good idea during production booms, pundits warn that the high overhead required to run a studio can make a prodco more vulnerable to the inevitable slumps. Leitch agrees that it’s a concern, but is optimistic in the long run. ‘It’s considered a slow period right now and our spaces are full,’ he says.

Peace Arch Entertainment Group, which produces First Wave, Sausage Factory and Big Sound, got into the studio game during Vancouver’s production heyday in the late 1990s, but recently dropped all three of its facilities. (The company is currently buying down its long-term debt and rumored to be on the block.)

‘Production was ramping up and we could see there was a shortage of studio space, so we thought it would be a good business plan,’ explains president and CEO Juliet Jones. ‘We were really pleased with it when it was up and running. It really gave us a lot of flexibility from season to season. We didn’t have the concern that people were going to hike the prices on us or that [space] wouldn’t be available.’

But shareholders didn’t want the company getting caught up in the property game and, in 2000, Peace Arch decided to sell. ‘We decided we should be investing in programming and not bricks and mortar,’ says Jones.

Independent studios, for their part, caution that whether filming in-house or renting to third parties, studio ownership is fraught with complications.

‘They’re two very different businesses,’ says Ken Ferguson, president of Toronto Film Studios. ‘If you concentrate on one, you’re going to do badly in the other.’

TFS houses a variety of series, MOWs, features and other shoots in its 17 soundstages, and Ferguson says that when a production wraps, a new tenant is fairly easy to find. ‘That’s not so easy when you are your own customer and one of your productions ends. You don’t always have the ability to put another production in there right away.’

He adds that renting out unused space might make things worse. A prodco might lease its space only to find one of its own projects suddenly greenlit and be forced to rent space for its own production while playing landlord to someone else.

Benoit Hogue, EVP of Moliflex-White, owners of indie studio Cine Cite Montreal, adds that by entering the studio game, previously cooperative prodcos will be in the awkward position of competing with each other for third-party customers. ‘How can a producer have his own studios without being in competition with his colleagues?’ he asks. ‘You’ll have to fight with people for other shows.’

Hogue agrees that the line between production and studios is best left uncrossed, adding that business models that work in Hollywood aren’t compatible in Canada. ‘There is not the same market here at all,’ he says.

Nonetheless, companies such as Greystone believe the benefits outweigh the risks, and the newly rebranded company is cautiously bullish about its ability to work both sides of the fence. ‘It’s a huge job and it’s a really big commitment,’ says D’or. ‘But it’s ideal for us.’

-www.lionsgatefilms.com

-www.peacearch.net

-www.torontofilmstudios.com

-www.cinecitemontreal.com