Lane Street Studios: A Report
**Upper Hutt in Wellington is soon to see the doors open on brand new purpose-built film studios, due for completion in April 2022. **
Lane Street Studios occupies a 4-hectare private, secure site offering two adjoining sound stages at 2400sqm each, with a total of 6,300 sqm of production and workshop spaces and onsite parking for around 125 cars. Chief Executive Officer, Kristy Grant says “We are delighted to provide a new studio for international and local productions. Lane Street Studios exists to offer world class production facilities that strengthen the capacity and capability of the New Zealand screen industry. We look forward to welcoming productions to create dynamic stories for the screen.”
Pre-Production/Production Building
The Studio’s pre-production and production building is home to a number of open spaces to be used for offices (1,534 sqm). Spaces are flexible to suit the use of the production. Operations Manager, Dan Eady says “We have consulted closely with industry to ensure the newest offering in Aotearoa is fit for purpose and designed to be modern and flexible to best meet production needs.”
Local Wellington architects Herriot Melhuish O'Neill Architects (HMOA) designed the spaces and builders PCB Construction are nearing completion of the build – both have previously worked on the development of the infrastructure in Miramar.
The site is nestled in a sheltered beautiful green belt at the foot of the Whiteman's Valley and 5 minutes walk from Upper Hutt City centre. The Brewtown hospitality and entertainment complex is right next door. Lane Street Studios is setting itself up as a green production facility, to support current worldwide industry standards. This process started right from the inception of the project with construction activities such as reusing and recycling any doors, windows, carpet tiles and furniture from the existing building. They are also finalising other green based initiatives such as EV charging stations, waste and rainwater collection systems as well as landscaping using native plants to keep the birds happy. The studios also support buying local and New Zealand made, so much of the furniture is from a range of New Zealand companies and many local Hutt Valley and Wellington-based supporting businesses have been employed to help complete and supply for various aspects of the facilities.
Office space includes production, accounts, art department, VFX, Locations and Tech offices all furnished with a mixture of stand-up and static desks. All areas have standard lighting, power outlets, data ports, heat pumps and air conditioning and are security alarmed. Large café/kitchen area, smaller kitchen and toilet facilities, including accessible bathrooms. There is also a furnished Medic Room with a separate office space. The site is access secured by swipe card, and all areas are network condition ready. In addition to the office spaces, there is a large multi-purpose office space (38 sqm) that could be used for VFX, Editing, Data Wrangling or any digital work that requires a darkened space. This area is provisioned for both ethernet and fibre connectivity. The server room (21 sqm) has four racks. Two of these house Lane Street Studios security and IT infrastructure and the other two are available for production to use.
There is room for a further two racks to be fitted and the room is air-conditioned. The 238 sqm cinema seats 18 people along with an accessible space, two working desks and sofas. It houses a Christie RGB Laser Projector, a 7m x 3m white screen, 7.1 surround sound, purpose-designed lighting and racks for equipment. Additional arrangements and amenities include photocopiers and printers in all areas, bathroom and first aid supplies. The site will be under the watchful eye of a high-quality security company to supply full security and of course, the building would not be complete without coffee machines in kitchens!
A Workshop space for construction, props and paint (totalling 2,430 sqm) houses x4 truck dock ways, a 31 sqm spray painting booth with a paint washing area with a sediment trap. There is a designated office with desks, chairs and shelving, a kitchen space for this area and toilet facilities. The area is accessible by trucks and forklifts through three roller doors. The area has DG cabinets and cages for gas bottles and mobile spill kits.
The Costume (348 sqm), Laundry (176 sqm) and Make Up (164 sqm) departments include an open plan costume making area with an office for the Costume Designer and space and furniture for the Costume Supervisor and Co-ordinators. Lighting is to fine-work quality, with power and data outlets. Equipment includes sewing machines, overlockers, vacuum bed ironing boards, irons, and a fusing press. There are cutting tables and areas for haberdashery and fabric storage. Garment racks and mannequins are also supplied. There is a separate fitting room with sofas, chairs, mirrors and racks.
The Costume Props area and Breakdown is in a separate area with a glue room with extraction, benches and shelving. Laundry includes a spray booth, dryers and washing machines and a 70 ltr and 200 ltr dye vat with extraction.
There are benches in this area and compressed air and DG cabinets with a Zip for mixing dyes. Make-up has two hair washing stations with chairs, twelve stations with lights, benches, cupboards, shelving, tables and chairs. It also has a domestic washer and dryer for washing towels etc. All of these areas have their own kitchen with four showers nearby and toilet facilities. There is also a truck dock that backs onto this area.
Upon completion of the construction, the backlot will also host a camera store, ample car parking with a tech bar in front of the stages for trucks to park directly in front, a purpose-built area to service the catering trucks and shooting crew, an area for Unit, which is close to the stages and will include power and servicing of the trailers, and finally a purpose-built Gate House to monitor the site, premises and people coming and going from the facility. Crew will enter through a turnstile and vehicles through a barrier arm. There is optional space for a Nurses Station to monitor crew if there is a Covid-19 outbreak.
Sound Stages
The Studio consists of two sound stages, which occupy around 2,200m² each. The concrete panels are being constructed on-site due to the height and number required. These are being put in place by one of New Zealand’s largest cranes.
On completion the sound stages will both be 38 meters wide and 60 meters in length with a height to the grid of 12.2 meters and a height to the roof of 17 meters. They include curtain rails with blue or green, white and solid screens available, a lift, a plant and dimmer room, an internal door between the two stages and restroom facilities. A Stage & B Stage are purpose-built soundproof film studios. Both have a power board output capacity ex mains supply of 1000KVA, plus facility to connect a 1000KVA generator to sub boards as required. They are both equipped with house lighting, power outlets and compressed air reticulation. There is an air handling system for fresh air and extraction, a grid of catwalks for set and lighting rigs, plus a grid level dimmer room in A Stage with a lift, which the B Stage can also access. A 36 sqm motion-controlled platform is fitted in the A Stage floor.
The Certificate for Public Use has been issued for the pre-production/production building, which has spaces available for hire now. The team look forward to continuing the construction of the sound stages to be production ready in April next year.
Strengthening the Screen Sector
In addition to providing top-tier facilities, Lane Street Studios are also invested in strengthening and sustaining the pipeline of the New Zealand screen sector through vocational training opportunities in partnership with Wellington Creative Ltd. The team are exploring avenues that identify the sector’s short term and longer-term needs, in terms of crewing, skill development and content creation, that help to bridge the gap between graduates and professionals. The pipeline provides programmes and workshops that are targeted to vocational training opportunities as well as secondary students and tertiary students.
Chief Strategic Officer, Melissa Conway, says “Supporting the future of the industry is a major priority for Lane Street Studios. We look forward to building programmes and workshops that support graduates and industry newcomers to be job-ready. We are fortunate to be working in a strong creative city, where we can identify and support upcoming talent.”
Since June 2021, the team have delivered two 6-week Creative Business Programme courses. Supported by the Southeast Asia Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence, the programme is a tailored short-form course delivering fundamental and transferable business skills. Through the course, participants developed a unique story for screen idea and learned from a toolkit of business skills to help develop and map the future of their unique idea and their careers in the sector. The courses culminated in a pitching session to local and international industry professionals hailing from Netflix, TVNZ to Disney and Animation Producers to Festival Programmers.
Lane Street Studios currently has two other skills-based training programmes in development with the U.S Embassy and local Iwi. “We understand the need to expand our reach and get a diversity of voices and talent across the sector, we are working with Ngāti Toa Iwi to help address barriers such as inclusion, accessibility and having role models within the screen sector to establish learning and career pathways. Research and consultation with industry practitioners shows that there are some major gaps in various roles that need to be addressed to future proof the screen sector.
We recognise the urgent need to retain and build skills in our industry, to retain knowledge and equip the crews of the future. A key to successful training is that everyone is paid for their time – mentors and students, as this is essential for buy-in, commitment and it enables all participants to focus and enjoy their training experience, rather than worrying about how to pay their bills,” says Melissa Conway.
Lane Street Studios is actively seeking partners to collaborate with on industry vocational training as well as experienced screen sector professionals who are interested in mentoring and presenting as part of our future programme delivery.
Benefits for Aotearoa
The addition of Lane Street Studios to New Zealand’s screen infrastructure will contribute further to the capacity of the sector. This will in turn attract more productions, which provide more opportunities for work and importantly, more opportunities to train crew coming into the sector. Ideally, this will help with overall sustainability as a sector and continue to build on the substantial success we have already achieved in New Zealand. Kristy Grant says “With an increased work flow, it would be marvellous to see an increased emphasis on telling New Zealand stories in Aotearoa, made by New Zealanders. We are great storytellers and we certainly know how to bring them to life on screen.”
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