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SHOOT: Lauren Holly as Dr. Betty Rogers in Downtown Vancouver for MOTIVE 1×07

Ahead of a new episode of hit Vancouver crime drama Motive on CTV tonight, here’s Lauren Holly (NCIS) as lead medical examiner Dr. Betty Rogers on set for last week’s Out of the Past at the Ash Market downtown. I didn’t know she was in the cast then or that I’d photographed her in an egg blue rain slicker in the October rain on my way to the Vancouver Film Festival.

Dr. Betty Rogers determines that the killer slashed shop owner Hank Cousineau’s throat when he was sitting in a chair at the back of his news shop and then watched as the victim bled to death. A particularlyunpleasant killer.

Read More »SHOOT: Lauren Holly as Dr. Betty Rogers in Downtown Vancouver for MOTIVE 1×07

SHOOT: You Won’t See This Running Stunt by ARROW Stunt Double Simon Burnett on 1×18 Tonight

Oliver Queen and The Hood stunt double Simon Burnett did stunt after stunt for tonight’s Arrow episode Salvation in Gastown in late February. He wove through traffic on a motorcycle, slid down a fire escape ladder, jumped from the roof of one building to another on a wire and jumped over a semi-trailer piled with plywood crates through a yellow Starling City cab and ran into an alley. It’s the last stunt you won’t see on screen tonight. Why? Because star Stephen Amell executed it so well that there was no need for a double. So here are Amell and Burnett prepping for the stunt and Burnett doing it.

Related: Watch Stephen Amell Jump to Street, Slide Over Cab & Then Run Right at Me for 1×18 

Read More »SHOOT: You Won’t See This Running Stunt by ARROW Stunt Double Simon Burnett on 1×18 Tonight

SHOOT: Karl Urban & Michael Ealy Film TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN at Winters Hotel in Gastown

Futuristic Los Angeles police officer John Kennex (Karl Urban) and his android cop partner Dorian (Michael Ealy) led a team of human and android police officers in a raid to rescue a kidnapped policeman this morning held inside the historic but rundown Winters Hotel in Gastown. This is the first time I’ve seen the buddy cops on set together for J.J. Abrams and Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman’s TV pilot Almost Human (formerly Human) and they had a good time of it — except Urban seemed fed up with being photographed at open shoots in Vancouver. Production moved inside the hotel to film the attempted rescue for the rest of the day and tomorrow morning. Fringe fans know the interior of the hotel as the “pocket reality” in the season five episode “Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There”. 

Related: Karl Urban & Minka Kelly film TV Pilot Almost Human in Vancouver’s Business District

Read More »SHOOT: Karl Urban & Michael Ealy Film TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN at Winters Hotel in Gastown

SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Captain Hook on his Pirate Ship Set off Steveston Docks for Season Finale 2×22 – Updated

Updated March 31st – Once Upon a Time is filming in Steveston for four full days for its season two finale, And Straight on ‘Til Morning. Tuesday, March 26th, was Day One.

Once Upon a Time filmed a scene of Captain Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) at the helm of his pirate ship off the Steveston docks south of Vancouver today. Is he in Neverland for the season two finale? A boat towed the floating pirate ship set west while a camera boat did a pass of the set with a technocrane panning up to Hook on the painted side of the ship. Once Upon a Time did several takes of this and then the pirate ship set was towed into the docks. Unfortunately I missed earlier scenes on the pirate ship set.

Read More »SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Captain Hook on his Pirate Ship Set off Steveston Docks for Season Finale 2×22 – Updated

SHOOT: Wooden August Becomes Young Pinocchio at ONCE UPON A TIME 2×18 Shoot in Fort Langley

August (Eion Bailey) found redemption on Once Upon a Time last night, becoming a “real boy” again after years of wrongdoing by being as Brave, Truthful & UnSelfish as Pinocchio is supposed to be.  We have not seen wooden August in the second season, partly to accommodate Bailey, who was cast as the male lead in Jerry Bruckheimer’s drama pilot Trooper but the Covert Affairs/ER actor became available again in the new year when TNT chose to pick up to series the to-be-filmed-in-Vancouver Maxwell & King instead of Trooper. I hope last night doesn’t mark Bailey’s exit from the modern fairy tale series.

Related: Eion Bailey & Michael Raymond-James film Manhattan flashback scenes in Gastown

Once Upon a Time filmed the scenes of the Blue Fairy (Keegan Connor Tracy) waving her wand over the dead wooden August (Eion Bailey) on February 12th at the Fort Langley Community Centre dressed as Storybrooke Town Hall, previously messed-up in 2×03 to show the destructive path of the wraith. August tries to warn Emma (Jennifer Morrison) about Neal/Baelfire (Michael Raymond-James)’s fiancee Tamara  (Sonequa Martin Green) before dying. Charming (Josh Dallas) and Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) rush to August’s aid, with Snow  distraught to see him die because she needs to believe in redemption. But Henry (Jared Gilmore) is the one who realizes August can be saved because of his sacrifice. And so it happens. The Blue Fairy waves her wand and wooden grownup August regresses back to the real boy Pinocchio (Jakob Davies) he once was to the delight of his father Geppetto (Tony Amendola). Pinocchio will do better this time.

Read More »SHOOT: Wooden August Becomes Young Pinocchio at ONCE UPON A TIME 2×18 Shoot in Fort Langley

WEEK: March 18-24, 2013

SHOOT: Karl Urban & Minka Kelly Film TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN in Vancouver’s Business District

J.J. Abrams and Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman’s TV pilot Almost Human (formerly Human) is filming in downtown Vancouver’s Business District on West Hastings Street, transformed into a futuristic Los Angeles, for the second day in a row this weekend. Stars Karl Urban (Star Trek’s Bones) and Minka Kelly (Friday Night Lights) are on set as Los Angeles police officers at the crime scene of yesterday’s armoured vehicle heist.

Related: TV pilot Almost Human Films Armoured Car Heist in Vancouver’s Business District

Read More »SHOOT: Karl Urban & Minka Kelly Film TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN in Vancouver’s Business District

SHOOT: TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN Films Armoured Car Heist in Vancouver’s Business District

Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman’s new TV pilot Almost Human (formerly Human) for FOX pays homage to Fringe in so many ways. The production uses many of the former Vancouver Fringe crew as well as its production signs BELLY. Some of the set dressing looks familiar too, but with a twist. Almost Human is about a futuristic Los Angeles where police officers are paired with android partners and stars Karl Urban (Star Trek’s Bones) as one of the human cops and Michael Ealy (Underworld Awakening) as an android cop. Neither actor was spotted in the downtown business district for the armoured car heist although they were on set. Almost Human turned the Guiness Tower into Division Tower and Oceanic Plaza into West Plaza and hired thirty or so PAs (production assistants) to control the set and 80 costumed extras to work as background for the heist with loud prop gunfire. Almost Human is a big for a pilot. Huge, in fact. Almost Human’s second unit filmed up on Galardi Way on Burnaby Mountain at the same time as the downtown shoot. The heist drew a crowd, who lined the Hastings pedestrian bridge to watch the action, leaving only enough room for the camera crew on the bridge.

Read More »SHOOT: TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN Films Armoured Car Heist in Vancouver’s Business District

SHOOT: Japanese Monster Reboot GODZILLA Rampages Through South Nanaimo – Part 2

The 3D Japanese monster reboot Godzilla let spectators get closer for the Friday afternoon shoot in south Nanaimo on Vancouver Island of prop wreckage on fire in Godzilla’s wake and U.S. military extras rushing to the scene on the railroad tracks. Crew set on fire a burnout vechicle and downed helicopter and filled the air with smoke from smoke machines. But no Godzilla was sighted on set. 

Related: Japanese Monster Reboot Godzilla Rampages through South Nanaimo – Part 1

Read More »SHOOT: Japanese Monster Reboot GODZILLA Rampages Through South Nanaimo – Part 2