Grab your popcorn, Windsor-Essex may become a major film destination

Hopes are high that Windsor-Essex can soon shine on the silver screen more than ever before, now that the filming of a new movie has wrapped.

Film crews spent the last 12 days shooting scenes across the city and county for the upcoming Lifetime Channel movie “Show and Tell” with on set officials confident more productions are on the way.

“This is when your passion for storytelling meets your passion for the city and your passion for business,” said co-producer Rhys Trenhaile. “It's like you can shoot on a rural setting like a vineyard. You can do a downtown scene that looks like Chicago or New York and you have everything in between.”

He continued, “You've got it all in one place, which is actually really, really, really uncommon.”

Trenhaile said efforts with his business partner to attract film and television productions to the region have been years in the making, suggesting Windsor’s proximity to Detroit, combined with smaller city hospitality, makes the Windsor-Essex region ideal for movie making.

“This is our first test run,” Trenhaile explained. “This is a ‘movie of the week’ that everybody's going to be able to see on the Lifetime Channel when it comes out and provided we've stayed on time and on budget, which it looks like we have, then we should get an order for another four movies that are all movies of the week that you'll see on Lifetime and Hallmark.”

Filming for the upcoming Lifetime Channel movie “Show and Tell” has wrapped up. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor)

Trenhaile told CTV News there’s hope the city, county, or both local governments, can bring a film commissioner to the region to attract more media production crews to shoot in Windsor-Essex.

“It means the establishment of a new industry for Windsor. We should be able to get up to a point where we have two crews running at any given time and local actors etc. So at any given time, you should have about 100 people employed and that should be just the beginning,” said Trenhaile.

“I asked the city to do a study about two years ago to get a film commissioner. To my surprise, they said yes, they did the study. My understanding is the study does give a big thumbs-up to getting a film commissioner, but in fairness to them, they're holding on to the study because there's been no industry here yet,” he explained. “Usually, you want those things to follow. Now the industry is here. Now we're really hoping that the city, Windsor, and the County of Essex, gets involved and gives us that support so that we can build this way bigger than just one production team, but bring a whole bunch of different productions here.”

Trenhaile added, “We’re already working with the University of Windsor and starting to work with St. Clair College to do what’s called micro certification. So you want to train up as many local Windsorites as possible because you don’t have to pay for multi meals every day and hotel rooms to bring in cast and crew from out of town, so that’s what we’re trying to achieve.”

Filming for the upcoming Lifetime Channel movie “Show and Tell” has wrapped up. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor)

“It's been fantastic,” exclaimed co-executive producer Michael Buttiglieri. “We've had such a great time. We've been welcomed with open arms. The community has given us so much.”

Buttiglieri said a release date for this latest production is still to be determined, but that the local schools, neighbourhoods, and homes have provided perfect settings to consider for future use.

“Every location that we've been to has been so nice and so welcoming. I can't thank the town enough. Walkerville is beautiful and I can make that look like any town for any kind of rom-com or even a thriller.”

Buttiglieri continued, “Big cities are harder to film in because you become an inconvenience to the city. Whereas at the little cities, they love sort of being a part of something like this.”

Several Windsor city councillors, including Kieran McKenzie, Angelo Marignani, and Mark McKenzie, toured the set on the final day of filming.

“It's amazing, right? I think it's great. I think Windsor needs more of this,” McKenzie said.

He added, “It’s the economic development aspect of it too. We have people coming down here. They're gonna be visiting our restaurants, they're gonna be staying in our hotels, right, and I mean, eventually, hopefully, they'll even move here. So it’s all jobs and you can’t just focus on the auto industry. We’ve got to start diversifying and this is one step to diversify in Windsor.”