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Susan Gittins

Longtime mainstream media (MSM) journalist and author Susan Gittins began writing about and photographing Vancouver’s many film and TV location shoots in the summer of 2010 after the Winter Olympics put the city and its beauty on the world stage. Movies and TV series often showcase the Vancouver area in similar fashion. Vancouver is Awesome commissioned her YVRShoots series in the fall of 2010 and it ran regularly for three years. She launched her own daily YVRShoots blog in the spring of 2012.

PROMOS: Who is Dr. Whale? ONCE UPON A TIME 2×05 The Doctor Spoiler Promo

So many of us were keeping the secret of Dr. Whale’s Fairytale Land identity on Once Upon a Time, not wanting to ruin the surprise. Too late. The promo for next Sunday’s The Doctor gave it away. Or as David Anders tweeted: “Hello Fans all over the globe & Bulgaria! Tune in next week 2 #OnceuponaTime 4 ‘The Doctor’ The promo ruined it but watch it anyway. Oy vey.”

In late July, an insider let slip Dr. Whale’s Fairytale Land identity to a friend of mine when she was on set in Steveston during the filming of the season two premiere and six weeks later in early September, I was one of the privileged few (along with half-a-dozen visiting Evil Regal fans from all over the U.S.) allowed to watch the filming of Lana Parrilla as a young woman in a tent deep in the woods of Robert Burnaby Park with David Anders as his Fairytale Land character apparently trying to re-animate a male corpse (played by a dummy when I was there).

A week earlier, fans in Steveston as Storybrooke had witnessed the ghostly appearance of Regina’s lost love Daniel in a rainstorm. A Daniel stunt double bore the brunt of the deluge but some are convinced they saw Noah Bean on set that night too.

If you still haven’t figured out Dr. Whale’s Fairytale Land identity and really don’t want to know, please stop reading now.

Read More »PROMOS: Who is Dr. Whale? ONCE UPON A TIME 2×05 The Doctor Spoiler Promo

SHOOT: FRINGE at Britannia Heritage Shipyard Park in Steveston for 5×09 – Updated

Fringe spent the day filming two boats — a Loyalist zodiac and [a small dinghy] — arriving and departing from a dock at the Britannia Heritage Shipyard, but not without incident. Simulated gunfire, stunt doubles and stunt mats suggest something went down out there.

We couldn’t see much of  the action from a grassy area north of set except for the cast — Anna Torv’s Olivia Dunham, Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop, John Noble’s Walter Bishop and Jasika Nicole’s Astrid — coming and going. But we did catch a glimpse of Joshua Jackson’s Peter running along the dock with his big backpack. Whatever happened, these scenes will be part of the ninth episode of Fringe’s fifth and final season.

Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE at Britannia Heritage Shipyard Park in Steveston for 5×09 – Updated

Kristin Lehman and Louis Ferreira Film CTV’s MOTIVE in Downtown Vancouver for 1×07 – Updated

Updated March 21st, 2013, the night 1×07 Out of the Past aired.

I only saw Louis Ferreira’s Col. Young once on location for Stargate Universe (SGU), so I didn’t recognize Ferreira on a wet Friday night more than a week ago as Vancouver detective Oscar Vega for midseason CTV series Motive. I should have known from Kristin Lehman’s laughter who her detective partner is. Ferreira is known for serious, dramatic and sometimes psychotic roles but is a crazy, wild, hilarious cutup of a guy out of character.

Motive filmed its crime scene in the rain at the corner of Howe and Nelson in the Ash Market with prop Metro Police cars flashing (not with actual Vancouver Police decals like Continuum uses). The show’s twist is to reveal the killer at the start of each episode and then let us follow along the detectives’ efforts to solve the murder and uncover the reasons behind it.

Kristin Lehman from The Killing is the lead as “feisty female Vancouver detective” Angie Flynn, a divorced, single Mom solving murders on a series populated with other Canadian actors. In fact, Peter Kelamis just tweeted he has been cast as a guest actor so we can look forward to an SGU Brody-Col. Young reunion on screen sometime in 2013.

Read More »Kristin Lehman and Louis Ferreira Film CTV’s MOTIVE in Downtown Vancouver for 1×07 – Updated

WEEK: October 15-21, 2012

SHOOT: RED WIDOW & Sons Film at Terminal City Ironworks Compound in East Vancouver

Inspired by a popular Dutch TV show, midseason ABC series Red Widow is about a San Francisco mobster’s widow, Marta Walraven, forced to replace her husband as head of a crime syndicate after his murder. She does this to protect her three children, two of whom were in a scene with her at the Terminal City Ironworks compound in east Vancouver yesterday. The eldest son Gabriel ( Sterling Beaumon) called down to his mother Marta (Radha Mitchell) and younger brother Boris (Jakob Salvati) from the roof of one of the buildings dressed as Keller’s Hardware.

It appeared to be the last exterior scene before production moved inside the compound for a long night shoot.

Read More »SHOOT: RED WIDOW & Sons Film at Terminal City Ironworks Compound in East Vancouver

VIFF: Vancouver as Vancouver in RANDOM ACTS OF ROMANCE

Published October 19, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome.

It’s not often in this series that I get an opportunity to talk about movies where Vancouver plays itself, but once a year several locally-filmed features are screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival. This year I got to see director Katrin Bowen’s sold-out Vancouver film Random Acts of Romance on my third try last Friday night.

“Sex, Abduction, Stalking and You Thought Romance Was Dead” is the tagline. The film opens in east Vancouver’s Waldorf Hotel with our two married couples out for the evening: Amanda Tapping’s Dianne married to Zak Santiago’s younger man Matt and Laura Bertram’s young wife Holly married to Robert Moloney’s David. Elsewhere in the restaurant is Ted Whittall’s single sleezeball Richard, breaking up with his latest conquest. Add Sonja Bennett’s single, completely wacko stalker Lynne and Katharine Isabelle’s lesbian Bud to this mix of interconnected Vancouverites and you get random acts of violent romance.

At last Friday’s screening, the very tall Katrin Bowen (below) spoke about the importance of setting her movie in Vancouver in all its “rain, sex and awkwardness.” She wanted  the city to “take on a personna”. It helps that 95% of the movie soundtrack is music from Vancouver indie bands, many discovered at the Biltmore and Cobalt Hotels. And that there are so many scenes set in recognizable locations like the denouement of an abduction under the south end of the Burrard Bridge.

But the big question for the director last Friday was: how did you get Vancouver’s Sci-fii Queen Amanda Tapping to star in your movie? It turns out Katrin Bowen and Tapping became fast-friends years ago when Bowen worked as Tapping’s photo double/standin on the first Stargate TV series, Stargate SG-1. Read More »VIFF: Vancouver as Vancouver in RANDOM ACTS OF ROMANCE

SHOOT: FRINGE’s POlivia on the Vancouver Art Gallery Roof in a Rainstorm for 5×08 – Updated

Fringe crew set up for filming on the Vancouver Art Gallery’s north plaza last night in a torrential downpour and then filmed scenes in slightly less of a deluge. The last hours of filming for the final season’s eighth episode turned out to be one wet slog. Background women were allowed to keep their umbrellas for the scenes to protect their hair and 1940s garb but background Observers had nothing but their fedora hats to keep them dry during a take. [Update: POlivia filmed highly emotional scenes on the roof under a scrim of Anna Torv’s Olivia convincing Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop to take the Observer tech out of his head.]

Earlier in the day, Joshua Jackson’s Peter and Michael Kopsa’s Captain Windmark were spotted heading to set inside CBC Vancouver [where they filmed a stunt fight in empty office space on the east side] but rain-drenched fans only observed Kopsas’s Windmark at the night shoot when I was there.

Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE’s POlivia on the Vancouver Art Gallery Roof in a Rainstorm for 5×08 – Updated

SHOOT: RED WIDOW at its Russian Mob Restaurant in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside – Updated

Midseason ABC series Red Widow — about San Francisco widow Marta Walraven forced to replace her mobster husband as head of a crime syndicate after his murder — filmed at its regular location in Lana Lou’s restaurant dressed as Cafe Rossiya in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside today. Australian Radha Mitchell, who stars as the widow, stayed inside the restaurant along with Erin Moriarty as her daughter Natalie, Luke Goss (Hellboy II) as bodyguard Luther and Lee Tergesen (Oz) as mob foot soldier Steven Tomlin in the morning scenes.

After those wrapped, a Red Widow steadycam crew filmed an exterior scene of Wil Traval (someone I haven’t seen on set before) as Irwin Lazarev [talking to Erin Cahill’s character and then] walking to his car.

Read More »SHOOT: RED WIDOW at its Russian Mob Restaurant in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside – Updated