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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.

YVRSHOOT: Magic Makes a Big Mess of Steveston’s Moncton Street in ONCE UPON A TIME 2×02

Magic has made a big mess of Main Street in Storybrooke (played by Moncton Street in Steveston south of Vancouver) for modern-day fairy tale series Once Upon a Time in episode two of the second season. Main Street is a disaster zone, with uprooted ashphalt, overturned and smashed-up cars, a downed telephone pole, blown-out windows, and the hull of a boat near the main intersection. Fortunately, the many local fans of the show could see some main cast alive and well amid the debris on the artfully-destroyed street.

Meghan Ory, Lee Arenberg and the Evil Queen herself, Lana Parrilla, did some early morning scenes, leaving the afternoon for Josh Dallas to chase a Mad Hat (see if you can spot the black top hat in the photos below) east along the street and then into the alley next to Storybrooke Country Bread. Dallas ran and ran and ran all afternoon in stages, and then met with fans at the finish. As I’ve said before, he’s a Prince Charming in real life, too.

When I returned in the evening, it looked like Josh Dallas was in for another bout of running, but to chase the Mad Hatter himself, Sebastian Stan, not a Mad Hat. Stan soaked his shirt with perspiration running west down the street in the evening heat. Why was he running from Charming? It seems the Mad Hatter knows something about the whereabouts of Ginnifer Goodwin’s Snow White and Jennifer Morrison’s Emma Swan, who are nowhere to be seen in Storybrooke. What’s happened to them? We’ll have to wait until season two begins airing to find out.

I don’t know how Once Upon a Time filmed so many scenes and managed the hundreds of fans who flocked to set all day and evening long. Read More »YVRSHOOT: Magic Makes a Big Mess of Steveston’s Moncton Street in ONCE UPON A TIME 2×02

Supernatural Films Season 8 Premiere at the University of British Columbia

Seeing both of the Winchester brothers filming the Supernatural season eight premiere at the University of British Columbia would have been quite the spoiler if producers hadn’t already revealed that it takes place a year after the events of the season seven finale and that Dean Winchester’s time in Purgatory will be told mainly through flashbacks. In today’s scene, Jensen Ackles’s Dean Winchester and Jared Padalecki’s Sam Winchester stroll down the Main Mall outside the CHEM building dressed in suits amid background performers.

I arrived just as they wrapped at the CHEM building so I decided to head to the White Spot outlet on the west side of the Main Mall to pick up a Triple-O burger. Halfway there, I realized that Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki were headed to the same place, tossing a football back and forth on the way. Supernatural had booked the patio for the next scene.

Read More »Supernatural Films Season 8 Premiere at the University of British Columbia

SHOOT: From Utopian to Dystopian. FRINGE Family Fights the Future for S5 Premiere – Updated

On the same day that Fringe filmed that utopian Fringe family picnic in 2015 with Peter, Olivia and young Etta (Henrietta) for the season five premiere, they filmed a dystopian scene of the Fringe family as members of the resistance fighting the Observer overlords in 2036 with Walter, Peter and grownup Etta but no Olivia.

The big family reunion in 2036 apparently happens early in the season premiere, according to Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman, but Olivia’s meetup with her grownup daughter won’t be quite what we expect. Meantime, here are three of the four members of the family destined to fight the future: John Noble’s Walter Bishop, Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop, and Georgina Haig’s Etta Bishop.

It’s Fringe Division’s final stand. This now insurgent group, which includes Jasika Nicole’s Astrid, filmed take after take of them exiting a dirty old van and then collectively gazing up in the direction of huge green screens on an empty lot next to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Village. (The grey-haired fellow is a background performer not the real thing,)

Read More »SHOOT: From Utopian to Dystopian. FRINGE Family Fights the Future for S5 Premiere – Updated