Durham Region: Ontario's Hidden Gem for Film and Television Production

Production companies are spending more time filming in Durham because they find what they need here. The home for major motion pictures It and It: Chapter Two, X-Men and Chicago and Emmy-nominated TV series like Schitt’s Creek, The Handmaid’s Tale, Orphan Black, and internationally syndicated Murdoch Mysteries, Durham Region offers highly adaptable environments that ideally capture any era or subject matter near Toronto.

Want to film a Western? The privately-owned eight-acre Docville Film Set – located in Newcastle – comes with its own period hotel, saloon, jail, bordello, and authentic props. Sunbelt Rental Film TV’s 23-acre backlot in Pickering is the largest in Canada and purposefully built for features, TV series and commercials. It has 30 stores, a police station and can be converted to suit productions of all types, from rustic western settings to bustling New York City streets. For more elegant digs, there’s stately Parkwood Estate, a National Heritage site and former mansion home of Canadian auto baron R.S. McLaughlin.

There are quaint downtowns like Port Perry that can replicate Western America – that is what producers look for a lot here, rustic train stations, modern buildings like the Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery and the Elizabethan-styled Trafalgar Castle that was built in 1859. Durham has The Ontario Regiment Museum, Canada’s largest military museum, frozen Lake Scugog or Simcoe for winter shoots and LaFarge’s Quarry, which was recently used to represent Africa in National Geographic Explorer’s The Secret History of Gold. Directors who want to produce multiple shoots of diverse environments in a single day, bring their projects to The Automotive Centre of Excellence (ACE), a high-tech research and testing facility located at Ontario Technical University.

Durham locations are promoted through the Ontario Creates and Durham Region locations libraries, familiarizations tours, industry conferences such as Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI) This Week (Locations Showcase in LA), American Film Market (LA), Canadian Media Producers Association’s Primetime, TIFF, marketing materials, industry trade magazine advertorials, Ontario Filmmaker directory, Hollywood Reporter and Destination Film Guide.