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Amanda Tapping

WEEK: October 22-28, 2012

  • Sunday, October 28th – Once Upon a Time‘s Halloween episode 2×06 reveals Dr. Whale’s Fairytale Land identity as Dr. Frankenstein.
  • Sunday, October 28th – City sitcom Package Deal with Hartland Williams, Julia Voth, Jay Malone and Randal Edwards tapes in front of a live studio audience in Burnaby.
  • Saturday, October 27th – Primeval: New World panel at London Comic-con with Niall Matter, Sara Canning, Danny Rahim and Andrew-Lee Potts.
  • Friday, October 26th – Fringe‘s shocker death of “Baby Bishop” in the pivotal fourth episode of the final season.
  • Friday, October 26th – Once Upon a Time back filming in Steveston for third day in same week. That’s a lot of on-location filming in one spot.
  • Friday, October 26th – The CW releases Supernatural promo photos of Misha Collins as angel Castiel and Stargate/Sanctuary’s Amanda Tapping as angel Naomi for upcoming episode 8×07 via TVLine.com.
  • Thursday, October 25th – Red Widow films a kiss that goes wrong in a Downtown Eastside alley with Wil Traval and Erin Cahill.
  • Thursday, October 25th – Arrow films a simulated fire inside the Terminal City Ironworks compound in east Vancouver with Stephen Amell on set.
  • Thursday, October 25th – The CW releases an Arrow November Sweeps month poster featuring Stephen Amell via TVLine.com
  • Thursday, October 25th – Cult films at Pacific Central Station with Matt Davis on set.Read More »WEEK: October 22-28, 2012

VIFF: Vancouver as Vancouver in RANDOM ACTS OF ROMANCE

Published October 19, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome.

It’s not often in this series that I get an opportunity to talk about movies where Vancouver plays itself, but once a year several locally-filmed features are screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival. This year I got to see director Katrin Bowen’s sold-out Vancouver film Random Acts of Romance on my third try last Friday night.

“Sex, Abduction, Stalking and You Thought Romance Was Dead” is the tagline. The film opens in east Vancouver’s Waldorf Hotel with our two married couples out for the evening: Amanda Tapping’s Dianne married to Zak Santiago’s younger man Matt and Laura Bertram’s young wife Holly married to Robert Moloney’s David. Elsewhere in the restaurant is Ted Whittall’s single sleezeball Richard, breaking up with his latest conquest. Add Sonja Bennett’s single, completely wacko stalker Lynne and Katharine Isabelle’s lesbian Bud to this mix of interconnected Vancouverites and you get random acts of violent romance.

At last Friday’s screening, the very tall Katrin Bowen (below) spoke about the importance of setting her movie in Vancouver in all its “rain, sex and awkwardness.” She wanted  the city to “take on a personna”. It helps that 95% of the movie soundtrack is music from Vancouver indie bands, many discovered at the Biltmore and Cobalt Hotels. And that there are so many scenes set in recognizable locations like the denouement of an abduction under the south end of the Burrard Bridge.

But the big question for the director last Friday was: how did you get Vancouver’s Sci-fii Queen Amanda Tapping to star in your movie? It turns out Katrin Bowen and Tapping became fast-friends years ago when Bowen worked as Tapping’s photo double/standin on the first Stargate TV series, Stargate SG-1. Read More »VIFF: Vancouver as Vancouver in RANDOM ACTS OF ROMANCE

WEEK: September 17-23 2012

  • Sunday, September 23rd – Arrow films at Riverview Hosptial in Coquitlam with recurring guest actor John Barrowman on set.
  • Saturday, September 22nd – Rogue’s Marton Csokas films scenes at Bentall 5 tower in downtown Vancouver dressed as Trade Investments.
  • Friday, September 21st – Once Upon a Time filmsd scenes on Moncton Street in the village of Steveston south of Vancouver in a night shoot.
  • Friday, September 21st – Joshua Jackson uses his LUNCH break from Fringe to go introduce his new Canadian film Inescapable at a Vancouver screening.
  • Friday, September 21st – Arrow‘s Stephen Amell does his own running stunt at Queen Consolidated, aka downtown Vancouver tower at West Georgia & Homer, chasing a shooter on a motorcycle.
  • Thursday, September 20th – Fringe‘s Joshua Jackson sits in the red chair for a pre-taped interview about his Canadian film Inescapable on CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.
  • Thursday, September 20th – FOX releases new Fringe poster for fifth and final season featuring Joshua Jackson, Anna Torv and John Noble as resistance fighters against Observer overlords in 2036.
  • Thursday, September 20th – The CW releases new Supernatural season eight teaser of Sam and Dean reunion in unique Winchester way.
  • Thursday, September 20th – Mob series Red Widow films in the Burnaby Youth Detention Centre, possibly in the cells.
  • Thursday, September 20th – Psych films interior scenes at 303 West Pender and 330 West Pender in downtown Vancouver.
  • Thursday, September 20th – Fringe films for second day in seedy Gastown hotel, directed by Jon Cassar.
  • Wednesday, September 19th – Fringe filmsd first day in seedy Gastown hotel, directed by Jon Cassar.
  • Wednesday, September 19th – Rogue films in a house overlooking Deer Lake in Burnaby, on a street so clogged with white work trucks they couldn’t fit in one more.
  • Tuesday, September 18th –  Youngest member of Red Widow mob family does his own stunt at Victory Square downtown.
  • Tuesday, September 18th – Jorge Garcia, who’s been cast as The Giant on Once Upon a Time, spotted walking Read More »WEEK: September 17-23 2012

PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD’s “Leggy” Terrorizes UBC Thunderbird Arena This Week – Updated

In the upcoming Vancouver-as-Vancouver series Primeval: New World, primeval creatures enter our city through temporal anomolies, aka time portals, and create havoc. This week a winged creature is terrorizing the University of British Columbia in and around the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Arena (venue for Vancouver 2010 Olympics hockey and Paralympics sledge hockey). Crew setting up a crime scene in the Thunderbird Parkade last Friday told me it’s some kind of flying dinosaur [Update: it’s our cheezy-lovin’ Leggy from the grow-op escaping from a government facility]. Of course I didn’t see the creature, which will be computer-generated in post-production, but I did spy Dan Payne and other military actors arriving on the west side of the Thunderbird Arena on Friday morning and evacuating student extras on the east side on Monday morning.

Like the original British series Primeval, the Vancouver spinoff has a team of smart minds and animal experts who battle these creatures. Ours is led by Niall Matter as rich Vancouver software genius Evan Cross, seen here arriving at the Thunderbird Arena with co-star Sara Canning as predatory animal attack behaviour expert Dylan Weir.

As tall Dan Payne evacuated student extras carrying hockey sticks from the arena, Niall Matter and Sara Canning filmed a scene of them getting out of their jeep, looking back at the scene and possibly up to the sky at a flying creature, grabbing their prop tranquilizer rifles Read More »PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD’s “Leggy” Terrorizes UBC Thunderbird Arena This Week – Updated

BIG READ: LEO AWARDS Live-Tweets its Hotel Vancouver Gala

Published May 31, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome

Live-tweets turned out to be the best thing about last weekend’s Leo Awards celebrating the best of B.C.-made film and television. Tweets from @LeoAwards gave an award-by-award account plus details of all the hijinks in between at both the Celebration and Gala Awards: hijinks that ranged from Property Brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott mock-fighting over their award to Gala co-hosts Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne calling each other evil twin and English MILF to Nancy Robertson and Ryan Robbins pitching a new comedy series to Emilie Ullerup re-enacting Angelina Jolie’s notorious one-leg Oscars pose to acting legend Gabrille Rose swearing on stage while presenting the final award to Sisters & Brothers for Best Feature Film.

It was a great way to let the public share in this celebration of artistic talent after a tough week, which had started with the official cancellation of homegrown sci-fi series Sanctuary, the most-recognized B.C. production by far with 18 Leo nominations going in. Sanctuary ended up winning four Leos for its fourth and final season, but only one on the night of the gala for a guest performance by Arctic Air’s Pascale Hutton, who sang beautifully and turned her head right around in the Glee-meets-The-Exorcist episode Fuge.

I’d hoped for a repeat of last year’s wild times on the red carpet outside the Hotel Vancouver on West Georgia Street, but organizers moved the red carpet inside the hotel this year to the conference floor and restricted access. Most of the nominees kept the party going after the red carpet to take a turn at the new Media Wall by the bar where I had a spot, but it was so dimly-lit I had to jack some light from the pro-photographers’ flashes. Here’s The Express’s Johanna Ward interviewing nominee and eventual winner Johannah Newmarch on the red carpet about her supporting performance in mockumentary Sunflower Hour. Ward later dropped by the Media Wall to wrangle nominees Ali Liebert from Bomb Girls and Emilie Ullerup from Arctic Air as a backdrop to her standup.

You can see the start of Emilie Ullerup’s one-leg Angelina homage and how the popular Cassini brothers photo-bombed the arrangement. That’s Frank on the left and John on the right. Frank Cassini later won a roar from the crowd and a Leo for his supporting performance on Read More »BIG READ: LEO AWARDS Live-Tweets its Hotel Vancouver Gala

A Fond Farewell to Homegrown SANCTUARY – Updated

Syfy’s official cancellation today of our own little sci-fi success story Sanctuary marks the end of an era in Vancouver. For the first time in a decade, American cable network Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi) doesn’t have a single TV series filming here. They began with the sixth season of Stargate SG-1, then Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, mini-series Tin Man and Alice, Caprica, Stargate Universe, pilot Blood and Chrome, Eureka and Sanctuary, which both wrapped filming here last summer.

Until today there was a sliver of hope for a Sanctuary renewal even though the series, co-created by Stargate star Amanda Tapping, Stargate director Martin Wood and Stargate writer Damian Kindler, had to give up its Burnaby studio and even sell sets while it waited for a decision. Finally it came this afternoon: Sanctuary would not be returning for a fifth season, making last year’s fourth season its final one.

Read More »A Fond Farewell to Homegrown SANCTUARY – Updated

PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD 1×8 Dinosaur Chases Jogger in the Olympic Village – Updated

In the upcoming Vancouver-as-Vancouver series Primeval: New World, primeval creatures enter our city through temporal anomolies, aka time portals, and terrorize our neighbourhoods. One such dinosaur suddenly appeared in the Olympic Village last Thursday, chasing a jogger east from the Olympic Village pedestrian bridge to the Creekside Community Centre in take after take. It was a treat to watch the guy-in-the-grey-skin-suit-carrying-a-sphere (Chuck Campbell) who will become the computer-generated-dinosaur (an Albertosauras) following this actor-jogger until the jogger suddenly stops, looks behind him, yells “Holy Shit” and leaps over a bench to try to get away. Now that’s acting. I have a feeling he doesn’t make it since the last scene of the day was a crime scene behind the green Dragon Boat portable trailers.

Read More »PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD 1×8 Dinosaur Chases Jogger in the Olympic Village – Updated

LEO AWARDS Nominations 2012 – TV Edition

TV rules at B.C.’s Leo Awards, which is the opposite of most American award ceremonies where the hierarchy goes film, then television. So it’s fitting that this year’s hosts on May 26th at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver will be Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne, the stars of  homegrown sci fi series Sanctuary, which earned a whopping 18 nominations, including lead performance nominations for both Tapping and Dunne.

If you follow either of them on Twitter or tracked their progress at Comic-Con last year you’ll know that Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne are a madcap comedy duo off screen.

Read More »LEO AWARDS Nominations 2012 – TV Edition

BIG READ – Working the Comic Con Craziness in 2011 – Updated

Published July 21, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

How’s this for Comic-Con craziness? Twihards starting lining up outside the San Diego Convention Center three days early (on Monday) to be among the six thousand lucky enough to get into The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 1 panel in Hall H, which took place just before lunchtime today. Breaking Dawn 1 was the first panel in Hall H so that Twihards couldn’t ruin Comic-Con like they usually do. What’s even more crazy? That the vampires and werewolves of the mainly Vancouver-shot Breaking Dawn 1 aren’t the most popular panel of the hundreds at Comic-Con 2011. Not even close. That honour belongs to the zombies of AMC TV series The Walking Dead.

Breaking Dawn 1 isn’t even among the most popular of Vancouver-filmed movies and TV series at Comic-Con, which has become less about big movies and more about cult television series in recent years. Locally-shot TV series Pscyh cracked the Top 25 most popular panels and Fringe, Eureka, Supernatural and Alcatraz are all in the Top 50. Breaking Dawn 1 and Underworld Awakening (the fourth in the movie franchise but only the third to star Kate Beckinsale and her vampire cat suit) barely made the Top 50 cut.

Psych presented today to standing-room-only, people-turned-away capacity, with Psych-os either dressed as pineapples or carrying them. Apparently series star James Roday (seen above directing a vampire-themed episode) improvised with a pineapple in the show’s premiere and there’s been one hidden in every episode since. Nominally a detective series, Psych knows how to play to a Comic-Con crowd, with several episodes in its sixth season (now filming in Vancouver) crossing over into genre stuff like vampires, super heroes and Star Trek. In a real casting coup, the original Captain Kirk — William Shatner — plays the father of one of the main cast in an episode filmed Read More »BIG READ – Working the Comic Con Craziness in 2011 – Updated