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SHOOT: Jamie Dornan & Lana Parrilla Film ONCE UPON A TIME 2×17 Chase in Steveston – Updated

Once Upon a Time paid to have businesses close for the day on two blocks of Moncton Street in Steveston and hired 35 PAs (production assistants) to keep people back for Storybrooke flashbacks of Sheriff Graham (Jamie Dornan) and Regina (Lana Parrilla) in a high-speed chase in the Storybrooke Sheriff’s car. Crew alternated scenes of stunt doubles driving fast and cast driving slowly down Moncton Street.

NOTE: Because these are flashbacks I’m not withholding the photos but normally my policy is to hold onto major spoilers until they become mild to medium ones.

Read More »SHOOT: Jamie Dornan & Lana Parrilla Film ONCE UPON A TIME 2×17 Chase in Steveston – Updated

Crazed Fandom Show CULT Debuts February 19th on The CW – Updated

What happens when a rabid, obsessed fandom crosses the line between the imagined and reality? We’ll get to see in three weeks when the buzzed-about meta series Cult debuts on The CW. The pilot episode introduces us to journalist Jeff (Matt Davis from the Vampire Diaries) searching for his brother whose disappearance may be linked to the fans of a TV series called Cult recreating what they’ve seen on the show. Jeff enlists the help of production assistant Skye (Jessica Lucas) from the show-within-a-show to examine the dark influence of its cult leader character Billy (Robert Knepper) on the fans and how the show-within-a-show’s creator might be purposefully manipulating them. The next twelve episodes track the fan reaction to twelve episodes of the show-within-a-show, culminating in season finales for both.

[sz-youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F65Zw_BLtqA” /]

[Update: A new promo asks What is Real? One is TV. One is Reality. As it cuts back and forth  between scenes from the show-within-a-show and “reality”.  Cult filmed the scene of car vs  train on railroad tracks in Langley and caused traffic gridlock on a Friday afternoon as drivers slowed down to stare.]

[sz-youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22aMECBzGUc” /]

Related: Matt Davis filming TV pilot Cult in Gastown

Showrunner Rockne O’Bannon of Farscape fame told the Television Critics Association (TCA) winter press tour that Cult puts a magnifying glass on the potential dangers of a passionate fan base of a dark show. Executive producer Josh Swartz elaborated, saying today’s fans feel like they have an emotional ownership of their show and get so  much more access to the people who create, write and star in it that they “may feel they control that conversation as well. And when things don’t go the way they have tweeted, there’s a certain level of animosity Read More »Crazed Fandom Show CULT Debuts February 19th on The CW – Updated

SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME Turns Gastown into Manhattan for Robert Carlyle, Jennifer Morrison & Jared Gilmore

Some fans spotted prop New York taxi cabs and other NYC set dressing last December in Gastown and hoped it would be for one final downtown shoot of their show Fringe. Surprisingly, it turned out to be for Once Upon a Time instead. The modern fairy tale series shot scenes of famous fairy tale character Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) out of Storybrooke and in Manhattan, where a coerced Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Henry (Jared Gilmore) help him search for his long-lost son Bae. Is Bae found? Well, that’s a spoiler for another post.

Read More »SHOOT: ONCE UPON A TIME Turns Gastown into Manhattan for Robert Carlyle, Jennifer Morrison & Jared Gilmore

WEEK: January 21-27, 2013

SHOOT: CONTINUUM S2’s Green Skin Suit Stunt at CBC Vancouver for 2×01 – Updated

Updated April 21, 2013. Green skin suit for invisible fighting by Kiera.

After Continuum star Rachel Nichols wrapped her scenes at the CBC Vancouver parking garage on Friday night, crew brought out stunt mats and a stunt performer dressed in a green skin suit. It looks like she’s the stunt double for Kiera Cameron’s cop-from-the-corporate-future or could that be a Kiera double on the mat? We’ll have to wait to see the final VFXed scenes.

Read More »SHOOT: CONTINUUM S2’s Green Skin Suit Stunt at CBC Vancouver for 2×01 – Updated

SHOOT: Rain Towers & Stunt for CONTINUUM’s Rachel Nichols at CBC Vancouver for 2×01 – Updated

Updated April 21, 2013.

Continuum‘s cop-from-the-corporate-future Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) is back in her black high-tech cat suit  for a second season and was spotted kicking the crap out of some bad guys in CBC Vancouver’s parking garage last night. Other cast members commiserated on Twitter ahead of the “rain tower” night shoot, where Nichols got good and wet in front of a handful of fans, photographers and passersby on a closed block of Cambie Street downtown.

Related: Invisible Green Skin Suit Fighting at CBC Vancouver Parking Garage

Crew set up rain towers on either side of the entrance for a “rain effect”. That seems odd to people who know how much it rains in Vancouver but it has to be a deluge to show up on camera.

Read More »SHOOT: Rain Towers & Stunt for CONTINUUM’s Rachel Nichols at CBC Vancouver for 2×01 – Updated

SET: ONCE UPON A TIME Films on its Floating Pirate Ship Set in Steveston

Is Storybrooke offering weekly tours of Captain Hook’s pirate ship? It sure seems so. Ever since Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) and Cora (Barbara Hershey) sailed through a portal into this sequestered town in Maine at the end of the mid-season finale, we’ve seen a parade of townsfolk visiting the ship from the kidnapped Archie (Raphael Sbarge) to the uninvited RumBelle (Robert Carlyle & Emilie de Ravin) to the kidnapped Giant (Jorge Garcia), who’ll show up when the show returns with new episodes in February.

I’ve also spotted Charming (Josh Dallas), Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin), Emma (Jennifer Morrison), Henry (Jared Gilmore), Grumpy (Lee Arenberg), Regina (Lana Parrilla) and others too spoilery to mention on board since late last year when Once Upon a Time started filming scenes on this new floating set at the Britannia Heritage Shipyard Park in Steveston south of Vancouver.

The priate ship set is a truncated version of the Tall Ship Lady Washington which first appeared in Fairytale Land flashbacks of Captain Hook on his pirate ship — the Lady Washington is the exact same ship used in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie when it was known as the HMS Interceptor, the fastest ship in the Caribbean. It looked magnificent as Captain Hook’s ship sailing up Howe Sound Read More »SET: ONCE UPON A TIME Films on its Floating Pirate Ship Set in Steveston

SHOOT: Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson) & Chin Han (Frank Chen) in Fire Alarm Scene for ARROW 1×16 at Bayshore Hotel – Updated

What happened in the Westin Bayshore Hotel when the lights went out and the fire alarm flashed orange? Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson) is the only Starling City 1 per-center I recognized exiting the building. She was accompanied by a mysterious Asian man [Update: Frank Chen (Chin Han from The Dark Knight) who is an old friend of the Queen family and involved Malcolm Merlyn’s nefarious The Undertaking],  So where are Malcolm and Tommy Merlyn (John Barrowman and Colin Donnell) and where is her hooded son Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell)? Are they all inside somewhere?

Arrow filmed in the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Coal Harbour for two afternoon/evenings this week and this was the only exterior scene. 150 chilled -to-the-bone background performers, dressed in evening gowns or tuxes, vacated the hotel during a simulated fire alarm in take after take on Tuesday night. Two cameras filmed the big exterior — one high on a hoist at the north end of the property and the second, a tracking camera directly in front of the lobby doors. Last night Arrow was scheduled to film in the International Suite on the west side of the hotel, with a simulated flash of light and the sound of a prop pistol. Who gets shot? We’ll have to wait to find out.

Read More »SHOOT: Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson) & Chin Han (Frank Chen) in Fire Alarm Scene for ARROW 1×16 at Bayshore Hotel – Updated

SHOOT: The Merlyn Boys (John Barrowman & Colin Donnell) Film ARROW 1×16 at Bayshore Hotel

Ummm, people of Starling City. Am I the only one who noticed all those Triad guys dressed up as waiters at your big gala scene last night in the Westin Bayshore Hotel?  Merlyn father-and-son (John Barrowman and Colin Donnell) seemed oblivious to it. Speaking of those Merlyn Boys, is this the best father-and-son casting since those Bishop Boys on Fringe?

Barrowman and Donnell arrived at set together and had such fun rehearsing in their tuxes that they did an impromptu song-and-dance number together up and down the escalator in the Convention Centre. I don’t have photos so you’ll have to trust me that it looked like something out of a Fred Astaire movie. Besides their obvious resemblance, the two men share a theatre background.

In the scene below, Malcolm Merlyn, accompanied by bodyguards, is the recipient of some kind of award. His son Tommy hangs back as his father takes the stage to accept. After a brief speech, Malcolm steps off the stage into the crowd  as the room goes dark, a fire alarm starts flashing orange and the be-jeweled, be-gowned rich folk of Starling City exit the building. What happened?

Read More »SHOOT: The Merlyn Boys (John Barrowman & Colin Donnell) Film ARROW 1×16 at Bayshore Hotel