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SHOOT: GODZILLA’s Japanese Nuclear Power Plant & its Quarantine Zone (in New Westminster)

Does the 3D Godzilla movie reboot reflect the real world event of Japan’s 2011 earthquake/tsunami and the resulting  nuclear crisis at some of the country’s older nuclear power plants? Is that the “contemporary issue” screenwriter Frank Darabont spoke of? It would seem so. “6.3 Earthquake Rocks Eastern Japan” said the news crawl on set screens at the Vancouver Convention Centre dressed as the Honolulu airport at the start of filming here in mid-March.

Janjira appears to be the fictional nuclear power plant in this modern-day re-imagining of the radioactive Japanese sea monster as a “terrifying force of nature”.

Godzilla used an abandoned Coquitlam paper recycling plant on the Fraser River to film a couple of weeks of scenes of the Janjira nuclear power station at risk of meltdown with radioactive leaks. Is this what wakes Godzilla (plural) from their slumber?

Related: Coquitlam paper recycling plant as Japanese nuclear power plant

Since Coquitlam, the Janjira plant has been played by an industrial building on Annacis Island and its offices by Nokia in Burnaby’s Glenlyon Business Park.  Godzilla also used  Steveston’s Japanese Cultural Centre to double as the Janjira International School Read More »SHOOT: GODZILLA’s Japanese Nuclear Power Plant & its Quarantine Zone (in New Westminster)

WEEK: June 17-23, 2013

  • Sunday, June 23rd – The Killing 3×05 Scared and Running airs on AMC: Bullet (Bex Taylor Klaus) works with Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) to find girl on the run before killer does; Seward (Peter Sarsgaard) isn’t happy to see his son’s adoptive mother.
  • Sunday, June 23rd – Falling Skies 3×04 At All Costs airs on TNT. President meets President.
  • Sunday, June 23rd – Godzilla‘s main unit films in Vancouver’s Business District for second day on Everleigh Street off Thurlow and then the 1000 block of West Hastings (Oceanic Plaza) dressed as San Francisco BART station. Elizabeth Olsen on set under rain tower again but this time in action scene. 2nd unit films returns to debris-strewn Thurlow Street overnight but no controlled jump from crane this time.
  • Sunday, June 23rd – YVRShoots Series – The Killing’s Mireille Enos & Joel Kinnaman Investigate Street Kid Deaths in S3
  • Saturday/Sunday, June 22nd/23rd – Godzilla‘s second unit films massive SPFX explosions overnight at Watchmen’s Main Street set in Burnaby dressed as San Francisco’s Chinatown. Explosions much bigger than expected. Click on link for photo.
  • Saturday, June 22nd – Godzilla‘s main unit films in Vancouver’s Busines District on Everleigh Street off Thurlow and then the 1000 block of West Hastings (Oceanic Plaza) dressed as a San Francisco BART station. Elizabeth Olsen gets drenched by rain tower.
  • Saturday, June 22nd – Canada’s Constellation Awards in Toronto: Vancouver-cop-from-the-future series Continuum wins best sci-fi series and best female performance for Rachel Nichols and Vancouver-dinosaurs-run-amok series Primeval: New World wins best male performance for Niall Matter. Complete list of winners.
  • Saturday, June 22nd – Primeval: New World 1×03 airs on Syfy in the U.S.
  • Friday, June 21st – Continuum 2×03 airs on Syfy in the U.S. Drugs from the future and old- fashioned biker gangs.
  • Friday, June 21st – Almost Human, Bates Motel, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland and Supernatural filming start dates appear on BC production list. Summer start dates in Vancouver for these American 2013-14 season series plus Arrow, Once Upon a Time and The Tomorrow People announced earlier.
  • Friday, June 21st – New  YTV teen sitcom Some Assembly Required gets start date of July 21st on BC production list.
  • Friday, June 21st – Warner Bros. TV announces Arrow’s Stephen Amell;  Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins; Almost Human’s Karl Urban (Star Trek) and Michael Ealy; The 100’s Henry Ian Cusick (Lost); The Tomorrow People‘s Robbie Amell and showrunners will be at ComicCon 2013 in San Diego, July 17th to 21st.
  • Friday, June 21st – Movie World War Z in theatres, featuring The Killing‘s Mireille Enos as Brad Pitt’s wife.
  • Friday, June 21st – The Killing films season 3 finale at a house near Queens Park in New Westminster. Mireille Enos, Joel Kinnaman & Elias Koteas on set.
  • Friday, June 21st – The Province’s Alex Strachan interviews Hugh Dillon of The Killing and Continuum.
  • Thursday, June 20th – ABC Studios announces Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland casts and showrunners will be at ComicCon 2013 in San Diego on Saturday, July 20th. Read More »WEEK: June 17-23, 2013

SHOOT: GODZILLA Turns New Westminster Into Streets of San Francisco – Chinatown

The  U.S. military battled Godzilla in downtown New Westminster dressed as the streets of San Francisco a couple of weekends ago in three overnight shoots (June 7-9). On Friday night, the action started near the Arundel Mansion Hotel, a San Francisco-style apartment complex, on a strewn-with-debris-and-wrecked-cars Begbie Street. Crew wearing gas masks filled the half-block with smoke and pushed spectators back for safety reasons. A jump master (Jared Keeso) and about eight soldiers led Lieutenant Ford (star Aaron Taylor-Johnson) into a wall of smoke in Chinatown up at the corner, renamed the Jin Shufan Dim Sum Buffet (“Voted #1 in San Francisco”), in take after take.

Read More »SHOOT: GODZILLA Turns New Westminster Into Streets of San Francisco – Chinatown

WEEK: May 13-19, 2013

 

WEEK: May 6-12, 2013

WEEK: April 22-28, 2013

  • Sunday, April 28th – Vancouver cop-from-the -future series Continuum 2×02 airs on Showcase. Some of it filmed in Squamish with Rachel Nichols in a big helicopter scene. New York Times’s Neil Genzlinger wrote about his Squamish set visit in TV article praising the series.
  • Sunday, April 28th – Red Widow 1×07 The Coke airs on ABC. Marta (Radha Mitchell) learns new information about her husband’s killer. Photos of one of the deaths filmed in Downtown Eastside alley.
  • Sunday, April 28th – Once Upon a Time 2×20 The Evil Queen airs on ABC. Hook pretends to help Regina (Lana Parilla) with a plan to transport her and Henry (Jared Padalecki) back to Fairytale land. Big scene of Regina talking to Henry filmed in Steveston. And in flashbacks, the Evil Queen gets Rumplestiltskin to transform her into a peasant so she can kill Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin). Village scenes were filmed in Robert Burnaby Park in Burnaby in front of visiting #EvilRegals fans (one from Mozambique). Look for opening scene of The Dark one (Robert Carlyle) & The Tramp (Emilie de Ravin) staggering out of the “Rabbit Hole” pub in Steveston too.
  • Sunday, April 28th – Latest  buzz from Deadline’s Primetime Pilot Panic says Wonderland (Once Upon a Time spinoff) “penciled in” and Big Thunder a “major contender” at ABC; I Am a Victor with John Stamos has a shot at NBC;  Human with Karl Urban”still solid” at FOX; Intelligence with Josh Holloway and Backstrom with Rainn Wilson in the mix at CBS; The 100 still under consideration at The CW but no mention of Blink.
  • Sunday, April 28th – Upcoming TNT series King & Maxwell preps Incendio in Gastown for before and after explosion shoots next week.
  • Saturday, April 28th – Arrow‘s Colton Haynes attends the White House Correspondents Dinner. WHCD’s hilarious & apt hashtag is #nerdprom.
  • Saturday, April 27th – King & Maxwell films downtown at two locations, the last at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
  • Saturday, April 27th – ABC Christmas movie Christmas Bounty wraps three nights (April 25-27th) of overnight filming in holiday-decorated Coquitlam Centre mall.
  • Friday, April 26th – Vancouver director Jeff Renfroe’s new Ice Age thriller The Colony opens nationwide in Canada. YVRShoots series interview with Renfroe.
  • Friday, April 26th – Vancouver director Jesse James Miller’s endearing 1970s-set film Becoming Redwood premieres in Toronto at Cineplex Yonge & Dundas. YVRShoots series interview with Miller.
  • Friday, April 26th – Robert Redford’s Weather Underground film The Company You Keep starring Shia LaBeouf and Redford opens in theatres. Filmed at Vancouver Art Gallery, Georgia Hotel and other locations around Vancouver. 
  • Friday, April 26th – Continuum films inside CBC Vancouver.
  • Friday, April 26th – Arrow actors Byron Mann and Celina Jade featured in Vancouver Sun article about actors making it big in China.
  • Friday, April 26th – Entertainment Weekly scoop about season 3 of Falling Skies. 
  • Friday, April 26th – Entertainment Weekly’s excusive season 3 trailer for The Killing features Peter Sarsgaard as death-row inmate.
  • Thursday, April 25th – Joel Kinnaman & Mireille Enos film a walk-and-talk for  The Killing near Cobalt Hotel on Main Street. Then moved into parking lot behind for scene in car.
  • Thursday, April 25th – Continuum films inside CBC Vancouver and on Cambie Street.
  • Thursday, April 25th – Vancouver whydunit Motive 1×10 airs. Dustin Milligan guest-stars Read More »WEEK: April 22-28, 2013

TONIGHT: Felicia Day Returns as Charlie on SUPERNATURAL 8×20 Pac-Man Fever

Geek goddess Felicia Day returns to Supernatural tonight as hacker Charlie Bradbury and beloved Queen of Moondoor. This time Charlie is the one who brings a case to the Winchester brothers. Much of tonight’s episode was filmed in east Vancouver under the 2nd Narrows Bridge at and around the secret entrance to the Men of Letters mancave (interiors are filmed in studio). Here Jensen Ackles’s Dean Winchester teaches Charlie how to be a hunter.

Jensen Ackles as Dean and Jared Padalecki as Sam -- Credit: Diyah Pera/The CW -- © 2013 The CW Network.
And later that day at the Hastings Community Centre near the PNE.

Dean’s tutelage must be working because Charlie looks a lot like a fake FBI agent in the CW photo below.

Felicia Day as Charlie and Jensen Ackles as Dean -- Credit: Diyah Pera/The CW -- © 2013 The CW Network.

Read More »TONIGHT: Felicia Day Returns as Charlie on SUPERNATURAL 8×20 Pac-Man Fever