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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.

SHOOT: Rachel Nichols & 250 Protester/Police Extras Film CONTINUUM 2×10 in Gastown’s Blood Alley

Continuum staged a big protest scene in Gastown’s Blood Alley today with Vancouver-cop-from-the-future Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) shoved around in a crowd as hundreds of protester extras battled police extras in full riot gear. In one scene, Kiera ran out of the melee in her black high-tech cat suit, boots and a sky-blue jacket. But this was a rare sighting. Most of the time you couldn’t see her in the throng of up to 250 background performers.

Luckily, there’s another chance to see her at the Continuum panel at Fan Expo Vancouver this Saturday, April 20th, at Canada Place. Cast Rachel Nichols, Victor Webster, Erik Knudsen, Lexa Doig, Luvia Petersen, Stephen Lobo, Jennifer Spence and Omari Newton are scheduled to be there at noon in Ballroom A.  And fans are promised a sneak peek of season two, which premieres this Sunday, April 21st, at 9 p.m. on Showcase in Canada.

Read More »SHOOT: Rachel Nichols & 250 Protester/Police Extras Film CONTINUUM 2×10 in Gastown’s Blood Alley

TRAILERS: Henry Cavill Becomes the MAN OF STEEL in Vancouver, Nanaimo & Ucluelet in B.C. and Plano & Chicago in Illinois

Superman Begins. Clark Kent becomes Superman in the new official Man of Steel trailer released today. Scenes of grownup Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) as a fisherman were shot in Ucluelet on Vancouver Island. Other scenes of Clark Kent as a logger were filmed partly in Nanaimo at the Cassidy Hotel. And those of a shirtless Clark Kent leading a rescue on an oil rig in stormy seas were shot partly on a vast green screen stage at the Vancouver Drydocks in North Vancouver.

Related: Shirtless Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel on a North Shore Green Screen Stage

 Man of Steel is the origin story of a modern super hero and it looks spectacular.

[sz-youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T6DJcgm3wNY” /]

Read More »TRAILERS: Henry Cavill Becomes the MAN OF STEEL in Vancouver, Nanaimo & Ucluelet in B.C. and Plano & Chicago in Illinois

SHOOT: Road Biker Extras at Two Chefs & a Table for WORDS AND PICTURES

Last Thursday feature film Words and Pictures had a last-minute casting call for bike rider extras to film on Monday. Turns out the scene was not a road race as expected but a gathering of friends in bike gear inside Two Chefs & a Table restaurant on Alexander Street in the Downtown Eastside.

The scene: outside the restaurant — renamed The Grill — a man in spandex bike attire talks on his cellphone before going inside to join his road racer friends.

Read More »SHOOT: Road Biker Extras at Two Chefs & a Table for WORDS AND PICTURES

SHOOT: Norma & Deputy Sheriff Shelby Hook Up at BATES MOTEL in Aldergrove for 1×04

Bates Motel has been renewed for a second season.

The one and only time I visited the 12-room motel and gothic house set in Aldergrove last year happened to be the day that Bates Motel filmed Norma’s estranged son Dylan catching her and Deputy Sheriff Zach Shelby coming out of a motel room after a steamy hookup. Since my visit was four months before the show’s premiere, I didn’t know what I was seeing. Now I realize that the motorcycle parked near the motel office belongs to Dylan (Max Thieriot) and the black jeep in the parking lot to Deputy Sheriff Zach Shelby (Mike Vogel). And if I’d got there earlier I might have seen Norma (Vera Farmiga) on set too. Or perhaps she was in the motel room when Mike Vogel came out during a break in filming, crossed the street and walked past me to grab something from the craft tent. Do you remember that scene of Norma and Zach coming out of the motel room from last week’s Trust Me?

Dylan: Hello there Norma. How are those new linens working out for you?

Norma turns to Zach and says: This is my son Dylan. And this is Zack Shelby.

Awkward silence.

Norma: Umm I’m gonna go get my car….

Shelby coolly walks to his black jeep, turns on the ignition and drives away as Dylan smokes and stares from a plastic green chair.

Promotional still from A&E of Dylan and Zach Shelby.

Copyright A&E

Read More »SHOOT: Norma & Deputy Sheriff Shelby Hook Up at BATES MOTEL in Aldergrove for 1×04

WEEK: April 8-14, 2013

  • Sunday, April 14th – Once Upon a Time recap The Price of Magic airs, narrated by Alan Dale with help from showrunners Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz.
  • Sunday, Arpil 14th – Bravo pilot  Rita  with Anna Gunn (Breaking Brad) and Josh Hamilton films at West Vancouver Community Centre.
  • Saturday, Arpil 13th – First Weekend Club event at 7:50 p.m. showing of Vancouver feature Becoming Redwood at International Village.  Q&A with some cast and producers after film, followed by drinks at Gastown’s Portside Pub.
  • Saturday, April 13th – Simon Pegg’s Hector & the Search for Happiness films at Burrard Ironworks
  • Saturday, April 13th – Deadline: Hollywood’s Primetime Pilot Panic Early Buzz 2 with nods to ABC pilot Big Thunder, ABC short presentation Once Wonderland, The CW’s The 100, NBC’s I Am Victor and Bravo’s Rita but FOX pilot Human still listed by earlier title InHuman.
  • Saturday, April 13th – Canada becoming sci-fi leader led by Vancouver’s own cop-from-the-future series Continuum. Globe and Mail Arts article.
  • Friday, April 12th – Vancouver feature Becoming Redwood opens at Internatiional Village. Interview with Vancouver writer-director Jesse James Miller in  YVRShoots Series for Vancouver is Awesome.
  • Friday, April 12th – ABC short presentation Once  Wonderland (potential Once Upon a Time spinoff) with Sophie Lowe as Alice wraps filming in Vancouver.
  • Friday, April 12th – CBS pilot Backstrom with Rainn Wilson as House-like detective wraps filming in Vancouver.
  • Friday, April 12th – Man of Steel’s Henry Cavill on cover of Entertainment Weekly’s Summer Movies issue.
  • Friday, April 12th – 3rd season set, prop & costume sale for hit sitcom Mr. Young at Burnaby studio (5828 Byrne Rd).  April 12 (10am-4pm)
  • Friday, April 12th – Globe and Mail reports amalgamation of B.C. Film Commission and B.C. Film + Media into Creative BC in a bid to help Save BC Film.
  • Friday, April 12th – TVLine gets official confirmation that Curtis Armstrong is Metatron, the scribe of God,  in Supernatural. Saw Armstrong filming with Misha Collins in Deep Cove.
  • Thursday, April 11th –  Arrow films season finale overnight at Terminal City Ironworks complex in east Vancouver. Stephen Amell on set.
  • Thursday, April 11th – The Killing  films on trails past Lafarge Lake in Coquitlam.
  • Thursday, April 11th – Set, prop & costume sale for sitcom Mr. Young at Burnaby studio (5828 Byrne Rd). April 11 (12-4 pm) ending after three seasons.
  • Thursday, April 11th – Words and Pictures seeks bike rider extras for filming on Monday April 15.
  • Wednesday, April 10th – Amanda Tapping-directed Arctic Air 2×12 airs, with Dragons’ Den dragon David Chilton (The Wealthy Barber) guest-starring as himself in Burnaby as Calgary.
  • Wednesday, April 10th – Psych wedding on 7×07 directed by James Roday as Lassie (Timothy Omundson) marries his gal Marlowe (Kristy Swanson). But first the bachelor party.
  • Wednesday, April 10th – Rogue 1×03 Cathy’s Song with Grace (Thandie Newton) discovering link between one of Jimmy (Marton Csokas)’s associates and her son’s death on
    Read More »WEEK: April 8-14, 2013

SHOOT: Anna Gunn & Josh Hamilton Film Bravo Pilot RITA at West Vancouver Community Centre

Update: July 26, 2013. Bravo passes on the pilot Rita. Will not be picked up to series.

Crew for Bravo’s first original drama pilot Rita turned the east parking lot of the West Vancouver Community Centre into a rich parents’ pickup point for fictional Connecticut private school Cabott Academy today. Adapted from a Danish series, Rita (Anna Gunn of  Breaking Bad) is a forthright but witty teacher at Cabott Academy, one with a different view of life than the affluent, overprotective parents of her students. In a scene this afternoon, she walks out of the school’s Learning Annex where she has words with a parent and then talks with the school prinicpal Terrence (Josh Hamilton), who has a big crush on the sexy staffer, before she walks away.

It sounds like an easy scene to shoot until you consider the dozens of student and parent background performers leaving school at the same time and walking through a gridlock of luxury vehicles moving in a small confined area (extras were asked to bring their own high-end cars but wardrobe did a little upgrading to make the drivers look more like American east coast 1 per-centers). Director Miguel Arteta used a technocrane to cover the melee of students leaving and a second camera to focus on the two cast members.

Read More »SHOOT: Anna Gunn & Josh Hamilton Film Bravo Pilot RITA at West Vancouver Community Centre

SHOOT: Jon Tenney & Rebecca Romijn Film KING & MAXWELL 1×02 at Ivanhoe Hotel

Update: King & Maxwell 1×02 Second Chances aired June 17, 2013 on TNT.

Upcoming TNT series King & Maxwell filmed in and around the Ivanhoe Hotel on Main Street last week with Sean King (Jon Tenney from The Closer) and Michelle Maxwell (Rebecca Romijn from The X-Men franchise)  arriving at a Washington, D.C. crime scene on Station Street behind the hotel. And then moved into Pacific Central station to film more scenes.

King & Maxwell — characters from the David Baldacci books — are secret service agents turned private investigators.

Read More »SHOOT: Jon Tenney & Rebecca Romijn Film KING & MAXWELL 1×02 at Ivanhoe Hotel

SHOOT: FOX Pilot ALMOST HUMAN Films Under Cambie Bridge with Joel Wyman on Set

Crew for the FOX pilot Almost Human (formerly Human) built a futuristic coffee kiosk on a sidewalk under the Cambie Bridge to shoot a scene on Easter Monday of masked kidnappers abducting a plainclothes Los Angeles police officer and driving away. I got there too late to see the abduction so I don’t know which actor was taken, but this is probably the officer whom John Kennex (Karl Urban of Star Trek) and his android cop partner Dorian (Michael Ealy) try to rescue from Gastown’s Winters Hotel.

Related: Karl Urban and Michael Ealy Film Almost Human at Gastown’s Winters Hotel

J.J. Abrams and Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman’s futuristic buddy cop show is about LAPD officers partnered with androids and focuses on one particular pairing between John Kemnex and android Dorian, where the android displays more emotions than the human because the human is shut down after getting seriously hurt on a mission. Other characters include a cop-with-strong-morals Valerie Stahl (Minka Kelly), another police officer (Michael Irby) and the police captain (Lili Taylor).

Related: Karl Urban and Minka Kelly film Almost Human in Vancouver’s Business District

Brad Anderson (The Machinist) directed the pilot not Joel Wyman but Wyman was in Vancouver overseeing production. I spotted him without his mohawk on set last week conferring with Anderson between takes under the Cambie Bridge.

Read More »SHOOT: FOX Pilot ALMOST HUMAN Films Under Cambie Bridge with Joel Wyman on Set