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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.

Sam & Dean & Cas? Supernatural’s New Demon-Hunting Trio in Downtown Vancouver for Ep. 8×08

Whatever happened to Castiel in Purgatory, he didn’t look so cuckoo-bananas last night in downtown Vancouver filming a scene for episode eight of the eighth season with his BFFs Sam & Dean. The scene itself was pretty simple: the trio get out of the Impala and walk over to a crime scene at the Lumbermens Building on Richards Street turned Oklahoma Bank of Commerce. Simple and quick. But in between takes, we witnessed all kinds of hijinks.

Jared Padalecki (Sam) and Jensen Ackles (Dean) kept howling with laughter in the Impala. I blame Misha Collins (Castiel), the shadowy figure in the back seat. All three have a comedic gift, but Collins is the true comic. I will miss his cuckoo-bananas Cas if he’s recovered his sanity in season eight.

On the way back to the Impala, Misha Collins (Castiel) kept staring up at something in the building opposite. He even pointed at it, bringing Jared Padalecki (Sam) into it. [UPDATE: That’s the prop cartoon black hole in the wall that Dean puts his hand through.]

Read More »Sam & Dean & Cas? Supernatural’s New Demon-Hunting Trio in Downtown Vancouver for Ep. 8×08

SHOOT: Olivia & the FRINGE Resistance in 2036 – Updated

Now that Olivia has been de-ambered in Fringe’s fifth season premiere, it’s time (overdue) to share her reunion with her scattered family and ongoing role in the Fringe resistance in 2036. In tonight’s episode, In Absentia, Olivia (Anna Torv) is part of the team searching the under-Observer-control Harvard campus for a hidden tunnel into Walter’s lab, played by the west entrance to the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at the University of British Columbia, not by the main entrance to the CHEM building like it has been in the past.

I came to the scene late in mid-August and so was at the wrong end to capture the Fringe team’s faces like a set photographer did here. It was the first time I’d seen Olivia (after 20 years encased in amber) on location with her estranged husband Peter (Joshua Jackson), her father-in-law Walter (John Noble), her grownup daughter Etta (Georgina Haig) and her colleague and friend Astrid (Jasika Nicole) in 2036.

Read More »SHOOT: Olivia & the FRINGE Resistance in 2036 – Updated

CULT’s Robert Knepper & Alona Tal Film the Show-Within-A-Show at the Vancouver Art Gallery for 1×07

Updated April 10, 2013 – This was the last episode of Cult aired by The CW before it cancelled the show.

Cult filmed scenes of Cult — its show-within-a-show — today at the Vancouver Art Gallery, with Robert Knepper (Prison Break)’s cult leader speaking about a proposed youth centre while Alona Tal’s police officer opens the trunk of the red car featured in the show-within-a-show. Confused yet?

You should be. “When the line between the imagined and reality is broken” is the meta tagline of The CW’s midseason series Cult. Matt Davis (The Vampire Diaries) stars as Jeff, an investigative journalist searching for his brother whose disappearance may be linked to the fans of a TV series called Cult (which stars Robert Knepper and Alona Tal’s characters) recreating what they’ve seen on the show. Jeff enlists the help of Jessica Lucas’s production assistant Skye from the show-within-a-show. Hopefully, all this meta-ness will be easier to follow when we see it on screen early next year.

Read More »CULT’s Robert Knepper & Alona Tal Film the Show-Within-A-Show at the Vancouver Art Gallery for 1×07

Kristin Lehman as Vancouver Detective Angie Flynn Filming at the Olympic Village for CTV’s MOTIVE – Updated

If I hadn’t heard that Motive cast Kristin Lehman as divorced, single mother Angie [Flynn], a “feisty female Vancouver detective” solving murders in the midseason 13-episode CTV series, I might not have recognized her today in Olympic Plaza at The Village on False Creek. There’s very little of “Lady Eaton”, as her political campaign consultant Gwen Eaton on The Killing was known, in this new character Angie [Flynn] with her leather jacket, kickass boots and permed hair.

Motive’s twist is to reveal the killer at the start of each episode and then let us follow along Angie [Flynn]’s efforts to solve the murder and uncover the reasons behind it. One of today’s scenes was of [Flynn] talking with someone over coffee at a makeshift cafe at the northeast corner of Olympic Plaza.

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Read More »Kristin Lehman as Vancouver Detective Angie Flynn Filming at the Olympic Village for CTV’s MOTIVE – Updated

SHOOT: FRINGE Fights the Future at the Olympic Village Redux for 5×07

The last time Fringe decorated the False Creek waterfront at the Olympic Village with Observer posters to signify a future set in 2036, it was for season four’s Letters of Transit,  the gateway episode into the show’s fifth and final season. Fans lucky enough to see filming that day got a sneak peek at Observer overlords, Loyalist troops, a silver-haired Nina Sharp (Blair Brown) in a wheel chair and a blonde Olivia lookalike, who turned out to be POlivia’s grownup daughter Etta (Georgina Haig).

Last Friday, Fringe returned to the Village on False Creek, but this time it was amber-preserved Olivia (Anna Torv) kneeling down to talk to wheelchair bound Nina Sharp, not her lookalike daughter. Walter Bishop (John Noble), looking less befuddled than in Letters of Transit, and his faithful companion Astrid (Jasika Nicole), joined the pair for a long walk (roll)-and-talk along the seawall.

Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE Fights the Future at the Olympic Village Redux for 5×07

WEEK: September 24-30 2012