Film crews take over Regina Beach, Lumsden, and Craven

Regina Beach – The famous Blue Bird café in Regina Beach has been taken over by a film crew.

A.R.C.H.I.E has been shooting there for four days, and the crew moves to Lumsden and Craven locations over the next week.

“A.R.C.H.I.E was a one word pitch: robodog,” said the film’s writer and diector Robin Dunne.

The movie is about a young girl who moves to a new town and befriends a stay dog, who turns out to be a robot that’s been weaponized by a military corporation.

“She has to try and make him pass as a normal dog, which isn’t always easy when he’s talking to people, and moving at super speeds and has x-ray vision,” said Dunne.

As in most family movies, a villian comes looking to make trouble. In this case that role is played by Fred Ewanuik of Corner Gas fame.

“I steal Archie and try to make money off him,” said Ewanuik.

The dog who plays Archie goes by ‘Cosmo’ off screen. He used to be a bed bug detection dog in New York, but moved to Canada to pursue showbiz. This is his first role. He has various stunts to perform, but the trickiest part is looking like he belongs to his on-screen family.

“He does a lot of interaction where he has to walk along with the actor. He has to look at her like he’s talking to her and interacting with her,” said Cherie Smid, Cosmo’s trainer.

This is the biggest project to be shot in Saskatchewan since “Corner Gas: The Movie”. There are 60 local crew and 11 cast members from the province.

Creative Saskatchewan played a big role in bringing the movie here. That’s promising for film advocates who are trying to repair the relationship between government and the film industry after the loss of the film tax credit.

“We’ve been working really closely with Creative Saskatchewan, and with government over the last little while to try to talk about what our industry needs, what is going to be best for Saskatchewan, and how we can make it work,” said Nova Alberts, Saskatchewan Media Production Industry Association (SMPIA) president.

It seems that’s a move film workers are all ready for.

“I like the fact that Creative Saskatchewan is finding ways to get it going again,” said Ewanuick. “I hope they do because everything is here, the crew, the infrastructure it’s all in place. Anything they can do to help bring in more is great because people are itching to get going.”

Dunne is planning to showcase Saskatchewan landscapes and landmarks to prove an on-screen point.

“Just to show that we should be able to come back and shoot here, and hopefully that’ll be rectified soon because there’s amazingly talented people here,” he said.

Talented people, and don’t forget the talented dogs.