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Jennifer Morrison

SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) & Neal (Michael Raymond-James) on Third Beach in Stanley Park

Updated May 5, 2013 – Emma and Neal/Baelfire were checking whether devious Tamara (Sonequa Martin Green) was out running as she claimed instead of holding Regina captive, as Emma suspected. I didn’t notice that I’d photographed her in a lycra hoodie below.

This is Michael Raymond-James’s “big scene on a rainy beach” with Jennifer Morrison yesterday on Third Beach in Stanley Park. Sorry Swanfire fans. This doesn’t look particular romantic  It seems Emma Swan  and her baby daddy Baelfire have some issues to work out.

Once Upon a Time spent Friday shooting scenes on the forest trails above Third Beach with horses on set but took time out to film the beach scene around “magic hour”. At least what passes for the last hour of sunlight on a rainy day. The scene took less than half-an-hour to shoot with production assistants stopping joggers and walkers at both ends of the seawall during filming.

Update: Didn’t realize that I’d photographed Tamara (Sonequa Martin Green)  jogging in her hoodie below.

Read More »SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) & Neal (Michael Raymond-James) on Third Beach in Stanley Park

SHOOT: Jennifer Morrison, Michael Raymond-James & Jared Gilmore on Pirate Ship Set in Steveston for 2×16

Update: This deleted scene appears on the season 2 DVD-Blu-ray.

So Rumplestiltskin’s son Baelfire (Michael Raymond-James) spent some time in Neverland, where he made the acquaintance of Captain Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) and learned how to sail a pirate ship. And that explains why Bae isn’t a couple of hundred years old, as some smart Once Upon a Time fans calculated he would be, if born during the Ogre Wars. Some have even speculated that Bae is Peter Pan too. Not necessarily but it will be interesting to see his Neverland backstory.

Father-and-son Bae and Henry sail the pirate ship set from Manhattan (Gastown) to Storybrooke (Steveston) while Emma walks  past them from the stern in the scene below. Is a dying Rumplestilstkin (Robert Carlyle) somewhere on board? And what about his assailant Hook? Likely tied up and left behind in Manhattan (Gastown).

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Read More »SHOOT: Jennifer Morrison, Michael Raymond-James & Jared Gilmore on Pirate Ship Set in Steveston for 2×16

PROMOS: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Good vs Evil Showdown for 2×16

A Once Upon a Time good vs evil showdown played out right in front of me in Steveston in mid-January. From a window seat inside Storybrooke Coffee (Steveston Coffee) behind Regina (Lana Parrilla) & Cora (Barbara Hershey) — holding the Dark One’s dagger — I watched as mother-and-daughter blew the door off Mr. Gold’s. Crew simply asked us not to stare at the camera when it was set up in Mr. Gold’s doorway.

© 2013 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.

And we kept watching as crew carried stunt mats into Mr. Gold’s for the big sword fight throwdown inside with cast and stunt doubles.

GOOD (Jennifer Morrison, Michael Raymond-James, Josh Dallas and Ginnifer Goodwin)

© 2013 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.

Read More »PROMOS: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Good vs Evil Showdown for 2×16

WEEK: February 25 – March 3, 2013

PROMOS: ONCE UPON A TIME – A Series as Epic as the Movies

A Series as Epic as The Movies Every Single Week

Once Upon a Time makes TV looks like the movies every week. Revolutionary Z.E.U.S. visual effects technology allows the modern fairy tale series to be as epic as a movie on a TV budget. If you looked through a camera lense or a monitor in studio in Vancouver you would see scenes rendered in real time while the cast performs on mostly empty green screen stages. And beautiful British Columbia has a hand in creating stunning backdrops too with on-location filming in our forests, deserts and oceans for Fairy Tale Land and in the village of Steveston for present-day Storybrooke.

But Once Upon a Time would be just pretty pictures if  the creators and cast didn’t bring emotion to the stories they tell. Here are some promo photos of the actors who make us care about fairy tale characters week after week.

Charming (Josh Dallas) and his daughter Emma (Jennifer Morrison) on location in Steveston south of Vancouver.

ABC/AUTUMN DE WILDE

Read More »PROMOS: ONCE UPON A TIME – A Series as Epic as the Movies

SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Rumple Family in Gastown for 2×15 – Updated

That’s one messed up family. Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle)’s long-lost son Baelfire (Michael Raymond-James) turns out to be Henry (Jared Gilmore)’s father Neal, much to Emma (Jennifer Morrison)’s dismay. After a lot of yelling, most of the secrets are out, and it’s time for this estranged family to get to know one another in Gastown dressed as Manhattan.

[Update February 25th: Once Upon a Time tweeted a section of the script for the scenes I photographed.]

© 2013 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.

The actors who play the Rumple family are not estranged. They have the best time portraying these characters. Jennifer Morrison and Michael Raymond-James have been cracking each other up since Tallahassee, laughing and joking in between serious takes. And  you can see Raymond-James gets on well with both his TV father Robert Carlyle and son Jared Gilmore in these photographs taken in Gastown on January 9th.

Read More »SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Rumple Family in Gastown for 2×15 – Updated

WEEK: February 11-17, 2013

SHOOT: Run Emma Run! ONCE UPON A TIME’s Jennifer Morrison Running in Gastown for 2×14

Run Emma Run! In Once Upon a Time 2×14 Manhattan, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) chases a man in a grey hoodie  — who she thinks could be Rumple’s son Bae —  through SoHo in New York City (Gastown in Vancouver). He jumps from an old wrought iron fire escape staircase down onto the street below (Powell Street), runs along the sidewalk and through a cobbled square (Maple Tree Square) dodging yellow NYC taxi-cabs, past SoParlo Boots (prop sign) into a corridor (Gaelor’s Mews) of stores and restaurants until she tackles him in an alley (east end of Trounce Alley in Blood Alley Square).

Once Upon a Time filmed this foot chase in mid-December in four legs with Jennifer Morrison doing all her own running stunts and some of the tackling. The day started  in reverse with the Emma stunt double tackling the Grey-Hoodie-Man stunt double in the east end of Trounce Alley, followed by a dialogue scene of Morrison getting up from the ground, seeing the actor (not stunt double) who she’d tackled and talking to him. Each time the two actors finished a take they dissolved into fits of laughter. The Trounce Alley part of the foot chase sequence was closed to the public but I could see  the two actors’ heads through  the glass windows of  a restaurant from the south end of  the Coffee Bar. I stayed at my Coffee Bar window seat  to watch the next leg of  Morrison running from prop SoParlo Boots on Carrall Street  right past me through Gaelor’s Mews.  Don’t listen to anyone who says Morrison is a diva. None of the Once Upon a Time cast are from what I’ve seen. Morrison did all of Emma’s running in take after take. Smiling and laughing from the exhilaration.

Next came the big public scene of Jennifer Morrison chasing  the Grey-Hoodie-Man stunt double  though Maple Tree Square dodging yellow NYC taxi cabs and other prop vehicles in front of spectators, fans and photographers. She did it once in rehearsal with the Emma stunt double leading the way. Read More »SHOOT: Run Emma Run! ONCE UPON A TIME’s Jennifer Morrison Running in Gastown for 2×14

SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME Turns Gastown into Manhattan for Robert Carlyle, Jennifer Morrison & Jared Gilmore

Some fans spotted prop New York taxi cabs and other NYC set dressing last December in Gastown and hoped it would be for one final downtown shoot of their show Fringe. Surprisingly, it turned out to be for Once Upon a Time instead. The modern fairy tale series shot scenes of famous fairy tale character Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) out of Storybrooke and in Manhattan, where a coerced Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Henry (Jared Gilmore) help him search for his long-lost son Bae. Is Bae found? Well, that’s a spoiler for another post.

Read More »SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME Turns Gastown into Manhattan for Robert Carlyle, Jennifer Morrison & Jared Gilmore