REGINA - The new virtual LED Volume Wall was on full display at the John Hopkins Regina Soundstage for the production of Hostile Takeover.
The action-thriller-comedy is the first virtual production using Volume Global's LED Wall and Ecosystem. On Tuesday, provincial officials including Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Laura Ross along with those from Creative Saskatchewan toured the set at the soundstage, and got to see the virtual wall in action.
The wall was set up to show night scenes from New York City, showing the New York skyline. It was also adjusted to show various street scenes.
The LED Volume Wall had been officially unveiled during March 2024, but this was the first time officials got to see the various virtual settings actually in action with the cameras rolling.
“I was here when the wall was up and it was grey walls with a bit of visuals,” Ross said. “But when you walk in here today and what do we see? We see New York City, and you realize that, well, we’re bringing New York to Saskatchewan. But also too, it shows the technology and how the film industry has changed so much, and this is a wonderful opportunity for Saskatchewan and the soundstage here to really shine.”
She also pointed to this being a far more economical option for filmmakers to shoot in Saskatchewan.
“If you were going to film in New York, so you’re blocking off how many blocks, right, so you’ve annoyed how many people in New York City because even though there’s economic impact to that city, it’s still an inconvenience for people,” said Ross. “Then you look at the dollars of what it would cost to have the crew staying in hotels, transportation. We’ve all been in big cities where you spend more time waiting to get somewhere than getting somewhere. Well, we know in Regina it takes five minutes to get from downtown Regina to here when you’re taking a cab, ten minutes if you want to walk. And then you look at the dollar, so it really makes a lot of economic sense for the film industry to take Regina, to take this soundstage very seriously.”
The technology was brought to Saskatchewan as a venture between Volume Global and Saskatchewan-based production company Karma Film. This LED soundstage is the biggest in Canada and second only to the one in Atlanta in size in North America.
“This is the future of filmmaking,” said Anand Ramayya, founder and principal of Karma Film. “This is the way that all the bigger projects are going to be made from here on in. There’s so many efficiencies, but it also gives filmmakers a whole new tool kit to do basically whatever they can imagine. We can shoot any location in your imagination anywhere in the universe right here in Regina, and we can shoot all year long.”
Ramayya says that there are plans to utilize the LED wall after Hostile Takeover shooting is complete, with plans for a horror movie and another action series and then a sci-fi production in the new year.
Hostile Takeover includes a cast with action star Michael Jai White of Black Dynamite and The Dark Knight, and actress Aimee Stolte of Escape the Night and Megalodon who is originally from Saskatoon.
It is produced and financed by Volume Global, Automatic Entertainment, Dovetale Media, Fun Republic Pictures and Karma Film, with Creative Saskatchewan providing a grant of over $3.3 million in funding. According to the province's news release, Creative Saskatchewan estimates that 140 new jobs will be created by the production and that economic spin-offs will be to the tune of around $14 million.
