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Canadore College building state-of-the-art post-production facility in North Bay

Facility will be the only one of its kind in Northern Ontario and will make Canadore the first educational institution to receive the Dolby Premier Studio certification in Canada

It’s no secret Canadore College has been making massive waves with the quality of its facilities, faculty, staff, and students when it comes to the film and television industry. With notches including its mark in the production of Hard Rock Medical's third season, Canadore has been able to film the needs of the industry, but with a massive government investment announced Friday morning, the college will be filling in a missing piece of the puzzle with a state-of-the-art Post Production Centre.

“It will give students that experiential learning opportunity to work beside professionals and use the facility to learn the craft,” said Yura Monestime, Associate Dean of Media, Design and Dramatic Arts. “It will also allow Northern Ontario, finally to have a place to finish movies and TV projects. It goes to show the quality of our industry partners we’re bringing in.”

This 5,588-square-foot facility, which carries a price tag of about $2 million, is expected to be complete in September 2017 and will feature a post-production theatre and studios for colour correction, recording, dialogue replacement, and sound mixing, as well as office space and a 24-seat computer lab.

However, Canadore is getting a big helping hand with this project, with FedNor and NOHFC investing a combined total of $875,000 into the facility so that Canadore can quickly take advantage of the growth Northern Ontario has seen in the film and television industry.  

Anthony Rota, MP Nipissing-Timiskaming and Jason Corbett announced the funding from FedNor and NOHFC respectively, praising the efforts and progress made by Canadore College as well as other local professionals and organisations who’ve made a name for North Bay in the film and television industry.

Not only is this great news for Canadore, but all of North Bay and area, which has seen great strides of growth in the film and television industry over the last few years. Derek Diorio, co-creator of Hard Rock Medical, praised his experience up north and the partnership with Canadore College in producing the third season, but wished he could have done the post production in town.

At the time the only place filmmakers could go to edit was down south, but now North Bay will find itself a hub for all stages of production.

“This will put us up there,” Monestime said. “As we speak it’s the only educational facility with this tech in Canada. Not only have local filmmakers had to go down south and pay huge rates to edit their films, but also productions from down south who have come to shoot have had to leave because there has been no facility like it up North.”

But come September that will change, and it’s estimated over the next three years, this initiative is expected to generate 26 jobs, while supporting 25 post-production projects and enhancing skills training in the region.

Monestime said this facility will accommodate the new post-production program at Canadore, as well as enhance a couple existing ones. Diorio, while filming last winter in North Bay, attested to the quality of work from local professionals, and surely enough, this new facility and program will lead to even more highly-praised students emerging into the industry.

“The students coming out of the program were really well trained,” Diorio said about his experience in a previous interview. “In a lot of cases, the students did quite a bit better than professionals who’ve been around for quite a few years.”

Monestime said it’s been a nearly seven-year journey to getting the facility, but expects the impact to be well worth the wait, drawing attention to how important it is to have achieved the infrastructure needed to get a Dolby certification.

“It’s been a long and hard road, but at the end of the day we are here,” he said. “It took a lot of footwork, and a lot of communication with our industry partners.”


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Ryen Veldhuis

About the Author: Ryen Veldhuis

Writer. Photographer. Adventurer. An avid cyclist, you can probably spot him pedaling away around town.
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