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BIG READ: STARGATE UNIVERSE (SGU) Meets its Destiny

Published May 12, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

I came to the Stargate TV franchise at the tail end of its incredible 14-year run in Vancouver. The third and final series Stargate Universe (SGU), set aboard an Ancient starship called the Destiny, reminded me of Battlestar Galactica, my favourite sci-fi series ever, also filmed here. Only the long, complex mythology of the long-running sci-fi Stargate saga occasionally defeated me.

To summarize: stargates are ring-shaped technology from the Ancients which create wormholes that allow travel between worlds cosmic distances away. In the 1994 MGM feature film Stargate, one is discovered on Earth and kept secret from the public by the U.S. military. Following up on the movie’s mammoth success, TV series Stargate SG-1 began filming in Vancouver in 1997 and ran for ten seasons. Partway through. a spinoff Stargate Atlantis (SGA) — set in the legendary city of Atlantis — launched in 2004 and ran for five seasons. It seemed like Stargate, already setting records for series longevity, would go on forever here when the third series Stargate Universe (SGU) started airing in 2009, but it was not to be.

Darker-edged but more critically-acclaimed Stargate Universe took home six Leo awards at last year’s annual celebration of film and television in British Columbia, winning Best Dramatic Series and Best Supporting Actress for Julia Benson. I took photos of Destiny crew Benson (Lt. James), Patrick Gilmore (Volker), Elyse Levesque (Chloe) and fan favourite Lou Diamond Phillips (Col. Telford) on the red carpet, without knowing what characters they played.

Not long after, I caught up with Stargate Universe’s first season and wondered if it would be possible to see them filming any of the second season on location in Vancouver. That was easier said than done, since 80% of SGU was filmed on studio sound stages, i.e. the Destiny, with the production only going on location to film rare planetary visits using the ship’s stargate or Earth visits using the communication stones (don’t ask).

Four months later, I found Stargate Universe filming a planetary visit at the old Terminal City Ironworks site (often used by film & TV productions) in East Vancouver. SGU filmed there for several days with a CGIed Stargate inside one of the buildings and virtually the entire cast there, with the exception of Robert Carlyle (Rush) and David Blue (Eli) left aboard the Destiny in studio. I photographed a green-screen on the roof to CGI a scene of Louis Ferreira (Col. Young) looking down on a deserted city: “It wasn’t abandoned. These people were wiped out.” I didn’t stick around once they finished the roof scene and moved inside, so I didn`t get to witness any of the cast`s crazy antics or shenanigans often involving cutup Ferreira, but I did see a happy and relaxed Jamil Walker Smith (Master Sgt. Greer) and Alaina Huffman (TJ), with her two young children, chatting outside their trailers with crew and fans while Ming-Na (Camille Wray) strolled around the block in the sun. SGU filmed other key scenes of this deserted city at the old Watchmen set in Burnaby. And these scenes ended up in the penultimate episode of the SGU series, in fact of the entire Stargate TV franchise.

More critical acclaim fell on Stargate Universe’s first season when the series earned multiple Gemini Award nominations last fall, including one for Best Dramatic Series. The entire cast and the creators flew to Toronto for an action-packed day on November 12th, with stops at Canada AM and then an InnerSPACE: SGU Special Read More »BIG READ: STARGATE UNIVERSE (SGU) Meets its Destiny

BIG READ: CHAOS Spies “Burn Noticed”

Published May 5, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

Since I last wrote about Chaos in early February, the dramedy about rogue spies made its debut on CBS/Global on April 1st — a Friday night at the tail end of the March break — to a small audience. What were CBS programmers thinking? It seemed inevitable that three episodes later, CBS would put the show on hiatus until the summer. The only surprising thing is that CBS and the studio allowed Chaos to finish filming its season here, wrapping a five-month shoot this past Tuesday.

CBS should take note that Chaos would be a smash hit if Vancouver fans had anything to do with it, judging by all the local tweets and fan photos of the “Right Bastards”, as the four lead actors – Freddy Rodriguez, Eric Close, James Murray and Tim Blake Nelson — call themselves. One fan arrived at a big shoot in Victory Square in early March wearing an “I Heart Eric Close” t-shirt and charmed Close into posing for a photo with her taken by her boyfriend. Close fans also got signed pages of that day’s script. Tim Blake Nelson signed a fan’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? CD (Blake Nelson did his own singing in the film). And later, the Chaos quartet posed together for yet another fan’s camera.

Chaos crew is good at taking parts of Vancouver and making them looking like almost anywhere else in the world, with the marked exception of the desert scenes of the California-filmed pilot. The Victory Square shoot seemed to be set in a fictional Soviet Union offshoot Rukovia and boasted an American embassy at Arch alley, a light armoured vehicle and Russian-type soldier extras with AK-47s on Cambie, as well as dozens of protester extras in the square itself. Other local areas have passed as Amsterdam, Paris, Turkey, the North Korea/China border and Hong Kong, using creative set dressing and CGI.

Two weeks later in mid-March, I found Freddy Rodriguez on location in “Hong Kong” outside a Chinatown market taking photos of himself outside and then of the four of them together inside with his iPhone in between scenes. He started tweeting these set photos on his Twitter account @FreddyRdriguez as part of CBS’s social media campaign for the show. Eric Close opened a Twitter account @EricRClose, as did James Murray under his character’s name @Op_Billy Collins. CBS even brought a Chaos spy-themed mobile social game to hipster, nerd and tri-Mohawk haven SXSW (South by Southwest, the annual music, film and interactive festival held in Austin, Texas), along with Freddy Rodriguez, Tim Blake Nelson and their executive producer Brett Ratner.

Chaos returned to Victory Square on March 21st to film a chase scene in Arch alley Read More »BIG READ: CHAOS Spies “Burn Noticed”

BIG READ: THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN 2’s Vampire Running in Stanley Park

Published April 28, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

Popular romantic-vampire movie franchise The Twilight Saga is famous for a certain kind of hysterical fandom known as Twi-hards. During the ten weeks that Breaking Dawn, Parts 1 and 2, have been filming in the Vancouver area, I did encounter some unbalanced Twi-hards on Twitter but never heard of them disrupting production here. It would be too difficult.

Director Bill Conroy, producers and crew know how to foil fans and paparazzi from photographing and spoiling any scenes of the long-awaited union of teenage vampire Edward Cullen and his human beloved Bella Swan, played by real-life couple Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart (Robsten). Earlier this month, huge white tarpaulins covered the backyard of the Cullen house set near Squamish, where the wedding scenes were filmed for consistent lighting but also to prevent aerial spoilers And roadblocks and armed police (including RCMP) surrounded the set to prevent spoilers from the ground. Some joked that security for this fictional wedding rivalled that of the Royal Wedding in London tomorrow.

I steered clear of Breaking Dawn location shoots until a week ago Monday when the second unit set up in Stanley Park on the interior road between the Vancouver Aquarium and Brockton Oval to film Kristen Stewart as newly-made vampire Bella doing fast vampire-running stunts on a greenscreen treadmill towed by a camera truck for Breaking Dawn 2. When I arrived near the aquarium, set containment crew had already erected a huge black screen at that end of the closed road but I did manage to take a few photos from Brockton Oval of the treadmill before set containment crew started putting up several 12×12 black screens at that end. As I was walking away across a football field, a containment worker with a big black umbrella came out to discourage me from taking any more photos, even of set containment units.

So you can imagine how security tightened close to Kristen Stewart’s afternoon call time. A dozen containment workers started patrolling the woods on either side of the closed road to prevent papparazzi and fans from photographing Stewart as Bella. One speedy pap — Justin King — did manage to evade them long enough to photograph Stewart from behind running on the treadmill (plus Bella’s never-seen-before wedding ring) before being chased out. And back at Brockton Oval, crew allowed some fans, including Christine Kilpatrick (@OLTV who offers On Location tours of Twilight sights) to watch Stewart running in her blue vampire dress on the treadmill shielded by a containment unit worker with an umbrella, as long as they kept their cameras in their pockets. I cannot stress how unprecedented this was to get to see cast at work.

Before any of the cast arrived in Vancouver in late February (Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart flew in by private jet and would have gone unpapped if they hadn’t had to go through customs where several photographers waited), it seemed there would be opportunities to see some filming in public places in downtown Vancouver. Read More »BIG READ: THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN 2’s Vampire Running in Stanley Park

BIG READ: FRINGE Wraps an Epic Third Season

Published April 14, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

Sci-fi series Fringe began in its third season filming an alternate universe with the Orpheum Theatre digitally encased in amber and seems to have ended it filming a post-apocalyptic future with the Orpheum Theatre exploded into rubble and cars burning on Granville Street. In between, it’s been one wild nine-month ride of inventive location shoots, other-worldly lighting and set-signage-to-puzzle-over (Manhatan is spelled with one “t” and The West Wing is in its 12th season in Fringe’s alternate universe).

Is it any wonder that Fringe location shoots are my favourite to photograph? I recently joked about how hard it is to quit Fringe shoots on Twitter but Fringe solved the problem last Sunday when it wrapped its third season with an extra day of shooting: shutting down the Deltaport Highway near Tsawwassen (for the second time) to film more daytime doomsday aftermath of explosions and burning cars. Tempting as that sounds, I was one long ferry ride away on Vancouver Island.

Fringe’s final four episodes of the season begin broadcasting this Friday night. And it’s fitting that the first is a homage to Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi mind-trip Inception in an episode entitled Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD). As I watched it being filmed in the T intersection of Hastings and Hornby in downtown Vancouver on March 1st, I remarked that it looked like one of Dr. Walter’s acid trips. Three hundred extras dressed in grey and black kept running around the Vancouver Club and down Hornby Street as if caught in a vortex while Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop (wearing dark sunglasses) and John Noble’s Dr. Walter Bishop ambled through, sometimes cracking up after a take. Later I photographed John Noble standing on a ladder and others captured him sitting on a bus. If it wasn’t obvious already, a Manhatan subway station sign gave it away: Drugs are hard to take.

Fringe had shut down the same T intersection on Sunday, February 20th to film master shots of the extras running. And a Fringe fan blogged on Tumblr (Un Canadian Errant) about watching Joshua Jackson and John Noble filming a scene with Noble driving a taxi outside Bentall 5. She called it “How I Hung Around the Set of Fringe and Didn’t Die of GLEE” and it’s a hilarious account of her adventures on set.

The tone changed to post-apocalyptic when Fringe returned to the T intersection at Hornby & Hastings on St. Patrick’s Day for a night shoot with Joshua Jackson seemingly playing a future version of his character Peter Bishop with a receding hairline, lying on the ground amidst burning cars and explosions, the first of several shoots where Fringe blew stuff up and strewed wreckage. I swear I heard Joshua Jackson yell “Holy Frak” after completing that scene in front of hundreds of spectators, some drunk and not sure what they were seeing.

I also watched Anna Torv seemingly play a future version of her character Olivia Dunham with her hair cut to shoulder length in a separate scene a few weeks later. One of the dangers Read More »BIG READ: FRINGE Wraps an Epic Third Season

BIG READ: THE KILLING a “Damp, Good Mystery”

Published April 8, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

I would like to take credit for calling The Killing a “damp, good mystery” but Entertainment Weekly magazine coined that gem after the show’s two-hour premiere on AMC last Sunday. Filming in Vancouver for the past four months, the 13-part series about the murder of a teenage girl uses local rain and rain-making machines for atmosphere like horror series Supernatural uses local valley fog and smoke machines. I stood mouth agape on a wet, miserable day in early January watching The Killing crew set up a rain tower in Gastown outside their “Seattle Police Station” thinking: isn’t our rain good enough for TV? Some TV critics went so far as to list “heavy rain” as a co-star in the Seattle-set drama and you can see a damp, grey sheen overlaying the visuals.

A close adaptation of a hit Danish TV series, The Killing stars Mireille Enos as Sarah Linden, a pale, stoic, russett-haired homicide detective so consumed by the murder investigation she barely ever changes her sweater (although when I first photographed her near the Dunsmuir viaducts she had changed it from the Scandinavian sweater of the premiere to a serviceable grey wool one).

Mireille Enos’s detective character is not one for talking but she’s at peace with herself and provides a steady, calm focus Read More »BIG READ: THE KILLING a “Damp, Good Mystery”

BIG READ: PSYCH “Sucks” in Season Six

Published March 31, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

Did you spot a dozen or so vampires entering the blood-red interior of Barcelona night club on Granville Street this past Tuesday night? Maybe it’s not that surprising to see vampires on the streets of Vancouver with two big features – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn and Underworld 4 – filming here but the vampires at Barcelona this week belonged to TV series Psych and are featured in the third episode of the sixth season, the aptly-titled “This Episode Sucks”.

Psych star James Roday teased fans late last year with the prospect of a vampire-themed episode for the long-running and popular USA Network detective series, promising that the show would do something different than the “spoofs on spoofs on spoofs” already out there. I don’t know if he planned to direct the episode back then but he is directing it now and getting ribbed for it by his co-stars.

Psych is the story of Shawn Spencer, played by James Roday, who cons the Santa Barbara police department into believing he`s a psychic but really uses his superior observational skills to solve crimes. He partners up with his best friend Burton “Gus” Guster, played by Dulé Hill (The West Wing) as police consultants. Lots of jokes and pranks later, the American comedy-drama is filming its sixth season.

A vampire episode is not that much of a departure for a dramedy like Psych, which paid tribute to cult noir series Twin Peaks last fall in an episode where the detectives investigated a murder of a high school student in fictional Dual Spires, with Twin Peak cast Sheryl Lee, Sherilyn Fenn, Ray Wise and Dana Ashbrook all guest starring.

For the first filmed episode of the sixth season, Psych producers searched for an actress already known for playing a vampire in a film or TV series. Then in a role reversal, they cast Kristy Swanson, who staked many a vampire in the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as their lead suspect in a vampire-style killing. Vampire-related actor Corey Feldman from Lost Boys is on board too in one of the guest star roles, either as a vampire club bartender or as an offbeat rocker. The other vampire-related guest actor is not yet known.

Late last week, Dulé Hill tweeted a photo of a Psych family reunion, along with special guest star Kristy Swanson as Marlowe Viccellio. She reportedly meets and charms Timothy Ormundson’s Read More »BIG READ: PSYCH “Sucks” in Season Six

BIG READ: HELLCATS Wrap First Season at The Centre

Published March 24, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

I do try to photograph at least part of each TV series filming in Vancouver but some are more difficult than others. The CW’s Smallville, whose cast and crew celebrated ten seasons here at a big wrap party at the Vancouver Club last Saturday, filmed on permanent private sets and rarely went on location in their final season. And the incredibly fit young stars of the CW’s Hellcats, who instantly topped the local paparazzi list of saleable celebrity shots in their first season, attract a pack of paps and autograph hounds to each location shoot, as well as their daily workouts.

At its core, Hellcats is the story of friendship between pre-law-student-turned-cheerleader -for-scholarship-money Marti, played by Aly Milchalka, and her roommate and fellow cheerleader the very-religious-and-sheltered Savannah, played by Ashley Tisdale, at the fictional Lancer University in Memphis, Tennessee. Throw in dance numbers in skimpy cheerleader uniforms and lots of hook-ups among the main characters and you get a demographic hit. CW executives gave an early full season order, announcing they were “thrilled that [it] paid off for us.”

But critical reaction to the series is a mixed bag with some calling it “soft porn” and others pronouncing it “not trashy enough”. The only consensus: that the series has restored Ashley Tisdale to something approaching the same level of stardom she experienced with High School Musical, with photos of her coming and going from her daily workout out a fitness club near the Shangri-la Hotel appearing almost daily in celebrity blogs. She had to hire a security assistant to accompany her in public.

After filming its pilot here in Vancouver last April, Hellcats returned to shoot the series from mid-summer to late winter, favouring locations at several local campuses, including BCIT, Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia. I first caught up with them filming an exterior scene on the UBC campus at the end of November with cameras forced to shoot with snow on the ground. Read More »BIG READ: HELLCATS Wrap First Season at The Centre

BIG READ: Battlestar Galactica Reunion at TV Pilot 17th Precinct

Published March 17, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

“Frak yes! It’s a BSG reunion” read the New York Post headline of a PopWrap post illustrated with my photos of three of Battlestar Galactica’s cast filming a new NBC TV pilot 17th Precinct on location in Yaletown earlier this week. Why all the excitement? It’s the first major project from BSG showrunner Ronald D. Moore which reunites him with main cast – Apollo (Jamie Bamber ), Baltar (James Callis) and Cylon Six (Tricia Helfer) – from the cult sci-fi series plus one of its best directors, Michael Rymer.

As a long time fan of the Vancouver-shot BSG, I joked with friends that 17th Precinct needs Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff ) in the cast to be a true reunion for me, but she will not be in the mix. She has a new project in the offing. BSG’s Chief/Cylon (Aaron Douglas) tweeted her: “Take me with you? Jamie, James and Tricia are ganging up with Ron. I think it is high time you and I gang up somewhere else.”

17th Precinct is not the average cops and robbers procedural. Think cops and warlocks instead. It’s a Harry-Potter-for-grownups show about detectives Caolan (Jamie Bamber) and John (James Callis) investigating magical occurrences in the fictional town of Excelsior, with the help of the sorceress Morgana (Tricia Helfer). I spotted the strange steering-wheel-less unmarked car driven by the magical detectives and the Public Necromancer Van at a location shoot in the West End late last week. Police extras loaded a body into the rear of the van.

Most of that shoot happened inside The Kensington, the mustard-yellow Italianate heritage building on Nicola Street, with some exterior scenes scheduled at night until the high winds of last Thursday caused havoc. The craft tent blew off the street, damaging a fridge, and all exterior scenes got pushed to Friday evening. That night shoot introduced other cast members: the venerable Stockard Channing as robbery detective Mira and her partner, the relative newbie Matt Long (Peggy fired his ass on Mad Men), doing a scene at the staged crime scene. Later I spotted Eamonn Walker, who plays Dectective Chief Inspector Wilder Blanks, pile into the cast van after filming wrapped for the week.

On Monday 17th Precinct crew re-established themselves for a two-day shoot in Yaletown off Hamilton Street. I arrived to see Read More »BIG READ: Battlestar Galactica Reunion at TV Pilot 17th Precinct