Our own Leo Awards, celebrating the best of BC-made television and film, is shaping up to be quite the homegrown affair. The second season of Vancouver-cop-from-the-future series Continuum earned 21 nominations in television while the first season of Vancouver-whydunit-crime-drama Motive picked up 12 nominations. Sadly, our other big local but set in Yellowknife series Arctic Air opted not to enter any categories this year but may reconsider next year for its final season just past.
Continuum is last year’s big winner and is nominated again for Best Dramatic Series while its creator and showrunner Simon Barry picked up individual nominations for directing Second Guessed and writing season two finale Second Time.
Continuum practically swept this year’s directing category with Pat Williams nominated for season finale Second Time and William Waring for Second Skin. And stunt coordinator Kimani Ray Smith earned three nominations out of five for Split Second, Second Last and season finale Second Time. Other Continuum nominees include: Michael Wale for cinematography in Second Guessed; David Pelletier for cinematography in Second Last; Allen Lee for picture editing in season finale Second Time; Jamie Alain for picture editing in Second Guessed; Chris August for production design in Second Listen; Stephanie Nolan for costume design in season finale Second Time; and of course the Artifex team led by Adam Stern for visual effects in season finale Second Time.
The three Continuum leads — Rachel Nichols, Victor Webster and Erik Knudsen — likely are not eligible for Leo Awards but Liber8 would not be denied recognition for its performances. Liber8 “terrorists” Roger Cross, Lexa Doig and Luvia Petersen garnered supporting nominations along with Liber8 sympathizer Jennifer Spence and time-traveller Ian Tracey.
Over at Motive, detectives Kristin Lehman and Louis Ferreira were both nominated for their lead performances and Brendan Penny for his supporting one. Other Motive nominees include: Andy Mikita for directing Fallen Angel; Katherine Collins for writing Public Enemy; Alison Grace for editing Public Enemy; Jeffery Ong for stunt coordination of Crimes of Passion; Mathias Herndl for cinematography of and Stein Myhrstad for picture editing of the series premiere Creeping Tom, which established the unique visual style of this crime drama.
Alberta-shot Blackstone is the third most-nominated series with seven.
Arrow may be an American series but it is filmed here and many of its cast and crew are homegrown earning six Leo nominations. Star Stephen Amell picked up a surprise lead performance nomination for Crucible and breakout IT gal Emily Bett Rickards a lead performance nomination for Three Ghosts. Other Arrow nominees include Gordon Verheul for cinematography of season one finale Sacrifice and J. J. Makaro and his Arrow stunt team for coordinating stunts in The Scientist.
Modern fairy tale series Once Upon a Time and Witches of East End are the other two filmed-in-Vancouver American shows nominated as Best Dramatic series. Once Upon a Time also picked up a visual effects nomination for its Neverland-themed Second Star to the Right as did Supernatural for its season eight finale Sacrifice. Almost Human earned a nomination for production design on Skin.
Teen sitcom Mr. Young scored a parting nomination as Best Youth Series for its final season, joined by its sitcom successor Some Assembly Required plus Spooksville and R. L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour.
Grownup sitcom Package Deal garnered a program nomination as a comedy series.
And Hacker television movie Delete picked up 10 nominations, including lead performance nominations for Erin Karpluk and Keir Gilchrist and a supporting performance nomination for Ryan Robbins (who also picked up a guest performance nomination for his turn as a John on The Killing).
For a complete list click on Leo Awards Dramatic Series and keep scrolling down to Youth & Comedy series and up to TV Movie nominations.