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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.

SHOOT: Elizabeth Olsen Drenched by Rain Tower at GODZILLA in Downtown Vancouver

Godzilla's Gareth Edwards directs Elizabeth Olsen in downtown Vancouver. Copyright Godzilla.
Godzilla’s Gareth Edwards directs Elizabeth Olsen in downtown Vancouver. Copyright Godzilla.

Elizabeth Olsen got drenched by rain tower in take after take today on the set of Godzilla in Vancouver’s Business District dressed as San Francisco.  She reportedly plays the wife of Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass)’s lead character Lieutenant Ford. And since she’s wearing hospital scrubs seems to be some kind of doctor or EMR.  Crew filmed scenes of vehicles in gridlock near Oceanic Plaza dressed as a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station. Olsen got out of an ambulance in the rain and joined others looking up at something north of the street — [a fight between Godzilla and the two MUTO (massive unidentified terrestrial organisms)].

Related Godzilla turns Oceanic Plaza into a San Francisco BART station

Read More »SHOOT: Elizabeth Olsen Drenched by Rain Tower at GODZILLA in Downtown Vancouver

SET: GODZILLA Turns Oceanic Plaza Downtown into San Francisco BART Station

Godzilla crew has turned Oceanic Plaza in downtown Vancouver into a San Francisco BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station, adding a San Francisco kiosk with ads for the Golden Gate Zoo, San Francisco mental health, San Francisco Pique Ballet Company and Go Whales Tours at Fisherman’s Wharf (the whale watching company and boats used by soldier extras on the Steveston docks to shoot at the Japanese sea monster), decorating West Hastings Street with Presidio New Folk Festival banners (the same ones used on Sixth Street in New Westminster), changing the Guiness Tower signage to Portman Center, another sign to the Kerney-Grand Hotel and parking yellow-and-green San Francisco cabs, black-and-white San Francisco police cars and military vehicles along the street for filming later on today.

Read More »SET: GODZILLA Turns Oceanic Plaza Downtown into San Francisco BART Station

SET: GODZILLA Turns Watchmen’s Main Street Set in Burnaby into San Francisco’s Chinatown

Update: Godzilla filmed four or five massive SPFX explosions on this set overnight Saturday (June 22-23). See photo of one blast.

Godzilla blast

Godzilla lit up the south Burnaby night sky at Marine Way and Byrne Road on Tuesday to shoot scenes on the Main Street set (built for the 2009 movie Watchmen) dressed as San Francisco’s Chinatown — a ravaged Chinatown in the wake of a Japanese sea monster. Not much can be seen from outside the private back lot except for glimpses of Chinatown’s iconic hanging red-and-gold  lanterns, 1920s-era Dragon street lamps and a destroyed pagoda-topped building, so you’ll have to imagine it dark and filled with smoke for scenes of the movie’s hero Lieutenant Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and soldiers running through it.

Related: Godzilla turns New Westminster into Streets of San Francisco – Chinatown

Read More »SET: GODZILLA Turns Watchmen’s Main Street Set in Burnaby into San Francisco’s Chinatown

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

SHOOT: Rebecca Romijn of KING & MAXWELL at Stanley Park Pavilion

King & Maxwell crew turned the Stanley Park Pavilion into the Leavitt Inn, the site of an attempted assassination at a Washington D.C. press conference. Today was the day for all the exterior scenes including one on the other side of former secret service agent Michelle Maxwell (Rebecca Romijn) coming around the side of a prop catering van with her gun extended after shots are fired. Crew called out “Bang Bang” as a signal for the background performers to scatter on each take. Tomorrow production moves inside for gunfire scenes in the ballroom and maintenance tunnel. Catherine Bell is guest-starring in this episode, one of several this season, but I haven’t heard how her character fits in.

Read More »SHOOT: Rebecca Romijn of KING & MAXWELL at Stanley Park Pavilion

WEEK: June 10-16, 2013