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BIG READ: Sarah McLachlan’s Holiday Music Video Shoot

Published November 29th, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome
Sarah McLachlan’s new holiday classic “Find Your Voice” filmed its music video on a block of West 13th Avenue near Vancouver City Hall last Sunday. It features students from her Sarah McLachlan School of Music: exuberant students who spent all afternoon doing take after take fuled by hot chocolate, craft services and joy.
All of the proceeds from the music video will go to their school which helps at-risk youth to learn music. Click on Sarah McLachlan.com for a free download and on the Sarah McLachlan School of Music to make a donation. I spoke with the lovely and impossibly serene Sarah McLachlan briefly after filming wrapped when it was too dark and too cold to say antyhing intellible, so I’ll use her prepared words instead: “Christimas is a difficult time for many both economically and emotionally and I hope this Gift of Music can help in some small way. My holiday with is that we can all find the good in everyone and  in every situation and be kind to each other. I wish you all a very Happy, peaceful holiday filled with love, laughter and light!””

SHOOT: SUPERNATURAL’s 1950s Time Travellers in Gastown for 8×12 – Updated

Tonight a light high on a hoist above Cambie Street in Gastown lit up the alley that runs diagonally to West Cordova where two 1950s era vehicles were parked. Add smoke machines and a strobe light to simulate lightning and it looks like we have the setting for a Cary Grant-style cult member named Henry to travel from 1958 to 2013 when episode 8×12 — As Time Goes By — will air. Supernatural crew added the Arlene’s Golden Comb beauty salon neon sign to the alley for the night shoot.

Debonair and charming, Henry is said to be a rookie member of an anti-demonic cult who hurtles through the time portal, followed by a Katherine Hepburn-style dame named Josie Sands. I didn’t see who was cast in either of  these roles tonight.  [SPOILER UPDATE: HuffPost TV reports that Gil McKinney is Henry who happens to be Sam and Dean’s grandfather on their father John’s side. And Alaina Huffman was spotted in Vancouver for her role as the demon Abbadon in the body of Josie Sands.]

But the Impala was parked in the same alley this morning for the day shoot, implying Jared Padalecki’s Sam and Jensen Ackles’s Dean Winchester were two of the three actors talking while standing by the same large door our time traveller entered in the night shoot. Unfortunately this scene was hidden behind scrims.

In between the morning and night shoots in the alley, Supernatural filmed inside The Cambie Pub on the corner.

Read More »SHOOT: SUPERNATURAL’s 1950s Time Travellers in Gastown for 8×12 – Updated

SHOOT: Lance Reddick Returns for FRINGE 5×12 – Updated

It was good to see Lance Reddick  in aging makeup on set today at Harbour Green Park in Coal Harbour filming the second to last episode of Fringe. This is not his first appearance in the final season but probably the first opportunity for fans to talk to him and express their gratitude for his stellar work as Phillip Broyles. My only complaint — not enough Broyles.

Read More »SHOOT: Lance Reddick Returns for FRINGE 5×12 – Updated

SHOOT: ROGUE Wraps Season One with Thandie Newton & Marton Csokas

Marton Csokas, Thandie Newton & Matthew Beard @2013

DirecTV’s  first original series Rogue stars Thandie Newton (Mission Impossible 2, Crash) as Grace, a morally-compromised undercover cop in Oakland, who’s cavorting with Marton Csokas’s crime boss, who may have been involved in her son’s death. Now that’s a complicated relationship. Rogue wrapped filming of its first season of ten episodes on Friday in Vancouver.

I found them on location twice this past week, filming their season finale. First on Monday in the pouring rain on a closed block of Heatley Avenue in the Downtown Eastside, dressed as Oakland. Thandie Newton walked back and forth between two of the sets in small houses, wearing a blue baseball cap, hoodie, coat, striped track pants and running shoes. If I didn’t know her role as an undercover cop, I would not have recognized her. And then on Tuesday in the pouring rain at the Burrard Ironworks building near the Main Street overpass dressed as MacArthur’s Bar, Marton Csoka came out on breaks carrying his own umbrella to read his script (Csoka also drives his own vehicle from circus to set). It’s unfortunate that miserable, neverending rain was a theme this week.

Here are more photos of Thandie Newton on Heatley Avenue as Oakland, California.

Read More »SHOOT: ROGUE Wraps Season One with Thandie Newton & Marton Csokas

WEEK: November 19-25, 2012

IF

SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Process Trailer Scene in Steveston for 2×12 – Updated

Sometimes when Once Upon a Time films in Steveston, there isn’t much to see. Or what we see can’t be talked about. Wednesday afternoon and evening are examples of those kinds of shoots. Crew wrapped Mr. Gold’s in what looked like a giant white marshmallow for the afternoon shoot so that even doorway scenes weren’t visible.. Luckily for those waiting outside,  Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) stopped by after he wrapped to pose for photos with a couple of Fringe fans who’d gone out for the day to see another show filming. The Australian Fringie told me Mr. Gold said she sounded just like his Belle (Aussie Emilie de Ravin who wasn’t on set).

For the night shoot, crew lit up Moncton Street for a driving scene with Regina’s Mercedes on a process trailer going round and round in a loop filming a conversation inside.  We were asked not to photograph while they were rolling but it was OK to take a few shots of the process trailer parked outide Sara’s Old-Fashioned Ice Cream after cast left.

Then Once Upon a Time filmed a scene of [David Anders dressed in hospital scrubs] running south down Second Street at a good clip. Probably because it was bloody freezing. By then, even the Fringe fans had packed it in and decided to opt out of Read More »SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Process Trailer Scene in Steveston for 2×12 – Updated

SHOOT: FRINGE’s Big Hug in the West End for 5×11 – Updated

Fringe [finished filming its third] to last episode ever today in the pouring rain in Vancouver’s West End in front of fans who’d travelled from as far as Australia and Russia to see their show wrap. The highlight of the morning had to be a big hug scene between Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop and his TV father, John Noble’s Walter Bishop. They did a long walk and talk out of an alley and up Bute Street, filmed by a camera crew on a cart and another camera crew using a tracking shot. Each time the pair were to embrace, a crew member called out “hug”. And when the camera crew was filming Anna Torv’s Olivia and Rowan Longworth’s Child Observer walking up behind father-and-son and the “hug” cue given, Joshua Jackson embraced cameraman Chris instead. So on a cold, very wet day of filming a lot of fun was had on set.

Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE’s Big Hug in the West End for 5×11 – Updated

SHOOT: BATES MOTEL Films in Steveston with Lost’s Nestor Carbonell & Pan Am’s Mike Vogel for 1×04 – Updated

Updated April 8, 2013 – In 1×04 Trust Me, the Sheriff & Deputy Sheriff are called to the docks where a fisherman has found murdered Keith Summers’s hand in his net.

A&E’s contemporary Psycho prequel series Bates Motel  focuses on a younger version of Psycho movie killer Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) in present-day Oregon and explores his relationship with his unhinged mother Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga) as he approaches his evil destiny. Described as a cross between Twin Peaks and Smallville, it’s Lost co-showrunner Carlton Cuse’s new show.

So it’s not surprising that Lost fan favourite Nestor Carbonell (who still gets asked if he wears eyeliner) is on board as the Sinister Sheriff. When I spotted White Pine Bay County Sheriff cars on the Steveston docks I hoped that Carbonell would be on set. Other sheriff staff walked up from the fishing boat where Bates Motel was filming but no Sinister one until the end. Carbonell’s Sheriff [Alex Romero] and Mike Vogel’s deputy Sheriff [Zack Shelby] left after the final scene on the docks. As Carbonell walked by me I asked him why he was Sinister and got a laugh and a smile but no details.

Read More »SHOOT: BATES MOTEL Films in Steveston with Lost’s Nestor Carbonell & Pan Am’s Mike Vogel for 1×04 – Updated