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Frank Cassini

SHOOT: ROGUE’s Marton Csokas Films at Bentall 5 Tower in Downtown Vancouver

DirecTV’s Rogue has been tough to find filming on location in Vancouver, so it was a pleasant surprise to spot them out in the open on Saturday afternoon at the Bentall 5 tower downtown dressed as Trade Investments. Production has been “hush hush”, one of their productions guys told me last week out at Deer Lake. No kidding. All we really know is that the American satellite network’s first original series 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.

Could Marton Csokas’s crime boss be the tall dressed-in-black mafioso type in the scene below? If so, Csokas (Lord of the Rings, Alice in Wonderland) is virtually unrecognizable with jet black hair, except for his height. Joining him in the walk and talk out of Bentall 5 is BC’s own Frank Cassini. (Blackstone)  I also spotted BC’s own Ian Tracey (DaVinci’s Inquest, Intelligence, Sanctuary) on set but didn’t see him in a scene.

 

Ian Tracey is Detective Lucas “Mitch” Mitchel.

Of course, as often happens, I found Rogue again today filming inside La Terrazza, a Yaletown restaurant at Pacific and Cambie. And this time, Thandie Newton seemed to be on set, but I can’t be sure. Read More »SHOOT: ROGUE’s Marton Csokas Films at Bentall 5 Tower in Downtown Vancouver

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