Two weeks from today, Bates Motel fans can check in to the San Diego Comic-Con panel on Saturday, July 20th. Will they find out if… Read More »COMIC-CON SKED: BATES MOTEL Fans Can Check in For Panel
“This show strikes me as a cross between Twin Peaks and The X Files. What is it about Vancouver that is so creepy?” — moderator… Read More »PALEY FEST: BATES MOTEL Panel with Cast and Creators at Paley Center
Bates Motel has been renewed for a second season.
The one and only time I visited the 12-room motel and gothic house set in Aldergrove last year happened to be the day that Bates Motel filmed Norma’s estranged son Dylan catching her and Deputy Sheriff Zach Shelby coming out of a motel room after a steamy hookup. Since my visit was four months before the show’s premiere, I didn’t know what I was seeing. Now I realize that the motorcycle parked near the motel office belongs to Dylan (Max Thieriot) and the black jeep in the parking lot to Deputy Sheriff Zach Shelby (Mike Vogel). And if I’d got there earlier I might have seen Norma (Vera Farmiga) on set too. Or perhaps she was in the motel room when Mike Vogel came out during a break in filming, crossed the street and walked past me to grab something from the craft tent. Do you remember that scene of Norma and Zach coming out of the motel room from last week’s Trust Me?
Dylan: Hello there Norma. How are those new linens working out for you?
Norma turns to Zach and says: This is my son Dylan. And this is Zack Shelby.
Awkward silence.
Norma: Umm I’m gonna go get my car….
Shelby coolly walks to his black jeep, turns on the ignition and drives away as Dylan smokes and stares from a plastic green chair.
Promotional still from A&E of Dylan and Zach Shelby.
Read More »SHOOT: Norma & Deputy Sheriff Shelby Hook Up at BATES MOTEL in Aldergrove for 1×04
Update April 29, 2013 – Had no idea I’d photographed Norman’s crush & one-time hookup Bradley Martin (Nicola Peltz, who’s co-starring in the next Transformers movie) in Horseshoe Bay. Now I wish I’d got there earlier to see Norma (Vera Farmiga) & Emma (Oliva Cooke) spying on Bradley in a yoga class.
In what cast calls an “incredible reimagining” of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho, a teenage Norman Bates and his mother Norma Lousie Bates start fresh with the Bates Motel in the picturesque town of White Pine Bay, Oregon, filmed in the Vancouver area. Until yesterday, I’d never seen Freddie Highmore as future serial killer Norman on location for this upcoming A&E series from Lost co-showrunner Carlton Cuse (see the first promotional trailer) and Friday Night Lights producer Kerry Ehrin . Highmore didn’t look that different from his iconic role as young Peter in Finding Neverland but Bates Motel will be a vastly different world than Peter Pan’s.
On the surface White Pine Bay is as beautiful as its Vancouver locations but underneath there’s something dark and creepy going on. Think Friday Night Lights crossed with Twin Peaks. Normally Horseshoe Bay — on the edge of Howe Sound in West Vancouver — would count as one of those beautiful locations but yesterday it was dark and creepy on the surface too.
Bates Motel crew had turned Bay Market into Bay Market & Hardware for a scene of Norman (Freddie Highmore) and Norman’s step brother Dylan (Max Thieriot) buying supplies at a Fall Hardware Sale, carrying them out to the back of Dylan’s 4 x 4 and chatting with [Norman’s crush Bradley (Nicola Peltz)] who’d just been dropped off by her friends in a BMW.
