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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.

Occupy Vancouver-Style Tent City on CONTINUUM – Updated

Continuum crew set up an Occupy Vancouver-style Tent City on the CBC Vancouver plaza in March to do two days of filming for episode six, Time’s Up. On the first day of shooting, a peaceful protest rally against fake oil company Exotrol escalates to violence with prop Vancouver Mounted Police on the scene to control the fake rioters throwing prop bricks. [Update: Rachel Nichols’s Kiera Cameron and Victor Webster’s Carlos Fonnegra arrive before the violence and cop-from-the-future Kiera sees her first horse.]

I blame the terrorists-from-the-future Liber8 for inflaming these present-day dissenters, who carry handmade signs saying things like — I’ll Believe Corporations Are People When Texas Executes One (my favourite); Stop the Pipe Line; Fish Can’t Breathe Oil; Oil & Water Do Not Mix;, My Mom Taught Me to Share; Save Mother Earth; It’s Time to Think Outside the Barrel; Your Fault My Problem;  and No Fracking Way!

Read More »Occupy Vancouver-Style Tent City on CONTINUUM – Updated

PSYCH Films on July 4th And Returns to Comic-Con Next Week for 4th Year in a Row

I didn’t expect to see Psych —  American TV’s hottest fake psychic detective agency — filming on the most American holiday of the year:  July 4th, Independence Day.  I walked up to the set inside a Tudor-style apartment building on the southern edge of the South Granville neighbourhood in a rare bit of Vancouver sunshine. James Roday (fake psychic Shawn Spencer who solves crimes for the Santa Barbara police department with his superior observational skills); Dulé Hill (Shawn’s BFF and reluctant sidekick Burton “Gus” Guster) and Maggie Lawson (Santa Barbara police detective Juliet O’Hara and Shawn’s girlfriend) sat in their cast chairs outside, on a break from filming. Timothy Omundson (Santa Barbara police detective Carlton “Lassie” Lassiter and Shawn skeptic) joined them after hitting the craft table. It’s the first time I’ve seen Lassie on location this season.

Next week, more than four thousand lucky PSYCH-Os (either dressed as a pineapple or carrying one) will have the chance to both see and hear from all four leads at the standing-room-only, people-turned-away Psych panel at San Diego Comic-Con.

Read More »PSYCH Films on July 4th And Returns to Comic-Con Next Week for 4th Year in a Row

PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD Season Finale Turns Gastown Into London for PRIMEVAL’s Andrew-Lee Potts – Updated

Sometimes our city doesn’t play itself in upcoming Vancouver-as-Vancouver series Primeval: New World. Tonight a section of Gastown doubled as a London square and street with a prop red double-decker bus, prop black London cabs, prop red post box and a real British star.

Andrew-Lee Potts, aka Conner Temple from the original British series Primeval, is back to film another episode of the Vancouver spinoff, more than three months after guest-starring in the series premiere. He and Robert Lawrenson (Sanctuary) and two other ARC actors did take after take of the four of them chasing what will be a computer-generated dinosaur through Maple Square and along Alexander Street for half a block. It was a long run, especially when repeated over and over again (I did not envy the guy carrying the big case). Here are the ARC foursome walking back to the start point on Carrall Street, looking a bit like the cover of The Beatles’ iconic Abbey Road album (should be a zebra crossing but it’s not part of the scene).

Read More »PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD Season Finale Turns Gastown Into London for PRIMEVAL’s Andrew-Lee Potts – Updated

PSYCH Plays Ball in Nat Bailey Stadium for 6×05 Tonight on Global TV – Updated

Vancouver Canadians fans who stayed after the game in Nat Bailey Stadium a year ago to play extras in a Psych series baseball episode can see themselves in the crowd tonight on Global TV.

Psych’s fifth epsiode — Dead Man’s Curve Ball — of the sixth season is about the mysterious death of the fictional minor league Santa Barbara Seabirds’ hitting coach, with Danny Glover (of Lethal Weapon fame), Michael Trucco (Fairly Legal/Battlestar Galactica) and Baseball Hall of Famer and 1996 World Series Champ Wade Boggs as guest stars. James Roday’s “psychic” detective Shawn Spencer infiltrates the team as a hitting coach and Dule Hill’s Burton “Gus” Buster as Sammy the Seagull, a big white bird mascot with giant yellow webbed feet (looking very much like Mascot Hall of Famer, the San Diego Chicken).

Trained tap dancer Dule Hill performs some tap dance moves in a routine that doesn’t please the fake fans but ends with him face down on a platform near the field doing the worm as his giant yellow feet flop up and down.

Michel Trucco plays the Santa Barbara Seabirds catcher and a childhood idol of Shawn Spencer’s.

Read More »PSYCH Plays Ball in Nat Bailey Stadium for 6×05 Tonight on Global TV – Updated