Something different was cooking up in the kitchen at Fernando’s Family Restaurant in Barrie’s east end.
Generally packed with diners hoping for bacon and eggs, the restaurant was instead filled with lights, cameras, eager young performers and maybe a glimpse into Barrie’s future as a television production hotbed.
As a handful of hungry regulars straggled towards the door of the restaurant, Kyle Francis gently broke the bad news that the restaurant was closed for the one day only.
“You’re pulling my leg,” said one unamused senior as she ignored the bustle inside, obviously unimpressed with missing breakfast. “No, I’m not pulling your leg, it’s just for today,” said an upbeat Francis, one of the producers of the shoot. “We are shooting a television pilot inside.”
More than 20 actors and crew were inside the restaurant working on what is hoped to be a pilot for the young adult market, as brought together by Brain Power Studios based in Newmarket.
Studio head Beth Stevenson has nearly 30 years experience developing television programs for the Canadian and international market.
In keeping a local flavour for the whole thing, along with the restaurant, The Lab recording studios in the Unity Market was used for sound recording, and a good number of the crew, including Francis and director Justin Dyke, are Barrie-based cinematographers.
But one pilot does not a production boom make.
However, the construction of an 8,000-square-foot green-screen studio, which is under construction right now, points you in the right direction.
Dyke has a significant portfolio of work with Dare2 Productions, and with the opportunity of what Francis identifies as one of the bigger studios of its type in southern Ontario film and television production, Barrie might be the next big thing.
“We are going to be bringing a lot of production into town,” Francis said. “We fall under a unique tax break because we are located outside of Toronto. Both myself and Justin live in town here, so we have been trying to pioneer film production here in Barrie.”
More and more production is being created outside of Toronto, farther north and beyond because the costs can be kept lower.
The added bonus is that locals have an avenue for employment.
The company has a number of shows in development, one already being broadcast on CBC, plus a couple of cooking shows and plans to do some ‘horror stuff’.
“The distribution company that we hooked up with for a couple of kids shows are desperate for horror content, so the plan is to look at that genre,” Francis said. “Bring it all here to Barrie.”
And that is worth missing breakfast for.
Thanks to JT McVeigh and his article in the Barrie Examiner
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