Torontoist goes behind the scenes of Toronto's Pinewood Studios, Commissioners Street's 11-acre film and television production facility. With seven soundstages and a giant warehouse on site, Pinewood provides a combined 250,000 square feet of studio
space making it "one of the most comprehensive purpose-built film facilities
in the world."
"Getting behind the gates of Pinewood Toronto Studios is kind of exactly like securing a golden admission ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Except instead of chocolate waterfalls, everlasting gobstoppers, and jolly, ginger-skinned Oompa-Loompas, Pinewood has well-maintained offices, an impressive ventilation system, and a muddy old berm out back. And a whole lot of movie studio space. Like, huge expanses of it."
"Granted, Pinewood Toronto's 11-acre facility in the Port Lands (near Commissioners Street and the Don Roadway) may not appear to be suffused with "movie magic"�especially if your only frames of reference for what a movie studio is are the scene in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure when our bike-riding hero giddily baits a low-speed pursuit through the Warner Bros. lot and a bunch of Animaniacs cartoons. But though its facade may be a little plain, evoking little of the Hollywood "Dream Machine" or whatever, in the past three years alone, Pinewood has gained a reputation as a go-to destination for film and television productions in Toronto."
"Since opening in 2008, the studios have provided space for plenty of Canadian film and TV productions (CBC's Battle of the Blades, Atom Egoyan's Chloe). They've also done something even more exceptional: attract big-time Hollywood bucks. Since 2008, larger-budgeted shoots like the forthcoming prequel/remake of John Carpenter's The Thing (also called The Thing) and last summer's hometown would-be blockbuster Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) setting up shop at Pinewood. And with Pinewood currently hosting the most expensive production to ever come to Toronto (we were asked not to name the film, even though it's already been announced elsewhere), we finagled our way behind the scenes of the studio that's reinvigorating Toronto's film industry."
"Toronto has historically been a very successful film and television production centre, but it hasn't had a facility like this," notes Edith Myers, managing director of Pinewood Toronto Studios. "[Toronto] has very good facilities and a lot of people put a lot of money into the industry. But this facility is designed to attract a certain type of film that had come infrequently to Toronto. Our biggest selling tool is to show people what we've got here." And what Pinewood's got is impressive."
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Torontoist