🔒Buster helps lead Jaigantic’s push for major New Haven movie studio project

Will Connecticut take its place as the film capital of the Northeast? Will bustling sound stages soon open overlooking the Quinnipiac River?

Will New Haven get its Hollywood ending?

Tune in to hear Jackie Buster and her employer, Jaigantic Studios, answer these questions and more in 2022. Buster holds the title of chief impact officer for Jaigantic and has taken a forward-facing role in helping the company promote its tagline: “Hollywood Has Met its East.”

Headed by Bridgeport native and action star Michael Jai White, Jaigantic entered local business circles with a splash last March.

“I want to say how proud I am for coming back home and bringing you a new venture with Jaigantic,” White said at a gala event in August promoting the company’s first phase, a set of sound studios in Shelton.

Jaigantic also drew crowds in November at the Big Connect, the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce annual business expo. Attendees stood in line most of the day to experience the company’s wraparound LED projection technology, which gives the viewer the sense of being inside a landscape.

“The idea of bringing this industry back, of trying to shoot a movie here, was always in my mind,” White told the Chamber audience. “My best work consists of uplifting my community that gave so much to me.”

Now White, Buster and the company are looking forward to opening a new set of stages in New Haven’s Fair Haven neighborhood, at 46-56 River St. Plans for construction of five to seven new sound stages in the industrial district are expected to go before city planning officials in January. If approved, the proposal will then go to the Board of Alders for a final OK.

“Hopefully they can get us approved so we can continue to take steps toward groundbreaking in late March,” Buster said. “We’ve been in conversations with the city of New Haven, which have been going very well — we believe we are on the same page.”

A graduate of Southern Connecticut State University with a degree in public relations and journalism, Buster has been front and center in speaking about Jaigantic and pitching the project to New Haven officials, community leaders and the state’s arts community.

“We’re hoping to invigorate Connecticut’s community of creatives,” Buster told the crowd of 100 arts leaders at the Shelton sound stages last August.

Tech-forward filming

State-of-the-art LED technology is the centerpiece of Jaigantic’s studio setup in Shelton, which has already served as a backdrop for a Netflix film and other projects. The company is continuing work this year to deploy two major LED setups, one 18 feet by 78 feet and the other offering 360-degree projections.

Coming up on the content slate for Jaigantic this year is a semi-autobiographical take on White’s life called “Crossroads,” and the sequel to his 2009 hit “Black Dynamite,” “Blacker Dynamite.”

Called the Creators District, Jaigantic’s New Haven complex would eventually grow to 25 stages and feature an array of production facilities in 50,000 square feet in the now-desolate area, according to initial proposals.

Leaders in neighborhoods near the proposed studio complex have questioned the scale of Jaigantic's plans and its potential use of federal tax incentives, even as City Hall has touted the project's economic promise. Downtown Wooster Square Community Management Team Chair Ian Dunn asked for more clarity about the studio’s financial resources in a September zoning meeting.

The New Haven project’s financing is in place, Buster said.

“It’s private equity, it’s a lot of contributions that came in through our employees,” she added. The studio expects to be employing close to 300 people in the city by the end of the year, she said.

Part of that workforce will also be working on Jaigantic’s other business offshoots, including an ad agency and a foundation, Buster said. Key to her and the company’s vision are well-paying jobs for local residents and training in the skills needed for the film business.

“I think that the idea that the movie studio is in Connecticut is huge, and having this [project] happen in New Haven, I think it’s phenomenal,” Buster said. “I think it's going to offer so many opportunities for people who had no inkling that they’d ever have access to this world.”

New Haven has seen many ambitious plans for its industrial graveyards and blighted areas come and go over the years, but Buster has unshakable faith in the Jaigantic project and its potential.

“We’re looking forward to finishing the build-out on our Shelton facility and we’re also looking forward to ground breaking in New Haven,” Buster said of Jaigantic’s 2022 plans. “We’re this close.”