Written by The Location Guide on May 23, 2012. Posted in On Location

ADVERTORIAL: Olympiyskiy - Kiev stadium hosting the Euro 2012 final

Everybody knows that the Euro 2012 football championship will take place in Ukraine and Poland. The infrastructure provided for the competition in both countries includes highways, bridges, high-speed trains and hotels.

A lot of changes were made, especially in Ukraine, but this article will focus on the Ukrainian stadiums. New stadiums have been purposely built in Lvov, Kharkov, Donetsk and Kiev. We will talk about one arena – the main stadium in Kiev, one of the four rebuilt arenas in Ukraine. It’s the stadium where the Euro 2012 final will take place.

Toy Pictures - the leading Ukrainian production studio - was the first production company allowed to shoot on the reconstructed 'Olympiyskiy' arena, one month before the first football match in this stadium.

It’s well known that shooting in a big arena in Europe is very expensive and has a lot of restrictions. As you can see there is a wide variety of possible stories to shoot in Kiev, such as football, track and field athletics stories (the stadium is equipped with running tracks).

The main benefit of shooting at this stadium is that the rental fee is only EUR12,000. This price is far less than in any other European capital and it only takes two days to get a filming permit. If necessary actors can go out on the green in special shoes.

We did a shoot with tracers (parkour talents) on the 'Olympiyskiy'. They were running and jumping around the seats and steel constructions of the arena. Because of production’s good relationship with the stadium's administration we were allowed to do a photo shoot, stunt masters' tests, a technical recce and also use the local half light during the night shoot. All of these features were included in a one-day shooting deal.

The director’s name is Bruce Parramore. This was his impression about the stadium and about the shooting arrangements in Ukraine:

"I started working here eight years ago. I have met many talented and nice people in the business who were just starting out. Like any other businesses the film industry needs time to grow and become professional. It has now become a very high-performing and positive industry to work with!

"I like working here a lot and I've got many friends in Kiev. I am very impressed with Toy Pictures, the production company with whom I was working on this project. There was no difference between them and the top production companies in London or Germany.

"I tip my hat to Dmitry, the Executive Producer. This was an incredibly complicated project, with five films to complete in two night shoots with two Alexas, one Canon and a Supertechnocrane. We were shooting on two sets at a time on the stadium. A great crew! Lots of fun."

To view other work from Toy Pictures click here.

As a reminder we should say that since 2004 EU, US, UK and Japanese citizens do not need any visas to enter Ukraine.

Toy Pictures Film Production Service will be in Cannes Lions this year!

You can contact them via email on their site and make an appointment.