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SHOOT: Amanda Tapping Directs CONTINUUM in Arch Alley Downtown – Part 2

It’s Amanda Tapping week: Guest star on Wednesday night’s season finale of CW hit Supernatural and Thursday night’s season finale of Vancouver whydunit hit Motive. And directing the current episode of Vancouver-cop-from-the-future series hit Continuum.

Are there zombies in this episode? Here is Amanda Tapping directing Victor Webster as Detective Carlos Fonnegra  yesterday looking at corpse in the trunk of a car parked in the gravel lot off Arch Alley. Or as Webster tweeted: “I’m examining a decomposing corpse covered in maggots in an alley full of garbage and grafitti. What did you do today?” The makeup actually seems more  like The Walking Dead than Continuum. [Update: But this is no anonymous corpse. Is that Kiera’s frenemy CSIS agent Gardiner (Nicholas Lea) under that makeup?]

Related: Amanda Tapping Directs Continuum in Arch Alley Downtown – Part 1

Read More »SHOOT: Amanda Tapping Directs CONTINUUM in Arch Alley Downtown – Part 2

SHOOT: Amanda Tapping Directs CONTINUUM in Arch Alley Downtown – Part 1

It’s Amanda Tapping week. Guest star on Wednesday night’s season finale of CW hit Supernatural and last night’s season finale of Vancouver whydunit hit Motive. And directing the current episode of Vancouver-cop-from-the-future series hit Continuum.

Here is Vancouver’s Sci-fi Queen directing a scene this afternoon from the video village in Arch Alley east of Victory Square. After each take Tapping strode out to talk to the actors Stephen Lobo and Magda Apanowicz, and to crew and then briskly walked back to the alley again in her riding boots. Still very much the ageless Helen Magnus of her long-running series Sanctuary.

Read More »SHOOT: Amanda Tapping Directs CONTINUUM in Arch Alley Downtown – Part 1

SHOOT: ARROW’s Archer Showdown on Hudson’s Bay Roof for Tonight’s Season Finale

Two Men. Two Bows. One Roof.

Emerald Archer vs Dark Archer for the season finale.

A late April rehearsal of Hudson’s Bay rooftop fight scene at dusk in downtown Vancouver, part of Arrow’s final shoot of the season.

Arrow has been building to the ultimate showdown between Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman)’s alter egos for much of the season. Is this it? If so, who will be victorious? It didn’t look good for The Hood from my vantage high above in the Vancouver Lookout at Harbour Centre (often featured in Arrow cityscapes).

Update: The slumped figure near the open door  turns out be Diggle (David Ramsey) in the season finale.

Rehearsing catching one of the Hood’s arrows.

Read More »SHOOT: ARROW’s Archer Showdown on Hudson’s Bay Roof for Tonight’s Season Finale

STUNTS: ARROW’s Top 20 Action Moments Countdown

Arrow does have the best fight scenes on TV right now – Ken Tucker, former EW TV critic.

No argument from me. Arrow has my favourite fight scenes and stunts on TV.

Arrow Fight Designer James “Bam Bam” Bamford recently presented a Top 20 Action Moments Countdown in three videos. Absent are any sequences from tonight’s season finale so there is no spoiler alert.

The Top 5 includes my personal favourite- the huge Parkour Sequence with Stephen Amell and stunt double Simon Burnett filmed in Gastown.

[sz-youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQQ7ke2FuJw&feature=player_embedded” /]

Related: Stephen Amell Jumps to Street, Slides over Cab and Runs Right at Me

Read More »STUNTS: ARROW’s Top 20 Action Moments Countdown

UPFRONT: INTELLIGENCE With Josh Holloway as “The Six Billion Dollar Man” to Air in 2014 on CBS

Update: Production moves to Los Angeles to film the series. Pilot shot in Vancouver.

CBS dubbed its new filmed-in-Vancouver pilot Intelligence “The Six Billion Dollar Man” today, a play on the 1970s hit The Six Million Dollar Man about an American government agent Steve Austin (Lee Majors) with bionic parts. It’s an apt comparison.

Intelligence is about an American government agent Gabriel (Josh Holloway from Lost) with a super-computer microchip in his brain, one that makes him the smartest smart phone ever. Unfortunately this human with an ability to hack into anything is also reckless and unpredictable so the head of the government cyber-security agency Lillian Strand (Marg Helgenberger of CSI) assigns secret service agent Riley Neal (Meghan Ory from Once Upon a Time) to protect him from himself and others. 

Josh Holloway & Meghan Ory Credit: Chris Helcermanas-Benge © 2013 CBS Broadcasting, Inc.

Intelligence filmed its pilot in Vancouver for three weeks this spring. 

Read More »UPFRONT: INTELLIGENCE With Josh Holloway as “The Six Billion Dollar Man” to Air in 2014 on CBS

UPFRONT: ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND To Air Thursday Nights on ABC This Fall

Title Card @2013 American Broadcasting Corp.

Are you ready for a trip down the rabbit hole?

In a surprise move, ABC has scheduled the filmed-in-Vancouver Once Upon a Time in Wonderland on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. not as a bridge between batches of the mother show Once Upon a Time on Sunday nights.

So what’s the spinoff about? Apart from the giant mushrooms pictured above. Well, a “kickass Alice” for one thing.

[sz-youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v8hwx2xHnM&feature=player_embedded” /]

The trailer is quite a feat considering it’s based on just five scenes filmed in Vancouver.

LEO AWARDS: Film BECOMING REDWOOD & TV series CONTINUUM & ARCTIC AIR Top 2013 Nominations

Last night’s Leo Awards nominations, celebrating the best of B.C.-made film and television, favour Jesse James Miller’s 70s-era coming-of-age film Becoming Redwood, Vancouver-cop-from-the-future TV series Continuum and northern adventure TV series Arctic Air. The many tweets of congratulations to all the nominees today are a great way to recognize B.C.’s creative talent ahead of tomorrow’s provincial election. So please go vote and as the hashtag says, #SaveBCFilm. 

Becoming Redwood‘s 14 nominations include well-deserved director and writing nods for Vancouver-born-and-raised Jesse James Miller and performance nods for Ryan Grantham as the young golf-obsessed long-haired title character Redwood; Jennifer Copping (Miller’s wife) as Redwood’s mother; Chad Willett (producer) as Redwood’s draft-dodging, pot-dealing father;  Derek Hamilton as Redwood’s red-neck stepfather Arnold and Scott Hylands as Arnold’s basement-dwelling elderly father Earl. Miller shot the Vancouver International Film Festival’s most popular Canadian feature in rural Langley for 24 days in the late spring of 2011.

Related: Jesse James Miller’s Becoming Redwood Opens at International Village

In the television category, Continuum dominates with 16 nominations, including nods for creator and UBC grad Simon Barry for his season one finale script End Times and for performances by Richard Harmon, Brian Markinson, Jennifer Spence and Liber8 “terrorist” Lexa Doig. Lead cop Rachel Nichols is not nominated but she is American and not considered a BC actor, even though she lives here for half-a-year each season and owns Vancouver Canucks season tickets (what more do you need?)

Over at Arctic Air, bona fide BC actors Kevin McNulty and Pascale Hutton are nominated for their lead performances on the filmed-in-Vancouver-and-Yellowknife aerial adventure series, two of 14 nominations for the CBC show. Read More »LEO AWARDS: Film BECOMING REDWOOD & TV series CONTINUUM & ARCTIC AIR Top 2013 Nominations