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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.

SET: EMILY OWENS M.D.’s Robert H. Johnson High School

If you’ve seen any of the teasers or trailers for upcoming The CW hospital drama series Emily Owens, M.D., then you’ll know that social nerd Emily Owens (Mamie Gummer) has conversations with her younger high school self through a chain link fence. I’ve seen the hospital side of these conversations at the University of British Columbia’s Irving K. Barber Learning Centre made to look like Denver Memorial Hospital. And today I hoped to catch the school side of these conversations at Lord Byng High School made to look like Robert H. Johnson High School. But mis-timed it. Here’s the set. And here’s a link to the new show poster of frazzled Emily — Practicing Medicine. Working on Life.

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SHOOT: FRINGE’s Big 2036 Scene at UBC’s Clock Tower for 5×02

On Monday, Fringe transformed the area around the Clock Tower at the University of British Columbia into a checkpoint in 2036 — a time when Observer overlords rule the world — for the first day of filming of its second episode in season five. Ahead of the big Clock Tower scene, Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson wrapped a different scene which I’m not uploading photos from and not saying when it takes place. But here’s Torv delighting a Fringe fan (in town for The Fringe Event last weekend) by signing her Fringe fedora from Comic-Con in San Diego. And here’s Jackson making one of his zillion facial expressions. He’s one of the most animated people I’ve ever seen and I’m not alone in saying this.

Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE’s Big 2036 Scene at UBC’s Clock Tower for 5×02

PSYCH 6×11 Heeeeere’s Lassie in the West End on Global TV

It was Timothy Omundson’s turn to shiiine tonight in a The Shining-themed season six episode called Heeeeere’s Lassie on Global TV. His normally buttoned-down Santa Barbara police detective Carlton “Lassie” Lassiter goes psycho after buying a condominium in the Prospect Gardens apartments, a place he comes to believe is haunted. And that forces this skeptic to hire the services of  James Roday’s psychic detective Shawn Spencer and his BFF, Dule Hill’s Burton “Gus” Guster, who come dressed as ghost busters.

James Roday directed this episode with a lot of horror film sight gags, like a pregnant woman named Rosemary (Rosemary’s Baby) and the twin old ladies, boy on a toy bicycle, chandelier dripping with blood, labyrinth in the basement and a dishevelled Lassie chasing Gus through it (The Shining). Here’s Omundson below looking very Jack Nicholson emerging from the building after filming. And this is what he tweeted after wrapping the episode last summer:  “Just got in from a Looooong day at work. Well…5 of them to be exact. Gonna clean my gun, press my bullet proof vest and hit the rack.”

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Ian Tracey and Nicholas Lea Guest-Star on CONTINUUM Season One Finale

In early May, Continuum filled the 600 block Thurlow in downtown Vancouver with 125 extras, flashing prop Vancouver police cars, an emergency vehicle and a firetruck to film scenes of a bomb scare evacuation for last night’s season finale, featuring stars Rachel Nichols and Victor Webster and guest stars Ian Tracey (Da Vinci’s Inquest, Intelligence, Sanctuary), as the wonderfully wacky man from the future, and Nicholas Lea (The X-Files, V), as a suspicious CSIS officer. Unfortunately this bomb scare turned out to be a diversion and the building that Liber8 had targeted was the iconic Arthur Erickson-designed concrete tower at 1075 West Georgia next door.

Read More »Ian Tracey and Nicholas Lea Guest-Star on CONTINUUM Season One Finale

CONTINUUM Digitally Explodes Arthur Erickson-Designed Building in Season One Finale

On Continuum’s season finale entitled Endtime, Rachel Nichols’s Kiera Cameron and Erik Knudsen’s Alec Sandler race to prevent a 2012 terrorist attack which defines the future, set off by Tony Amedola’s Liber8 leader Kagame, who’d been sent back in time to do exactly this. I saw them film Nichols and Knudsen running into the iconic Arthur Erickson-designed building at 1075 West Georgia Street in Vancouver in early May in take after take. Zooming in, I could see them in conversation with someone in a police uniform but never suspected it was Tony Amendola’s Kagame. Watching the finished product last night, I wondered if the late Arthur Erickson would be pleased or annoyed to see his building digitally destroyed like this on screen. I think he would be pleased.

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ARROW Kicks Glass (and Ass) at CBC Vancouver for Ep. 1×03

Upcoming TV series Arrow kicked glass — literally — at CBC Vancouver late Friday night. A Green Arrow stunt double burst through a “candy glass” window on the east wall feet first to the sounds of prop gunfire. Crew had spent the day setting up for this and we were hopeful that star Stephen Amell, who quietly boasts of doing roughly 75% of his own stunts, would perform this one. But not when there’s glass involved. Even stunt glass. Filming lasted overnight so Amell could have got plenty of action inside, which we couldn’t see, facing off against arch-villain Deadshot played by Michael Rowe, who tweeted he was on set. It’s a good bet that it was Deadshot who fired a prop rifle out of the open window on the left earlier in the evening. We’ll have to wait to see the third episode to find out, but clearly this show has not let up on the kick-assedness of its pilot.

Read More »ARROW Kicks Glass (and Ass) at CBC Vancouver for Ep. 1×03