Soundstage Announcement

Posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2020

The prepared remarks of President Claude Brulé.

March 09, 2020

Thank you Mr. Mayor and good morning everyone.

I am pleased to be here today to speak in support of Item 10 – Soundstage Campus and Creative Hub Loan Agreement.

As many of you know, Algonquin College is home to about 22,000 full time students and 4,000 faculty and staff.

Ontario Colleges offer a comprehensive program of career – oriented, postsecondary education and training to assist individuals in finding and keeping employment, to meet the needs of employers and the changing work environment and to support the economic and social needs of their local and diverse communities.

In Ottawa, we have a growing film and media production industry that supports local crews. The School of Media and Design at Algonquin College is introducing a new Film and Media Production program in September 2020 to meet the needs and interests of students in our region and to develop the well-trained production crew the industry needs to flourish.

In order to continue to grow this important local sector, Ottawa needs a purpose-built soundstage. The proposed Tribro soundstage is conveniently located 3km from Algonquin College making this an ideal partnership opportunity for our learners and faculty.

Algonquin College has held initial discussions about co-locating our new Film and Media Production program on-site at the soundstage and it’s an important point of differentiation for this very popular program.

This co-location will allow students from our region to be immersed in a creative environment that will support and advance their learning.

The soundstage location will enhance theory by providing opportunities for graduating students to have coop placements, internships and participation in real-world environments making graduates more employable.

The new facility will attract more films and series and thus create opportunities for these new graduates to start their career in this booming industry. With up to 50 creative, skilled and enthusiastic graduates joining the workforce each year, they will stay to work and live in Ottawa rather than leave for Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver.

Finally, we regularly hear that Ottawa’s animation industry needs talented staff in order to take on more projects. Companies have been asking us to grow our successful Animation program but we don’t have sufficient space at our Ottawa campus. Phase II of our partnership with Tribro is to consider moving our Animation program to the soundstage where we could expand our footprint to produce more graduates.

For these reasons, I’m proud to be here today on behalf of Algonquin College to speak in support of the soundstage as we all work together to make Ottawa a thriving centre for film and media production.

Thank you Mr. Mayor and members of the committee for your time and consideration. I would be pleased to answer any questions.


Comments

Comments are closed.