Skip to content

Vancouver

TRAILERS: Henry Cavill Becomes the MAN OF STEEL in Vancouver, Nanaimo & Ucluelet in B.C. and Plano & Chicago in Illinois

Superman Begins. Clark Kent becomes Superman in the new official Man of Steel trailer released today. Scenes of grownup Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) as a fisherman were shot in Ucluelet on Vancouver Island. Other scenes of Clark Kent as a logger were filmed partly in Nanaimo at the Cassidy Hotel. And those of a shirtless Clark Kent leading a rescue on an oil rig in stormy seas were shot partly on a vast green screen stage at the Vancouver Drydocks in North Vancouver.

Related: Shirtless Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel on a North Shore Green Screen Stage

 Man of Steel is the origin story of a modern super hero and it looks spectacular.

[sz-youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T6DJcgm3wNY” /]

Read More »TRAILERS: Henry Cavill Becomes the MAN OF STEEL in Vancouver, Nanaimo & Ucluelet in B.C. and Plano & Chicago in Illinois

Kristin Lehman and Louis Ferreira Film CTV’s MOTIVE in Downtown Vancouver for 1×07 – Updated

Updated March 21st, 2013, the night 1×07 Out of the Past aired.

I only saw Louis Ferreira’s Col. Young once on location for Stargate Universe (SGU), so I didn’t recognize Ferreira on a wet Friday night more than a week ago as Vancouver detective Oscar Vega for midseason CTV series Motive. I should have known from Kristin Lehman’s laughter who her detective partner is. Ferreira is known for serious, dramatic and sometimes psychotic roles but is a crazy, wild, hilarious cutup of a guy out of character.

Motive filmed its crime scene in the rain at the corner of Howe and Nelson in the Ash Market with prop Metro Police cars flashing (not with actual Vancouver Police decals like Continuum uses). The show’s twist is to reveal the killer at the start of each episode and then let us follow along the detectives’ efforts to solve the murder and uncover the reasons behind it.

Kristin Lehman from The Killing is the lead as “feisty female Vancouver detective” Angie Flynn, a divorced, single Mom solving murders on a series populated with other Canadian actors. In fact, Peter Kelamis just tweeted he has been cast as a guest actor so we can look forward to an SGU Brody-Col. Young reunion on screen sometime in 2013.

Read More »Kristin Lehman and Louis Ferreira Film CTV’s MOTIVE in Downtown Vancouver for 1×07 – Updated

VIFF: Vancouver as Vancouver in RANDOM ACTS OF ROMANCE

Published October 19, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome.

It’s not often in this series that I get an opportunity to talk about movies where Vancouver plays itself, but once a year several locally-filmed features are screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival. This year I got to see director Katrin Bowen’s sold-out Vancouver film Random Acts of Romance on my third try last Friday night.

“Sex, Abduction, Stalking and You Thought Romance Was Dead” is the tagline. The film opens in east Vancouver’s Waldorf Hotel with our two married couples out for the evening: Amanda Tapping’s Dianne married to Zak Santiago’s younger man Matt and Laura Bertram’s young wife Holly married to Robert Moloney’s David. Elsewhere in the restaurant is Ted Whittall’s single sleezeball Richard, breaking up with his latest conquest. Add Sonja Bennett’s single, completely wacko stalker Lynne and Katharine Isabelle’s lesbian Bud to this mix of interconnected Vancouverites and you get random acts of violent romance.

At last Friday’s screening, the very tall Katrin Bowen (below) spoke about the importance of setting her movie in Vancouver in all its “rain, sex and awkwardness.” She wanted  the city to “take on a personna”. It helps that 95% of the movie soundtrack is music from Vancouver indie bands, many discovered at the Biltmore and Cobalt Hotels. And that there are so many scenes set in recognizable locations like the denouement of an abduction under the south end of the Burrard Bridge.

But the big question for the director last Friday was: how did you get Vancouver’s Sci-fii Queen Amanda Tapping to star in your movie? It turns out Katrin Bowen and Tapping became fast-friends years ago when Bowen worked as Tapping’s photo double/standin on the first Stargate TV series, Stargate SG-1. Read More »VIFF: Vancouver as Vancouver in RANDOM ACTS OF ROMANCE

CULT’s Robert Knepper & Alona Tal Film the Show-Within-A-Show at the Vancouver Art Gallery for 1×07

Updated April 10, 2013 – This was the last episode of Cult aired by The CW before it cancelled the show.

Cult filmed scenes of Cult — its show-within-a-show — today at the Vancouver Art Gallery, with Robert Knepper (Prison Break)’s cult leader speaking about a proposed youth centre while Alona Tal’s police officer opens the trunk of the red car featured in the show-within-a-show. Confused yet?

You should be. “When the line between the imagined and reality is broken” is the meta tagline of The CW’s midseason series Cult. Matt Davis (The Vampire Diaries) stars as Jeff, an investigative journalist searching for his brother whose disappearance may be linked to the fans of a TV series called Cult (which stars Robert Knepper and Alona Tal’s characters) recreating what they’ve seen on the show. Jeff enlists the help of Jessica Lucas’s production assistant Skye from the show-within-a-show. Hopefully, all this meta-ness will be easier to follow when we see it on screen early next year.

Read More »CULT’s Robert Knepper & Alona Tal Film the Show-Within-A-Show at the Vancouver Art Gallery for 1×07

SHOOT: Youngest in RED WIDOW’s Mob Family Does Own Stunt at Vancouver’s Victory Square – Updated

Inspired by a popular Dutch TV show, midseason ABC series Red Widow is about a San Francisco mobster’s widow, Marta Walraven, forced to replace her husband as head of a crime syndicate after his murder. She does this to protect her three children, two of whom were on set today at Victory Square in downtown Vancouver. The youngest — Jakob Salvati as Boris Walraven — did an impressive stunt for such a young actor in take after take. A crew member drew a mark in the centre of Hamilton Street where he would walk to with his TV sister — Erin Moriarty as Natalie Walraven — and then stop as a motorcycle turns the corner in front of them. Moriarity keeps walking as Salvati stays put, looking up at the motorcycle as a red car turns the corner next. Moriarity returns and pulls Salvati to the sidewalk as a blue van turns behind them. On the first take, Moriarity pulled a little too hard and ended up dragging Salvati to the sidewalk. He wasn’t hurt and seemed to enjoy himself as they did the scene over and over again with different camera setups.

Read More »SHOOT: Youngest in RED WIDOW’s Mob Family Does Own Stunt at Vancouver’s Victory Square – Updated