Skip to content

Coal Harbour

SHOOT: Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson) & Chin Han (Frank Chen) in Fire Alarm Scene for ARROW 1×16 at Bayshore Hotel – Updated

What happened in the Westin Bayshore Hotel when the lights went out and the fire alarm flashed orange? Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson) is the only Starling City 1 per-center I recognized exiting the building. She was accompanied by a mysterious Asian man [Update: Frank Chen (Chin Han from The Dark Knight) who is an old friend of the Queen family and involved Malcolm Merlyn’s nefarious The Undertaking],  So where are Malcolm and Tommy Merlyn (John Barrowman and Colin Donnell) and where is her hooded son Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell)? Are they all inside somewhere?

Arrow filmed in the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Coal Harbour for two afternoon/evenings this week and this was the only exterior scene. 150 chilled -to-the-bone background performers, dressed in evening gowns or tuxes, vacated the hotel during a simulated fire alarm in take after take on Tuesday night. Two cameras filmed the big exterior — one high on a hoist at the north end of the property and the second, a tracking camera directly in front of the lobby doors. Last night Arrow was scheduled to film in the International Suite on the west side of the hotel, with a simulated flash of light and the sound of a prop pistol. Who gets shot? We’ll have to wait to find out.

Read More »SHOOT: Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson) & Chin Han (Frank Chen) in Fire Alarm Scene for ARROW 1×16 at Bayshore Hotel – Updated

SHOOT: The Merlyn Boys (John Barrowman & Colin Donnell) Film ARROW 1×16 at Bayshore Hotel

Ummm, people of Starling City. Am I the only one who noticed all those Triad guys dressed up as waiters at your big gala scene last night in the Westin Bayshore Hotel?  Merlyn father-and-son (John Barrowman and Colin Donnell) seemed oblivious to it. Speaking of those Merlyn Boys, is this the best father-and-son casting since those Bishop Boys on Fringe?

Barrowman and Donnell arrived at set together and had such fun rehearsing in their tuxes that they did an impromptu song-and-dance number together up and down the escalator in the Convention Centre. I don’t have photos so you’ll have to trust me that it looked like something out of a Fred Astaire movie. Besides their obvious resemblance, the two men share a theatre background.

In the scene below, Malcolm Merlyn, accompanied by bodyguards, is the recipient of some kind of award. His son Tommy hangs back as his father takes the stage to accept. After a brief speech, Malcolm steps off the stage into the crowd  as the room goes dark, a fire alarm starts flashing orange and the be-jeweled, be-gowned rich folk of Starling City exit the building. What happened?

Read More »SHOOT: The Merlyn Boys (John Barrowman & Colin Donnell) Film ARROW 1×16 at Bayshore Hotel

WEEK: January 14-20, 2013

SHOOT: Anna Torv as Fauxlivia & Rowan Longworth as “The Boy” in Coal Harbour for FRINGE 5×12 Liberty

Olivia (Anna Torv) has crossed over to the alternate universe in 2036, using a mega-dose of cortexiphan, to ask an aged Fauxlivia (also Anna Torv) for her help in the plan to rescue “the boy” from a heavily-guarded Observer detention camp on Liberty Island in our universe. Crossing back and forth between universes on the Island, Olivia succeeds in retrieving Michael before dissection and the Liv dopplegangers bring him back on a launch to Battery Park, actually Coal Harbour in downtown Vancouver, where the rest of the Fringe team waits in the blueverse.

SHOOT: Walter’s Window into Another World at Coal Harbour for FRINGE 5×12 Liberty – Updated

In the epic Fringe trailer for this Friday’s two-hour series finale, we catch a glimpse of Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble)’s cracked Window into Another World circa 1985 (cracked because Walter threw something at it after he saw Observer September interrupt Walternate’s discovery of a cure for his son Peter). Everything is coming full circle in Fringe’s fifth and final season. Walter must have hauled out the window from wherever he’d stored it in his ambered Harvard lab circa 2036 so that the team can have a look at Liberty Island in the parallel universe.

[sz-youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4jptm7Yedo&feature=youtu.be” /]

I suspect this will be an early scene of the attempt to infiltrate Liberty Island [to rescue the boy Michael from the detention camp] in the second-to-last episode called Liberty. Peter (Joshua Jackson), Olivia (Anna Torv), Astrid (Jasika Nicole) and Walter arrive in the dark van from last Friday’s episode and park it on the Manhattan shore [at Battery Park] — actually the seawall in Vancouver’s Coal Harbour in front of dozens of Fringe fans. In between takes, you can see good friends Jasika Nicole and Anna Torv crack up laughing.

Read More »SHOOT: Walter’s Window into Another World at Coal Harbour for FRINGE 5×12 Liberty – Updated

Vancouver’s own PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD Debuts on WATCH in the U.K.

Are Vancouver VFX dinosaurs better than the British ones? British audiences will get a chance to compare on Primeval: New World tonight when UKTV’s WATCH channel debuts the series, a spinoff of Britain’s own Primeval. In fact, ARC’s Connor Temple (Andrew-Lee Potts) even paid a visit from London to the Vancouver set last March to warn new team leader Evan Cross (Niall Matter) about something that has gone wrong and to have a laugh with the new cast.

Here’s a WATCH promo showing Evan Cross (Niall Matter) and a predator control officer (Tom Butler) looking for anomalies (time portals) in Stanley Park.

[sz-youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MBDXFUQA658″ /]

After you’ve seen the premiere, check out the making of the kickass stunt from the cold open, filmed at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce tower in downtown Vancouver. I wish I’d known about this shoot ahead of time.

Read More »Vancouver’s own PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD Debuts on WATCH in the U.K.

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