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Susan Gittins

Longtime mainstream media (MSM) journalist and author Susan Gittins began writing about and photographing Vancouver’s many film and TV location shoots in the summer of 2010 after the Winter Olympics put the city and its beauty on the world stage. Movies and TV series often showcase the Vancouver area in similar fashion. Vancouver is Awesome commissioned her YVRShoots series in the fall of 2010 and it ran regularly for three years. She launched her own daily YVRShoots blog in the spring of 2012.

BIG READ: PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS’ Greek God Adventures in Vancouver

Published June 14, 2002 on Vancouver is Awesome

So Greek gods are running rampant in modern America, waging war and fathering children, like young Percy Jackson who discovers in the first film adaption, The Lightning Thief. that the father he never knew is the Greek god Poseidon. In the second of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians franchise, Percy and pals set out to retrieve the golden fleece in the Sea of Monsters to save their beloved Camp Half-Blood, the summer camp where children of the gods are trained and protected.

It’s been fun to watch some of the filming of the sequel these past two months, especially on the Camp Half-Blood sets in Robert Burnaby Park in Burnaby, built on the tennis courts and in the adjoining woods. Teen fans of Logan Lerman, who stars as Percy Jackson, tracked him all over the city on Twitter and flooded Tumblr with hundreds of photos-with, taken mainly in that park in May.

Joining Logan Lerman in this series of adventures based on Greek mythology are Brandon T. Jackson as his best pal and protector Grover Underwood, a satyr who hides his goat horns under toques and his goat legs with crutches; Alexandra Daddario as Annabeth Chase, daughter of the Greek god Athena; and Douglas Smith as his newly-discovered half-brother Tyson, a very tall, one-eyed cyclops.

As in the first film, the fun for adults is the casting of the Greek god parents. Geek God Nathan Fillion plays Greek god Hermes, the god of thieves, travellers and messengers, dressed as a UPS courier in shorts. Here he is peeking out of the prop The UPS Store set they built in late April at the corner of Pender and Abbott in downtown Vancouver. Percy Jackson and pals cross Pender (dressed as Monroe St NW in the District of Columbia), enter The UPS store and line up at the counter to pick up a package which apparently gives them what they need to head into the Sea of Monsters to find the golden fleece.

For once, the fans gathered near set weren’t clamouring for Logan Lerman. They wanted “Captain Tightpants”, as one Fillion fan yelled out. Another got her Firefly DVD signed as Fillion graciously took time to meet and sign for fans three times during that downtown shoot.

Also new to the sequel is Leven Rambin, last seen on the big screen as Glimmer in box office smash The Hunger Games. She plays Clarisse La Rue, the daughter of Ares, the god of war, who is given the quest to retrieve the golden fleece. Read More »BIG READ: PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS’ Greek God Adventures in Vancouver

PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD’s “Leggy” Terrorizes UBC Thunderbird Arena This Week – Updated

In the upcoming Vancouver-as-Vancouver series Primeval: New World, primeval creatures enter our city through temporal anomolies, aka time portals, and create havoc. This week a winged creature is terrorizing the University of British Columbia in and around the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Arena (venue for Vancouver 2010 Olympics hockey and Paralympics sledge hockey). Crew setting up a crime scene in the Thunderbird Parkade last Friday told me it’s some kind of flying dinosaur [Update: it’s our cheezy-lovin’ Leggy from the grow-op escaping from a government facility]. Of course I didn’t see the creature, which will be computer-generated in post-production, but I did spy Dan Payne and other military actors arriving on the west side of the Thunderbird Arena on Friday morning and evacuating student extras on the east side on Monday morning.

Like the original British series Primeval, the Vancouver spinoff has a team of smart minds and animal experts who battle these creatures. Ours is led by Niall Matter as rich Vancouver software genius Evan Cross, seen here arriving at the Thunderbird Arena with co-star Sara Canning as predatory animal attack behaviour expert Dylan Weir.

As tall Dan Payne evacuated student extras carrying hockey sticks from the arena, Niall Matter and Sara Canning filmed a scene of them getting out of their jeep, looking back at the scene and possibly up to the sky at a flying creature, grabbing their prop tranquilizer rifles Read More »PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD’s “Leggy” Terrorizes UBC Thunderbird Arena This Week – Updated

PSYCH 6×03 This Episode Sucks on Global TV Tonight

This is old news for American Psych-Os but may,be not for some Canadian ones. On tonight’s Psych, Timothy Omundson’s buttoned-down Santa Barbara police detective Lassiter falls for a woman who could be a vampire, played by none other than Kristy Swanson, who was on the other end of the stake in feature film Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Oh and Psych stars James Roday, who directs This Episode Sucks, and Dule Hill dress up like Lestat from Interview with a Vampire and Blacula.

Lassitar meets the woman named Marlowe in a bar and is instantly attracted but she disappears on him. The next morning, Lassitar arrives at a crime scene with his police partner Juliet, played by Maggie Lawson, which turns out to be the roof of the Bay parkade in downtown Vancouver. I watched James Roday direct a scene of Lassitar and Juliet examining the body. They find puncture wounds on the throat and neck prompting Roday’s “psychic” detective Shawn to jokingly proclaim the killer a vampire.

Read More »PSYCH 6×03 This Episode Sucks on Global TV Tonight

CONTINUUM’s Rachel Nichols and Victor Webster Filming at the Vancouver Public Library for 1×03

In tonight’s hit Vancouver-as-Vancouver sci-fi series Continuum, our VPD detective duo pay a visit to the iconic Vancouver Public Library as part of their investigation into a series of murders in which victims have been drained of endocrine fluid in an effort to save the leader of terrorist group Liber8. Here’s a link to a promo photo of Rachel Nichols’s cop-from-the-future Keira Cameron and Victor Webster’s present-day-cop Carlos Fonnegra examining a corpse. And below are some of my behind-the-scenes photos of Nichols and Webster filming scenes with the medical examiner for episode three’s Wasting Time at the central library, with a prop Vancouver Police squad car and VPD extras in the background.

Originally called Out of Time, Continuum is about a future police officer Kiera Cameron who gets swept up in an escape by terrorist group Liber8 and travels back in time with them from Vancouver in the year 2077 to Vancouver in the year 2012, where she partners with detective Carlos Fonnegra to stop Liber8 from changing the future from the past.

Read More »CONTINUUM’s Rachel Nichols and Victor Webster Filming at the Vancouver Public Library for 1×03