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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.

COMIC-CON NEWS: ALMOST HUMAN Panel With Karl Urban & Michael Ealy

Friday, July 19, 2013. 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Ballroom 20.

  • “Are you out of your Vulcan mind?!” human Karl Urban (Star Trek’s Bones) says as he walks out on stage
  • Michael Ealy, the other half of the Bromance, says  he modelled android Dorian on Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne, Jeff Bridges as Starman and Robert Patrick as Terminator.
  • Fringe and Almost Human showrunner Joel Wyman says he created Almost Human to “keep Fringe fans happy”.
  • Set in 2048,  Almost Human features technology butis  more about relationships andthe  people dealing with world of the future, Wyman says
  • “I truly believe the best science fiction always reverts back to what it’s like to be human,”  Wyman says.
  • Almost Human premieres Monday, November 4th on FOX in the U.S. and Global TV in Canada.

COMIC-CON NEWS: PSYCH Panel – James Roday Joins Twitter

Thursday July 18, 2013 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Ballroom 20.

@Psych_USA.  USA Network.

Cast: Kirsten Nelson, James Roday, Maggie Lawson, Dule Hill, moderator Cary Elwes,Timothy Omundson and Corbin Bernsen.

  • James Roday is on Twitter.
  • Let me repeat. James Roday is on Twitter.
  • Psych showrunner Steve Franks is on Twitter too.
  • Psych-Os chose Dream Therapy for the fan episode. Synopsis: From acclaimed director, James Roday (Mr. Yin Presents…Heeeeere’s Lassie), comes a new vision in terror: “Nightmare on State Street”! An exhausted Gus enters dream therapy to understand the cause of his recent night terrors and nothing is ever again what it seems… In dreams, no one can hear you scream… no matter how high pitched and lady-like you sound. Dule Hill previewed a Gus scream at the panel.
  • Psych the Musical airs Sunday, December 15th, on the USA Network.
  • Psych season 8 coming this winter. Waiiit for Eight….

Read More »COMIC-CON NEWS: PSYCH Panel – James Roday Joins Twitter

SHOOT: ARROW’s Stephen Amell & David Ramsey Outside Orpheum Theatre

Oliver and Diggle on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver. Since I’d never seen Diggle (David Ramsey) on set before he’s the one I photographed before and after their walk-and-talk. It was too difficult for me to capture Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Diggle together except as shadow puppets (see below). Arrow crew closed the 800 block of Granville around 8 p.m. last night to set up for this scene, which didn’t start rolling until around 11 p.m. as the crowd gathered. Cast and crew spent the day shooting inside the historic theatre so this exterior must have been the last shoot of the day.

Read More »SHOOT: ARROW’s Stephen Amell & David Ramsey Outside Orpheum Theatre

SHOOT: The Hood is Back on ARROW S2. Stephen Amell Below the Hastings Overpass

The Hood is back for Arrow season two. Stephen Amell showed us why he’s the star of Arrow, even with his shirt on last Friday night. Not every actor is capable of the kind of  integrated stuntwork that Arrow does routinely. Amell is almost always part of a stunt so that it looks seamless on screen. And sometimes he does all of it, especially if the scene calls for running fast. Here are Amell and stunt double Simon Burnett talking through the night’s stunts with the Arrow Stunt Department on set below the Downtown Eastside’s Hasting Overpass.

Read More »SHOOT: The Hood is Back on ARROW S2. Stephen Amell Below the Hastings Overpass

SET: Downtown Eastside as ARROW’s Post-Earthquake The Glades

Team Arrow thwarted part of Malcolm Merlyn (The Dark Archer)’s plan to level The Glades with an earthquake device in the season one finale last May.  But not all of it. A good section was flattened causing the death of hundreds. The Glades is Starling City’s Downtown Eastside-equivalent: impoverished and riddled with hookers, pimps and drug dealers but also a community of people who aspire to something better. So it’s fitting that Raymur Street plays the post-Earthquake The Glades in the Arrow season 2 premiere.

 

Read More »SET: Downtown Eastside as ARROW’s Post-Earthquake The Glades

STUNT: ARROW S2 The Hood Stunt with Simon Burnett

The Arrow Stunt Department spent most of last Friday rehearsing  in the sunshine for an integrated stunt to be filmed later that night of star Stephen Amell and Hood stunt double Simon Burnett shooting a rope ascender arrow up in the air and then rising on the zipline several stories off the ground. I didn’t hear about the shoot until quite late because I expected Arrow to be filming on private Port Metro Vancouver land, not in the Downtown Eastside with a grandstand public view from the Hastings Overpass. It turned out to be a relatively private location though, because people don’t loiter in that part of east Hastings at night unless they’re  hookers, pimps, dealers or locals. I was mistaken for one of these by a guy in a BMW and later had a lengthy, circular conversation with one of the locals about gentrification of the neighbourhood.

From the overpass, you could look down on the crane, wires, stunt mats and dozens of people who make up the Arrow Stunt Department. Two of the men behind the best stunts on TV were present: stunt coordinator J.J.Makaro, who picked up a Leo Award for stunt coordination of the Arrow pilot last month, and fight designer James “Bam Bam” Bamford, who won his own Leo for stunt co-ordination of Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. Arrow’s stunt department is doing double duty this season, designing stunts for Arrow and new series The Tomorrow People starring Robbie Amell, for what is being called Amell Wednesdays on The CW.

Read More »STUNT: ARROW S2 The Hood Stunt with Simon Burnett