Curtains up at Okanagan’s first feature film sound stage

OKANAGAN – A highly anticipated film stage is finally open in Vernon, offering 50,000 square feet of specialized space built specifically for making movies.

Okanagan Studios features a large soundproof, high-ceiling sound stage, furnished offices, a flex stage as well as a construction building for making props.

The four acre lot has parking for more than 100 vehicles, 600 amp 3-phase power and everything else needed to make feature films, commercials and TV shows.

“It’s 100 per cent build it and they (production companies) will come,” Okanagan Film Commissioner Jon Summerland said in June. That’s when it was announced that two feasibility studies indicated a structure like a studio would do well in the Okanagan, specifically just outside Vernon.

The region has already proven itself as an attractive place to shoot movies — Enderby Entertainment’s Blackway and Disney’s Tomorrowland are just two examples.

Shooting in the Okanagan, and B.C in general, brings a number of tax credits, but to receive them all, production companies have to shoot 51 per cent of the picture here.

“You can’t do that if there’s no studio,” Summerland said.

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