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Continuum

BIG READ: Vancouver Film Crews at Work – #SaveBCFilm

Published February 15, 2013 on Vancouver is Awesome

One Valentine’s night. Three shoots. Vancouver production crews worked late into the night on Valentine’s Day to film scenes for TV series Supernatural, Arrow and Vancouver’s own Continuum in the downtown area. I looped around from Supernatural on Station Street beside Pacific Central Station to Arrow on Franklin Street near the Terminal City Ironworks complex to Continuum at the Plaza of Nations and back again to capture our crews at work.

Supernatural crew worked inside and outside the Ivanhoe Hotel at the rear on Station Street, not packing up until 2 a.m. One exterior scene had Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles) arriving at the motorhome below and possibly loading a prop dead body into the trunk of a car. Arrow set up on Franklin Street either in or near the Terminal City Ironworks complex in east Vancouver to film motorcycle scenes in the morning, Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson) in a rooftop meeting and much later, someone shooting arrows into a black town car. Wonder who? Arrow ran late so probably packed up past its scheduled 2 a.m. departure.. Continuum’s crew started early too at the Plaza of Nations on the dock to film scenes aboard Kellogg (Vancouver actor Stephen Lobo)’s yacht (Adriana), then moved inside their Vancouver police station set with background performers and back outside for night scenes aboard Kellogg’s yacht and a steadicam scene of mad time traveller Jason (Vancouver actor Ian Tracey).

6:22 p.m. – Supernatural crew ready to roll at motorhome.

Our crews work up to sixteen hours a day five days a week to bring scripts to life in all kinds of weather. Mostly cold and wet. Those lucky enough to still have jobs don’t have enough time to see their loved ones on Valentine’s Day far less watch the shows they work on. So no, these aren’t “Hollywood jobs”,  but they are good well-paid ones. And they’re leaving for Toronto because of Ontario’s superior tax credits.  As a result, Vancouver lost its bragging rights as North America’s third biggest film and TV production centre to Toronto (after Los Angeles and New York). And lately, it’s gone from bad to worse. British Columbia’s third biggest industry, generating over $1 billion, faced unprecedented unemployment last month. Read More »BIG READ: Vancouver Film Crews at Work – #SaveBCFilm

SHOOT: Rachel Nichols and Victor Webster Film CONTINUUM 2×01 at the Vancouver Public Library – Updated

Updated April 21, 2013

Rachel Nichols will hijack Continuum’s official Twitter account @ContinuumSeries at 3 p.m. PT today to answer any questions you may have about her cop-from-the-corporate future show now airing its first season on Syfy in the U.S. Continuum is about CPS officer Kiera Cameron who travels back in time from Vancouver in the year 2077 to Vancouver present-day, caught up in an escape by a group of terrorists — Liber8 — who plan to change the future from the past by targeting the corporations which will come to rule the world.

Continuum began to film its second season here a couple of weeks ago on its police station set at the Plaza of Nations downtown. Often on location, the show was then spotted in Vanier Park filming near the Burrard Bridge and later shooting a stunt-fight in the CBC Vancouver parking garage with Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nicols) in her black hi-tech cat suit. [Update: The following week, the New York Times paid a set visit to Squamish where Continuum was filming scenes involving a helicopter and a wind tunnel.]

Related:  Rain Towers & Stunt for Rachel Nichols at CBC Vancouver

Related: Invisible Green Skin Suit Fighting at CBC Vancouver

On Monday, Kiera Cameron’s Vancouver police partner Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster) joined her at a crime scene in Robson Square at the iconic Vancouver Public Library (aka Fringe Division Headquarters for Fringe fans). Someone is shot at a press conference and the detective duo try to determine where the shot came from. I’m embarrassed to admit that three of us watching could end up as unfocused Lookyloos at the crime scene filmed by a steadi-cam crew circling  Nichols and Webster as they looked up at nearby rooftops. We wondered if we were in the camera shot but assumed we would have been asked to move. I like to think that I’m smarter about stuff like this on set, but apparently not.

Read More »SHOOT: Rachel Nichols and Victor Webster Film CONTINUUM 2×01 at the Vancouver Public Library – Updated

SHOOT: CONTINUUM S2’s Green Skin Suit Stunt at CBC Vancouver for 2×01 – Updated

Updated April 21, 2013. Green skin suit for invisible fighting by Kiera.

After Continuum star Rachel Nichols wrapped her scenes at the CBC Vancouver parking garage on Friday night, crew brought out stunt mats and a stunt performer dressed in a green skin suit. It looks like she’s the stunt double for Kiera Cameron’s cop-from-the-corporate-future or could that be a Kiera double on the mat? We’ll have to wait to see the final VFXed scenes.

Read More »SHOOT: CONTINUUM S2’s Green Skin Suit Stunt at CBC Vancouver for 2×01 – Updated

SHOOT: Rain Towers & Stunt for CONTINUUM’s Rachel Nichols at CBC Vancouver for 2×01 – Updated

Updated April 21, 2013.

Continuum‘s cop-from-the-corporate-future Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) is back in her black high-tech cat suit  for a second season and was spotted kicking the crap out of some bad guys in CBC Vancouver’s parking garage last night. Other cast members commiserated on Twitter ahead of the “rain tower” night shoot, where Nichols got good and wet in front of a handful of fans, photographers and passersby on a closed block of Cambie Street downtown.

Related: Invisible Green Skin Suit Fighting at CBC Vancouver Parking Garage

Crew set up rain towers on either side of the entrance for a “rain effect”. That seems odd to people who know how much it rains in Vancouver but it has to be a deluge to show up on camera.

Read More »SHOOT: Rain Towers & Stunt for CONTINUUM’s Rachel Nichols at CBC Vancouver for 2×01 – Updated

Canadian Screen Awards Noms for CONTINUUM & ARCTIC AIR as Best Dramatic Series

Lots and lots of tweets in my timeline from B.C. film & TV people yesterday. The good: filmed-in-Vancouver sci-fi Showcase hit Continuum and northern adventure CBC hit Arctic Air both nabbed first-time Canadian Screen Awards nominations as Best Dramatic Series, along with the filmed-in-Toronto Bomb Girls, Flashpoint and King. The bad and the ugly: Premier Christy Clark’s BC Jobs Plan boosted several industries last week but not our declining film & TV biz, provoking a  SAVE BC FILM petition and a hashtag #SaveBCFilm to wake up the government about the cost to the province of losing film & TV productions to places with better tax credits like Ontario. Among other things, American productions build the infrastructure that make local successes like Continuum and Arctic Air possible.

Back to the good: the made-in and set-in-Vancouver sci-fi procedural Continuum racked up the individual CSA noms too, with a writing nomination for its creator Simon Barry (in the photo below with cast ); a directing nomination for Jon Cassar; a VFX nomination for Adam Stern of Artifex Studios; and an original musical score nomination for Jeff Danna — all for the show’s stunning pilot A Stitch in Time which travels in time from Vancouver in 2077 to Vancouver in 2012.

Joining Continuum as a first-timer in the Best Dramatic Series competition is the filmed-in-Vancouver-and-Yellownife series Arctic Air from Omni Films. The visually-spectacular aerial adventure drama Read More »Canadian Screen Awards Noms for CONTINUUM & ARCTIC AIR as Best Dramatic Series