Today is a big day for Fringe of exterior filming in multiple locations in a downtown Vancouver area. It started on Granville Street with dozens… Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE’s Anna Torv and an Observer Ministry of Science Van Downtown for 5×10
As streets began flooding in the real Manhattan yesterday morning and the east coast braced for Hurricane Sandy’s full impact, Fringe filmed scenes in a NYC taxicab in cloudy, wet Vancouver dressed as Manhattan under Observer Occupation in 2036. It sure put our rain in perspective.
I didn’t find the set until close to lunchtime and not long after Fringe wrapped and returned to studio for the rest of the day, so I don’t know if there were scenes other than John Noble’s Walter in the cab along with an unexpected guest star from seasons earlier. I won’t spoil the identity of that guest star until the producers choose to, because one of the joys of the final season is the way Fringe brings back or echoes former cases and characters. After the guest star wrapped, a Flex star car picked up her and Jasika Nicole’s Astrid, who must have been in that very crowded cab as well. I can’t imagine the risk they took talking in a cab with all those background Observers and Loyalist soldiers walking past. And on one of the background cabs driving by — a Reward Wire rooftop ad. Remember the creepy-good Captain Windmark-voiced Fringe teaser, Wanted: Peter Bishop, ahead of the season premiere?
Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE Films in NYC Taxi in Downtown Vancouver for Ep. 5×09
Kidnapped as a child during Observageddon, Etta reunited with her amber-preserved parents, Peter and Olivia, and grandfather Walter in 2036. We had but a mere handful of episodes to get to know grownup Etta ( Georgina Haig) before she was killed by Captain Windmark last night in a shocker ending, filmed inside east Vancouver”s Terminal City Ironworks compound in early September. Kudos to the Fringies who were there and kept the secret of her demise for almost two months.
Whatever happens, it’s clear that the Observer Occupation of 2036 is under siege on Fringe. Captain Windmark can still make a clumsy human bow down in episode eight, filmed near B.C. Place a few weeks ago, but tonight’s episode — The Bullet that Saved the World — marks a (#) TurningPoint in the resistance.
Fringe spent the day filming two boats — a Loyalist zodiac and [a small dinghy] — arriving and departing from a dock at the Britannia Heritage Shipyard, but not without incident. Simulated gunfire, stunt doubles and stunt mats suggest something went down out there.
We couldn’t see much of the action from a grassy area north of set except for the cast — Anna Torv’s Olivia Dunham, Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop, John Noble’s Walter Bishop and Jasika Nicole’s Astrid — coming and going. But we did catch a glimpse of Joshua Jackson’s Peter running along the dock with his big backpack. Whatever happened, these scenes will be part of the ninth episode of Fringe’s fifth and final season.
Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE at Britannia Heritage Shipyard Park in Steveston for 5×09 – Updated
Fringe crew set up for filming on the Vancouver Art Gallery’s north plaza last night in a torrential downpour and then filmed scenes in slightly less of a deluge. The last hours of filming for the final season’s eighth episode turned out to be one wet slog. Background women were allowed to keep their umbrellas for the scenes to protect their hair and 1940s garb but background Observers had nothing but their fedora hats to keep them dry during a take. [Update: POlivia filmed highly emotional scenes on the roof under a scrim of Anna Torv’s Olivia convincing Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop to take the Observer tech out of his head.]
Earlier in the day, Joshua Jackson’s Peter and Michael Kopsa’s Captain Windmark were spotted heading to set inside CBC Vancouver [where they filmed a stunt fight in empty office space on the east side] but rain-drenched fans only observed Kopsas’s Windmark at the night shoot when I was there.
Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE’s POlivia on the Vancouver Art Gallery Roof in a Rainstorm for 5×08 – Updated
Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) and the Fringe Division’s arch-enemy Captain Windmark (Michael Kopsa) filmed on the same downtown Vancouver set today near BC Place but not in the same scene when I was watching. So it was an unexpected treat to see Kopsa and Jackson looking and laughing at something on Jackson’s iPhone during a break from shooting.
Read More »Fringe’s Peter Bishop & Arch-Enemy Captain Windmark in Downtown Vancouver for Ep. 5×08
Fringe took over a block of West Hastings Street in downtown Vancouver last Monday dressed as New York City to film a scene of Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop dodging about two dozen cars while crossing the street for episode seven of the final season. Observers, Loyalist troops and citizens dressed in 1940s garb walking in the background told us this scene is set in 2036. It was a deceptively simple one of Peter crossing the street, coming to a dead stop in the middle of it until a New York cabbie yells at him to “get out of the way” and then continuing on to the curb on the other side. But all those moving vehicles required a stunt coordinator on set.
Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE’s Joshua Jackson Dodges Manhattan Traffic Downtown for 5×07
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
