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Castlegar production company shooting for success

Two Castlegar boys are trying to build the world’s biggest production company.
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Tyler Hadikin and Steve Hall, owners of Stacked Films, and Drikie Van Tonder, photographer, attended the Metal Tech Alley opening after making a video for the Lower Columbia Initiatives Corporation. (Submitted)

Two Castlegar boys are trying to build the world’s biggest production company.

Tyler Hadikin and Steve Hall both grew up in Castlegar and have known each other for as long as they can remember. When they both grew to follow their passion for film it led to a partnership.

Hadikin did a post-secondary program in business and has always loved filming and photography, while Hall won first prize for “Best Amateur Documentary” at the Vancouver Film Festival while still in high school and went on to study drama, film and television at Selkirk and then to work in Vancouver.

“I worked as a cameraman, working on sets for a lot of indie movies and some big budget ones too — some really low budget ones — and then my love for film grew from there,” said Hall. “And I decided that I wanted to start something myself and me and Tyler got together and here we are.”

The two men started filming together back at the end of July and began Stacked Films in September. One of the first things they worked on filming together was a world record attempt by Al McBeth.

“We basically contacted Al McBeth, … he was at the time the current world record holder for UTV jumps, which is like Polaris side by sides kind of thing, and then some other group came in and beat the record, so he was all antsy to get something going and I was just like 100 per cent on board,” explained Hadikin.

Hall went to Vancouver to meet with McBeth and the following weekend they shot him doing a jump. They’ve since taped several more of McBeth’s jumps as well, but have not released any of the footage yet.

“We haven’t even actually put out the video because he wants to break 300 [feet],” said Hadikin. “So we have all this footage and we’ve been holding onto it because he’s like, ‘Nope, I’ve gotta break 300.’”

Both Hadikin and Hall have a background in action sports. Hadikin was a semi-professional snowmobiler and Hall was into dirt biking and motocross. Starting Stacked Films has not only given them the chance to film McBeth, but through networking, they’ve also had the chance to be mentored by a childhood role model — Jeremy Deitrich.

“Jeremy used to film these videos back in the day called D.I.P. I mean everybody grew up watching these movies — they were huge, and so he’s kind of been like our … mentor,” said Hall. “Like I’ll call him and be like, ‘Hey, so what do you think of this?’ and he’s like, ‘Well you know this is how I usually do it.’ So he’s got us in contact with High Times magazine and stuff like that, and we’re filming stuff out of Nelson because that scene is really popular out there.”

The duo also shot B-roll on Hollow in the Land and recently created a video for the Lower Columbia Initiatives Corporation (LCIC) for their Metal Tech Alley marketing initiative.

“It kind of fits … because what they were saying is you can have a sustainable business — like sustainable tech company or a sustainable software company — in this area, and so what we’re proving is that we can have a sustainable film company in the area,” said Hadikin.

In fact, the pair ultimately want Stacked Films “to be the biggest production company that the world has ever seen.”

Along with that goal comes the hope of bringing more employment to the area.

“We want to be able to … find the work and contract it out” explained Hall. “So it’s me and Tyler that run the company, but at the same time we have a huge network of people that we can contact at any time who can come out and do like you’re photography, or you videography, or your live streaming or anything really.”

The current team also includes Drikie Van Tonder, a photographer who has also been helping Hadikin and Hall with marketing and graphic design.

Looking forward to upcoming projects, Hadikin and Hall are in discussions with The Goat radio station to cover live events for the web, and will be heading down to Oregon to cover UTV Takeover from June 14 to 18. Last year the event attracted over 10,000 people.

“So this year’s just going to be that much bigger,” said Hadikin.

The two have also been throwing around the idea of producing a short film featuring Shaw Hook, a DJ, a pontoon party boat, wakeboard boats and stunts.

For more information about Stacked Films, visit stackedfilms.com.

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Tyler Hadikin with one of Staked Films’ drones. (Submitted)
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Steve Hall and Tyler Hadikin started Stacked Films together in September. (Submitted)