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Mr. Young

LEO AWARDS: Film BECOMING REDWOOD & TV series CONTINUUM & ARCTIC AIR Top 2013 Nominations

Last night’s Leo Awards nominations, celebrating the best of B.C.-made film and television, favour Jesse James Miller’s 70s-era coming-of-age film Becoming Redwood, Vancouver-cop-from-the-future TV series Continuum and northern adventure TV series Arctic Air. The many tweets of congratulations to all the nominees today are a great way to recognize B.C.’s creative talent ahead of tomorrow’s provincial election. So please go vote and as the hashtag says, #SaveBCFilm. 

Becoming Redwood‘s 14 nominations include well-deserved director and writing nods for Vancouver-born-and-raised Jesse James Miller and performance nods for Ryan Grantham as the young golf-obsessed long-haired title character Redwood; Jennifer Copping (Miller’s wife) as Redwood’s mother; Chad Willett (producer) as Redwood’s draft-dodging, pot-dealing father;  Derek Hamilton as Redwood’s red-neck stepfather Arnold and Scott Hylands as Arnold’s basement-dwelling elderly father Earl. Miller shot the Vancouver International Film Festival’s most popular Canadian feature in rural Langley for 24 days in the late spring of 2011.

Related: Jesse James Miller’s Becoming Redwood Opens at International Village

In the television category, Continuum dominates with 16 nominations, including nods for creator and UBC grad Simon Barry for his season one finale script End Times and for performances by Richard Harmon, Brian Markinson, Jennifer Spence and Liber8 “terrorist” Lexa Doig. Lead cop Rachel Nichols is not nominated but she is American and not considered a BC actor, even though she lives here for half-a-year each season and owns Vancouver Canucks season tickets (what more do you need?)

Over at Arctic Air, bona fide BC actors Kevin McNulty and Pascale Hutton are nominated for their lead performances on the filmed-in-Vancouver-and-Yellowknife aerial adventure series, two of 14 nominations for the CBC show. Read More »LEO AWARDS: Film BECOMING REDWOOD & TV series CONTINUUM & ARCTIC AIR Top 2013 Nominations

WEEK: April 8-14, 2013

  • Sunday, April 14th – Once Upon a Time recap The Price of Magic airs, narrated by Alan Dale with help from showrunners Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz.
  • Sunday, Arpil 14th – Bravo pilot  Rita  with Anna Gunn (Breaking Brad) and Josh Hamilton films at West Vancouver Community Centre.
  • Saturday, Arpil 13th – First Weekend Club event at 7:50 p.m. showing of Vancouver feature Becoming Redwood at International Village.  Q&A with some cast and producers after film, followed by drinks at Gastown’s Portside Pub.
  • Saturday, April 13th – Simon Pegg’s Hector & the Search for Happiness films at Burrard Ironworks
  • Saturday, April 13th – Deadline: Hollywood’s Primetime Pilot Panic Early Buzz 2 with nods to ABC pilot Big Thunder, ABC short presentation Once Wonderland, The CW’s The 100, NBC’s I Am Victor and Bravo’s Rita but FOX pilot Human still listed by earlier title InHuman.
  • Saturday, April 13th – Canada becoming sci-fi leader led by Vancouver’s own cop-from-the-future series Continuum. Globe and Mail Arts article.
  • Friday, April 12th – Vancouver feature Becoming Redwood opens at Internatiional Village. Interview with Vancouver writer-director Jesse James Miller in  YVRShoots Series for Vancouver is Awesome.
  • Friday, April 12th – ABC short presentation Once  Wonderland (potential Once Upon a Time spinoff) with Sophie Lowe as Alice wraps filming in Vancouver.
  • Friday, April 12th – CBS pilot Backstrom with Rainn Wilson as House-like detective wraps filming in Vancouver.
  • Friday, April 12th – Man of Steel’s Henry Cavill on cover of Entertainment Weekly’s Summer Movies issue.
  • Friday, April 12th – 3rd season set, prop & costume sale for hit sitcom Mr. Young at Burnaby studio (5828 Byrne Rd).  April 12 (10am-4pm)
  • Friday, April 12th – Globe and Mail reports amalgamation of B.C. Film Commission and B.C. Film + Media into Creative BC in a bid to help Save BC Film.
  • Friday, April 12th – TVLine gets official confirmation that Curtis Armstrong is Metatron, the scribe of God,  in Supernatural. Saw Armstrong filming with Misha Collins in Deep Cove.
  • Thursday, April 11th –  Arrow films season finale overnight at Terminal City Ironworks complex in east Vancouver. Stephen Amell on set.
  • Thursday, April 11th – The Killing  films on trails past Lafarge Lake in Coquitlam.
  • Thursday, April 11th – Set, prop & costume sale for sitcom Mr. Young at Burnaby studio (5828 Byrne Rd). April 11 (12-4 pm) ending after three seasons.
  • Thursday, April 11th – Words and Pictures seeks bike rider extras for filming on Monday April 15.
  • Wednesday, April 10th – Amanda Tapping-directed Arctic Air 2×12 airs, with Dragons’ Den dragon David Chilton (The Wealthy Barber) guest-starring as himself in Burnaby as Calgary.
  • Wednesday, April 10th – Psych wedding on 7×07 directed by James Roday as Lassie (Timothy Omundson) marries his gal Marlowe (Kristy Swanson). But first the bachelor party.
  • Wednesday, April 10th – Rogue 1×03 Cathy’s Song with Grace (Thandie Newton) discovering link between one of Jimmy (Marton Csokas)’s associates and her son’s death on
    Read More »WEEK: April 8-14, 2013

WEEK: February 25 – March 3, 2013

WEEK: February 18-24, 2013

 

Famine to Feast: GODZILLA, DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES & American TV Pilots – Updated

UPDATED June 30, 2013 From famine to feast. B.C.’s film and TV production industry is bouncing back from a dismal start to the new year.… Read More »Famine to Feast: GODZILLA, DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES & American TV Pilots – 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

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: Teen Sitcom Mr. Young Live in Burnaby

Published October 28, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

Break-dancing kid, rapper Mom, a trio singing The Climb while building a girl pyramid, large group performing the Macarena and YMCA. That’s the audience at the Live Show of homegrown teen sitcom Mr. Young. So much talent in the audience and on set makes the Friday night taping of this multi-camera sitcom a fun destination for parents and kids. Plus every so often a well-known actor sits watching the show instead of being on it: V’s Christopher Shyer and family won a round of audience Monster Family Feud last Friday.

Made-in-Vancouver Mr. Young is a situation comedy about child prodigy Adam Young (Brendan Meyer) returning to his high school at the age of 14 to teach science to his best friend Derby (Gig Morton), his crush Echo (Matreya Fedor) and the dim-witted school bully Slab (Kurt Ostlund). Filming its second season in a massive studio behind the old Watchmen set in Burnaby, Mr. Young is a Canadian hit about to make it big in the U.S. Last month children’s entertainment giant Disney started airing YTV’s #1 show on its Disney XD channel and this past weekend premiered three episodes on the main Disney Channel as well as multiple airings on Disney XD. Seven episodes aired on Saturday alone.

Is Mr. Young on its way to becoming The Suite Life North? It has the pedigree: Mr. Young was created by Dan Signer, the writer/producer of Disney’s hit series The Suite Life on Deck. And it’s certainly laugh-out-loud funny to kids and some of their parents, although some of the adult-oriented jokes might have to be toned down for prospective Disney audiences. Each episode name is a variation on the premiere Mr. Young, from Mr. Roboto to last week’s Mr. Tickleshmooz — about Adam’s attempt to clone his crush’s hamster after it dies in his care. I laughed watching Brendan Meyer give the stiffened original hamster CPR and again when the cloned hamster grew to monstrous size filling the school hallway. Monster hamster turned out to be the fifteenth episode of the second season, which started taping in July and wraps in January of next year — six months for 26 half-hour episodes, including brief hiatuses for the young cast.

Last Friday’s Live Show for Mr. Cyclops began with the audience load-in at 4:15 p.m. of about 200 into a basketball-court-length grandstand, followed by a playback of Mr. Tickleschmootz, which I’d already seen on TV at home. Shooting of live scenes began about 5 p.m. and ended five hours later at 10 p.m. with a curtain call for the cast. That’s a long time but the audience’s energy never flagged thanks to wrangler/performer Dave Dimapalis, who kept the kids hopping between set-ups with games, contests, singing, dancing, you name-it. This man is great at his job.

Of the eight live scenes we watched, my favourite had to be Adam and Derby dressed as Men in Black with CIA (Cyclops Intelligence Agency) badges in their back pockets and black one-eye bands on their heads.

Note the yellow card in the photo above asking the audience not to “jump over the railing” at the teen stars. Read More »BIG READ: Teen Sitcom Mr. Young Live in Burnaby