Northern film production evolves: Canadore launches new film program, production facility.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: North Bay

The future of film and television production in North Bay is about to get brighter with a new investment by Canadore College in its film programming and facilities.

In June, the school announced it would start offering a one-year post-production graduate certificate program in addition to the broadcast television and digital cinematography programs it currently offers.

Yura Monestime, a professor in Canadore's School of Media and Dramatic Arts, said the new program provides students with an extra level of training that will make them even more versatile when it comes to their skills in the film and TV industry.

"What it does is it teaches students advanced skills, not only in editing, but in finishing a product," he said. "It takes weeks, if not months, to go through that post-production process."

After filming, a production has to go through several stages before it's ready for release, Monestime noted, including editing, colour correction, sound design and graphics.

Although students in the television and cinema programs get some training in post-production, the new program "takes it a step above it and really prepares the graduate to enter into a junior position in a post-production facility."

To support the new training, Canadore also plans to construct a brand-new post-production facility, whose state-of-the-art technology will allow for work in editing, audio mix, automatic dialogue replacement, music, and more.

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A 50-foot by 40-foot theatre, designed to hold about 15 people, will come equipped with Dolby Atmos surround sound, a new type of surround sound filmmakers are starting to use in their projects. Canadore will be the only education facility in Canada and one of only a handful of facilities across the country that allows projects to be produced with Atmos.

All that specialized equipment brings film editing to a professional level that will give graduates a hand up when entering the industry.

"You can have an edit suite in your kitchen if you want--it's a laptop and a couple of speakers and a monitor and you're good to go," Monestime said. "But that won't get you through the front door of a theatre or a broadcaster."

Currently, film crews shooting in Northern Ontario are in the North only for a few weeks before they leave. They're forced to go elsewhere to complete the postproduction process simply because there's no facility anywhere in Northern Ontario that can accommodate their...