The Thompson Nicola Regional District is about to do a study on building a full time movie studio in the Kamloops area.

The regional district approved $35,000 for the study last June and now they’re in the final stages of picking someone to do it.

TNRD Film Commissioner Vicci Weller says a lot has been up in the air the past year because of COVID-19 but things are looking up. Its as despite the pandemic, film companies spent $6-million in the region in 2020 which led to an economic spin off of $16.5-million.

“People are projecting now that we have a vaccine and now that we’re actually getting vaccines, that it’s a little bit easier to predict maybe what the future looks like as opposed to a few months ago,” she said. “I mean it makes that much difference, so we kind of held off and thought where are we going to get the best view.”

On the NL Morning News, Weller says there’s a lot of things that go into a project like this.

“Its not about ‘oh yeah, of course we want a studio pie in the sky like’. No where is it going to go? Where would that land value be? and what about the infrastructure? What about the need? It’s not just about, can you build the bricks and mortar, that’s easy. You’ve got to find the money, that’s not easy,” she added.

She also noted its a lot more complicated than just finding somewhere to put a building.

“Where are the crew going to live and is that where they want to live or is it going to be mostly come up from Vancouver and use,” Weller said. “You know there’s all these things, it’s just a little bit more complex than ya, sure they’ll come, not necessarily right? So, I really want to make sure it’s a good one.”