An old warehouse that once manufactured medication for a large pharmaceutical and briefly faced the possibility of becoming a church is the new, and rather unlikely, home to film production company, Arcadia.
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In the two years since the firm was founded by Alex Burke and her Sydney-based business partner Lisa Shaunessy, the company has already worked on a swag of acclaimed films.
Arcadia's latest achievement is the Netflix-acquired film 2067, which was released to Australian audiences last week.
Starring Deborah Mailman and Kodi Smit-McPhee, the climate change sci-fi flick is currently ranked #2 in Australia and New Zealand on the streaming service. Upon its US release late last year 2067 made it to number three.
"For a film that was shot in Adelaide and on the Central Coast that was a wonderful thrill.... It's been responded to really well internationally," said Ms Burke who manages Arcadia's distribution and acquisition.
It's a sci-fi film that takes place in the future. So it's very heavy on the visual effects.
- Bec Janek
Also working out of the company's new warehouse is Bec Janek who was on set throughout the entire filming of 2067 as the film's co-producer.
"The original concept of the idea has been in development for quite a while.... We started shooting actually in October 2018.... And then we basically spent all of 2019 in post-production," she said.
"It's a sci-fi film that takes place in the future. So it's very heavy on the visual effects. So we spent almost an entire year doing edits, visual effects, music and sound design."
In addition to having a number of new projects in the works - including a horror/satire called Sissy starring Aisha Dee from The Bold Type-, Arcadia is also planning to make the old API building on Endsleigh Avenue the company's national head quarters. Part of that will hopefully include opening the space up to the public for filmmaking workshops.
With Ms Janek and Ms Burke both permanently installed in Orange, they are hoping to bring out the other two members of their small Sydney-based team.
"We're planning on being here for the long haul," Ms Janek said.
With another film on the horizon, Arcadia's team of four is currently figuring out where to shoot it.
"We toyed with coming to Orange.... [because] we would love to shoot here one day," Ms Janek said.
"It's a horror film and I really want to shoot it in the [old] DPI [building]," Ms Burke added with a laugh. "That's a really creepy place."
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