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.
The Only Way to Survive is to Evolve. It’s not a sleeping disorder Stephen (Robbie Amell). You woke up shirtless in a couple’s bed because… Read More »TRAILER: The CW’s THE TOMORROW PEOPLE Starring Robbie Amell
A Coming of Age Journey. At the Dawn of a New Age. Yesterday. They Had No Hope of a Future. Today. They Are the Future’s… Read More »TRAILER: The CW’s THE 100 Starring Eliza Taylor
Update June 10, 2013 – Regina’s Wolf Cop won the $1-million in production financing and guaranteed release.
After three months of missions, CineCoup’s film accelerator has advanced three Vancouver teams — sci-fi comedy Alien Abduction, crime drama Bad and dramedy Grade Nine — one Edmonton team — sci-fi thriller The Uprising — and one Regina team — horror fantasy Wolfcop — to the final five. All five finalists are based in western Canada, so they won’t have far to travel to pitch their projects to a panel of film industry professionals at the Banff Media Festival on June 10th. At stake: up to $1-milliion in production financing and guaranteed theatrical release through Cineplex next year.
Click on the key art to go to CineCoup page for each finalist.
Read More »CINECOUP: ALIEN ABDUCTION, BAD & GRADE NINE in Film Accelerator’s Final Five
The Greatest Adventure on Earth. Begins at Sea. Greek gods are running rampant in modern America, waging war and fathering children, like young Percy Jackson… Read More »TRAILER: Greek God Adventures of PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS
Published May 31st on Vancouver is Awesome
Update June 10, 2013 – Regina’s Wolf Cop won the $1-million in production financing and guaranteed release.
How did this crazy-good film-accelerator competition start? Back at VIFF’s Film & TV Forum, CineCoup founder and Vancouver digital media entrepreneur J. Joly made a two-hour presentation and then took it on the road to other major cities across Canada. The official launch party took place at the Whistler Film Festival in early December. Word spread and 90 teams from every region submitted two-minute trailers and then began weekly filmmaker missions in March designed to help them package a pitch and build an early fan base with social media tools. Soon after, a trailer with clips from the entrants started a year-long run in 1200 Cineplex theatres nationwide. Over several rounds of fan votes, the 90 whittled down to ten in mid-May, with six of the finalists from here —Alien Abduction, Bad, Grade Nine, Scam, The Fall and The Mill and the Mountain. Let me repeat: six out of ten from Vancouver!
Read More »BIG READ: Vote for 6 Vancouver Film Teams Vying for CINECOUP’s $1-Million – Updated
Why did Psych turn half a block of Gastown into jolly old England yesterday? Crew dressed the Lamplighter Pub as The Bloody Bucket Public House,… Read More »SHOOT: James Roday & Dule Hill Film PSYCH S8 Premiere in Gastown as London
Published May 29, 2013 on Vancouver is Awesome
Hometown comedy couple Brent Butt and Nancy Robertson are set to co-host the 15th anniversary of the Leo Awards, celebrating the best of B.C.-made film and television, at the Westin Bayshore Hotel on Saturday, June 8th. Expect more than the usual hijinks with professional comedians as hosts and and a crowd of outstanding homegrown nominees led by Vancouver born-and-bred Jessie James Miller’s feature film Becoming Redwood with 14 nominations, Vancouver-cop-from-the-future series Continuum with 16 nominations and filmed-in-Vancouver-and-Yellowknife aerial adventure series Arctic Air with 14 nominations.. For tickets, click here.
The 1970s era coming-of-age film Becoming Redwood‘s 14 nominations include well-deserved director and writing nods for Jesse James Miller and performance nods for Ryan Grantham as the young golf-obsessed long-haired title character Redwood; Jennifer Copping (Miller’s wife) as Redwood’s mother; Chad Willett (producer) as Redwood’s draft-dodging, pot-dealing father; Derek Hamilton as Redwood’s red-neck stepfather Arnold and Scott Hylands as Arnold’s basement-dwelling elderly father Earl. Miller shot the Vancouver International Film Festival’s most popular Canadian feature in rural Langley for 24 days in the late spring of 2011. By contrast, Random Acts of Romance, the only other motion picture nominee I’ve seen on screen, filmed in several downtown and East Van locations like the Waldorf Hotel, as befits a movie whose tagline is “Sex, Abduction, Stalking and You Thought Romance Was Dead” about interconnected Vancouverites. Director Katrin Bowen is nominated for the twisted romcom, as is Sonja Bennett for her performance as a wacky stalker.
In the television category, Continuum dominates with 16 nominations for its first hit season, including nods for creator and UBC grad Simon Barry for his season finale script End Times about time traveller Kiera Cameron’s failure to stop “terrorist” group Liber8 from blowing up a downtown tower, a definitive moment in her corporations-rule-the-world future. Continuum digitally-imploded an Arthur Erickson-designed tower on West Georgia on screen and then filmed the aftermath on a blast-and-rubble set at CBC Vancouver.
Read More »LEO AWARDS: Brent Butt & Nancy Robertson Host Leo Awards on June 8th
For locals, Godzilla‘s Golden Gate Bridge set is Rise of the Planet of the Apes redux on the vast Kent Hangar gravel field at the Vancouver/Burnaby border. Rust-red street lights and railings. Giant greenscreens. Motorists and buses trapped on the bridge. Soldiers. Cop cars. Only this time the showdown is between the military/police and Godzilla not empowered apes. Plus the giant greenscreens are inflatable, something we haven’t seen before.
Related: Rise of the Planet of the Apes Reshoots on Golden Gate Bridge Set at Kent Hangar Field
Lieutenant Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson)’s son and schoolkid extras are on one of the Oakland, Alameda and Freemont school district buses evacuating San Francisco, as tanks with soldiers rolled by yesterday.
Read More »SHOOT: GODZILLA’s Golden Gate Bridge Set with Inflatable GreenScreens
