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CINECOUP: ALIEN ABDUCTION, BAD & GRADE NINE in Film Accelerator’s Final Five

Update June 10, 2013 – Regina’s Wolf Cop won the $1-million in production financing and guaranteed release.

After  three months of missions, CineCoup’s film accelerator has advanced three Vancouver teams — sci-fi comedy Alien Abduction, crime drama Bad and dramedy Grade Nine — one Edmonton team — sci-fi thriller The Uprising — and one Regina team — horror fantasy Wolfcop — to the final five. All five finalists are based in western Canada, so they won’t have far to travel to pitch their projects to a panel of film industry professionals at the Banff Media Festival on June 10th. At stake: up to $1-milliion in production financing and guaranteed theatrical release through Cineplex next year.

Click on the key art to go to CineCoup page for each finalist.

Read More »CINECOUP: ALIEN ABDUCTION, BAD & GRADE NINE in Film Accelerator’s Final Five

WEEK: May 27 – June 2, 2013

  • Sunday, June 2nd – Two-hour season 3 premiere of The Killing on AMC. A year after the Rosie Larsen case, Stephen Holder has cleaned up and buffed up to become Smolder (Joel Kinnaman after RoboCop role) and Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) has left the Seattle police force and learned how to smile, living and working on Vashon Island (played by Bowen Island). Then Holder catches a case of a teen hooker with her head almost cut off, very like one of Linden’s old cases. But the convicted killer in Linden’s case is on death row (Peter Sarsgaard). Is someone new preying on Seattle street kids? 
  • Sunday, June 2nd – Vancouver cop-from-the-future series Continuum 2×06 Second Truths on Showcase: Kiera (Rachel Nichols) must use her knowledge of the future to stop a serial killer while keeping a curious Carlos  (Victor Webster) in the dark but when Kiera’s life is threatened she realizes she could die without anyone knowing she ever existed so she shares her secrets with Carlos. Finally!
  • Sunday, June 2nd – Continuum films over the weekend at the BCIT Aerospace campus in Richmond. Crew played parking lot hockey outside on a break today but filmed inside in the atrium. Wrap party on Monday.
  • Friday, May 31st –  Continuum films its season finale inside CBC Vancouver for the third day in a row (May 29-31)
  • Friday, May 31st – More reshoots for Seventh Son – June 3 – 13th – on BC production list.
  • Thursday, May 30th – YVRShoots Series: Brent Butt & Nancy Robertson Host Leo Awards on June 8th.
  • Thursday, May 30th – Vancouver whydunnit Motive 1×003 Pushover airs on ABC.
  • Thursday, May 30th – Godzilla has night shoot at Kent Hangar field with lights on lifts and giant inflatable green screens.
  • Thursday, May 30th – Leo Awards  announces special presentation to honour The Beachcombers: 357 episodes shot in Gibson’s Landing over 19 seasons & aired in 50 countries. Jackson Davies will represent the cast.
  • Wednesday, May 29th – Psych season 7 finale. Anthony Michael Hall guest stars as police consultant brought in to interview Shawn (James Roday), Gus (Dulé Hill), Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) and Juliet (Maggie Lawson) about their shoddy police work. Explains why we’ve seen Lassie in uniform in season 8. He’s been demoted.
  • Wednesday, May 29th – Psych turns half a block of Gastown into London to film Dule Hill’s Gus as a Hogwarts escapee from the Harry Potter movies and James Roday’s Shawn as a cowboy?
  • Wednesday, May 29th – Final round of voting begins for CineCoup Final Five with six Vancouver teams  — Alien Abduction, Bad, Scam, Grade Nine, The Fall & The Mill and the Mountain —vying for $1-million in produciton financing. YVRShoots Series
  • Wednesday, May 29th – Rogue season finale 1×10 Killing Grace/ While Grace Read More »WEEK: May 27 – June 2, 2013

BIG READ: Vote for 6 Vancouver Film Teams Vying for CINECOUP’s $1-Million – Updated

Published May 31st on Vancouver is Awesome

Update June 10, 2013 – Regina’s Wolf Cop won the $1-million in production financing and guaranteed release.

How did this crazy-good film-accelerator competition start? Back at VIFF’s Film & TV Forum, CineCoup founder and Vancouver digital media entrepreneur J. Joly made a two-hour presentation and then took it on the road to other major cities across Canada. The official launch party took place at the Whistler Film Festival in early December. Word spread and 90 teams from every region submitted two-minute trailers and then began weekly filmmaker missions in March designed to help them package a pitch and build an early fan base with social media tools. Soon after, a trailer with clips from the entrants started a year-long run in 1200 Cineplex theatres nationwide. Over several rounds of fan votes, the 90 whittled down to ten in mid-May, with six of the finalists from here —Alien Abduction, Bad, Grade Nine, Scam, The Fall and The Mill and the Mountain. Let me repeat: six out of ten from Vancouver!

Read More »BIG READ: Vote for 6 Vancouver Film Teams Vying for CINECOUP’s $1-Million – Updated

LEO AWARDS: Brent Butt & Nancy Robertson Host Leo Awards on June 8th

Published May 29, 2013 on Vancouver is Awesome

Hometown comedy couple Brent Butt and Nancy Robertson are set to co-host the 15th anniversary of the Leo Awards, celebrating the best of B.C.-made film and television, at the Westin Bayshore Hotel on Saturday, June 8th. Expect more than the usual hijinks with professional comedians as hosts and and a crowd of outstanding homegrown nominees led by Vancouver born-and-bred Jessie James Miller’s feature film Becoming Redwood with 14 nominations, Vancouver-cop-from-the-future series Continuum with 16 nominations and filmed-in-Vancouver-and-Yellowknife aerial adventure series Arctic Air with 14 nominations.. For tickets, click here.

The 1970s era coming-of-age film Becoming Redwood‘s 14 nominations include well-deserved director and writing nods for Jesse James Miller and performance nods for Ryan Grantham as the young golf-obsessed long-haired title character Redwood; Jennifer Copping (Miller’s wife) as Redwood’s mother; Chad Willett (producer) as Redwood’s draft-dodging, pot-dealing father; Derek Hamilton as Redwood’s red-neck stepfather Arnold and Scott Hylands as Arnold’s basement-dwelling elderly father Earl. Miller shot the Vancouver International Film Festival’s most popular Canadian feature in rural Langley for 24 days in the late spring of 2011. By contrast, Random Acts of Romance, the only other motion picture nominee I’ve seen on screen, filmed in several downtown and East Van locations like the Waldorf Hotel, as befits a movie whose tagline is “Sex, Abduction, Stalking and You Thought Romance Was Dead” about interconnected Vancouverites. Director Katrin Bowen is nominated for the twisted romcom, as is Sonja Bennett for her performance as a wacky stalker.

Becoming Redwood production still – courtesy of Jesse James Miller

In the television category, Continuum dominates with 16 nominations for its first hit season, including nods for creator and UBC grad Simon Barry for his season finale script End Times about time traveller Kiera Cameron’s failure to stop “terrorist” group Liber8 from blowing up a downtown tower, a definitive moment in her corporations-rule-the-world future. Continuum digitally-imploded an Arthur Erickson-designed tower on West Georgia on screen and then filmed the aftermath on a blast-and-rubble set at CBC Vancouver.

Read More »LEO AWARDS: Brent Butt & Nancy Robertson Host Leo Awards on June 8th

SHOOT: GODZILLA’s Golden Gate Bridge Set with Inflatable GreenScreens

For locals, Godzilla‘s Golden Gate Bridge set is Rise of the Planet of the Apes redux on the vast Kent Hangar gravel field at the Vancouver/Burnaby border. Rust-red street lights and railings. Giant greenscreens. Motorists and buses trapped on the bridge. Soldiers. Cop cars. Only this time the showdown is between the military/police and Godzilla not empowered apes. Plus the giant greenscreens are inflatable, something we haven’t seen before.

Related: Rise of the Planet of the Apes Reshoots on Golden Gate Bridge Set at Kent Hangar Field

Lieutenant Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson)’s son and schoolkid extras are on one of the Oakland, Alameda and Freemont school district buses evacuating San Francisco,  as tanks with soldiers rolled by yesterday.

Read More »SHOOT: GODZILLA’s Golden Gate Bridge Set with Inflatable GreenScreens

WEEK: May 20-26, 2013

  • Sunday, May 26th – Vancouver-cop-from-the-future series  Continuum 2×05 Second Opinion airs on Showcase. Kiera (Rachel Nichols) has emotional breakdown on her son’s birthday which messes with her CMR. As if that wasn’t enough. Kiera is the target of a department mole hunt.
  • Friday, May 24th – Godzilla main unit films in Steveston’s Finn Slough dressed as Japanese fishing village in nuclear quarantine zone.
  • Friday, May 24th – Godzilla main unit films at USS Alameda set in Steveston’s Garry Point Park.
  • Friday, May 24th – Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium starring Matt Damon & Jodie Foster  makes Entertainment Weekly’s Summer Must List. In theatres on August 9th.
  • Friday, May 24th –  News that The CW will air final episodes of Cult in 2 hour blocks 8pm-10pm on June 28th, July 5th and July 12th. 
  • Thursday, May 23rd – Vancouver whydunnit Motive 1×02 Crimes of Passion airs on ABC network.
  • Thursday, May 23rd – News that hometown comedy couple Brent Butt and Nancy Robertson to host Leo Awards Gala Ceremony.
  • Thursday, May 23rd – Way of the Wicked starring Christian Slater and Peter Fanicelli films near Squamish in Minaty Bay on the Sea to Sky Highway.
  • Thursday, May 23rd – Vancouver whydunit Motive settles into regular time slot on American network ABC but pre-empted locally by collapse of I-5 bridge over Skagit River near Seattle.
  • Thursday, May 23rd – Continuum star Rachel Nichols tweets her thanks to episode director Amanda Tapping – Dear @amandatapping – being directed by you has been my favorite #Continuum experience. You are beautiful, brilliant & inspiring. Thank you. 
  • Thursday, May 23rd – Network Series Rankings: Once Upon a Time still a hit for ABC, ranking  #17 in advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic. Despite an uneven season, OUAT successfuly added Captain Hook (Colin O’Donoghue), the Jolly Roger and Neverland to its fictional worlds.
  • Thursday, May 23rd – Godzilla 2nd unit films on Steveston docks dressed as San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf for last time. Soldier stunt guys carry warhead.
  • Thursday, May 23rd – Godzilla main unit snakes into Steveston’s Finn Slough dressed as Japanese fishing village in nuclear quarantine zone.
  • Thursday, may 23rd – Godzilla main unit films on its USS Alameda set in Steveston’s Garry Point Park. A set which rocks & rolls like a Disney ride.
  • Thursday, May 23rd – King & Maxwell with Jon Tenney & Rebecca Romijn films big scenes inside Pacific Central Station dressed as Washington, D.C. station with dozens Read More »WEEK: May 20-26, 2013