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BIG READ: Here is Peter Bishop on FRINGE

Published October 14, 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

Delayed-viewing Friday night hit Fringe recently changed its promotional tagline from “Where is Peter Bishop?” to “Here is Peter Bishop” followed by “Witness the Return Soon”. Hopefully this signals the on-screen return of one of the show’s trio of main characters — the ceased-to-exist Peter Bishop — as well as Joshua Jackson, the actor who plays him. Perhaps that on-screen return will be as soon as tonight’s episode, Subject 9, filmed partly at the Brixton Cafe in Chinatown and the Sherburn building in the West End.

After all, Joshua Jackson made his first on-set appearance on August 23rd at that Sherburn building location where Fringe filmed part of Subject 9, the fourth episode of season four. Jackson filmed inside for half an hour wearing a shirt with motion-capture tags so that ghostly images of Peter Bishop could be inserted into the first three episodes of the season. But it’s also possible that the Sherburn building will be the place where Peter Bishop finally breaks through into the altered Fringe timeline. I’m hoping it will be at fictional Reiden Lake instead — in actuality Rice Lake in North Vancouver where Fringe filmed a couple of weeks later — because Peter Bishop returning to existence at Reiden Lake would provide symmetry in Fringe mythology.

However it happens on screen, Peter Bishop has been back on the streets of Vancouver for almost two months. For example, Fringe fans got to see Joshua Jackson filming a scene today as Peter Bishop with Seth Gabel as original-universe Fringe Division agent Lincoln Lee outside the Orpheum Theatre, where so many pivotal Fringe events have taken place.

Fringe fans have missed Peter Bishop on screen but his disappearance in the season three finale last May did lead to one of the most amazing expressions of fan love I’ve ever seen in a video called #WhereisPeterBishop?, uploaded on YouTube ahead of the season four premiere on September 23rd. “The following footage was shot on location by Fringe fans around the world” — it says in the opening.

These fans photographed or video-taped handmade signs saying Where is Peter Bishop? in Canada, the U.S., Brazil, Israel, Kenya, France, Germany, Russia, Thailand, Australia and 27 other countries. Over 500 fan submissions in total. Fan video editor Zoey M. used as many she could, as well as photos taken by Fringe online promotion head Ari Margolis of cast John Noble, Jasika Nicole and He-Who-Does-Not-Exist Joshua Jackson holding up 4 signs representing season four.

I had met some of these international Fringe fans at the West End and Chinatown shoots in August Read More »BIG READ: Here is Peter Bishop on FRINGE

BIG READ: Jeffrey Dean Morgan in THE POSSESSION (formerly Dibbuk Box)

Published February 24 , 2011 on Vancouver is Awesome

I had no idea what I was unleashing when I tweeted the location for horror flick Dibbuk Box’s first day of filming in Vancouver on January 31st. But then, I had no idea that its easy-going star Jeffrey Dean Morgan was such a magnet for the kind of female fans who would steal his discarded cigarette butts on location (funny and true).

The Seattle native became a fan favourite when he played three beloved and now dead TV characters almost simultaneously: Izzy’s dying Denny on Grey’s Anatomy; dead-after-sporadic-appearances John Winchester, father of Dean and Sam in Supernatural; and Nancy’s dead husband on Weeds. Dean Morgan went on to star in several films including the Vancouver-shot and Zack-Snyder-directed adaption of the iconic graphic novel Watchmen but he didn’t leave his Vancouver TV sons behind. When in town he still socializes with Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, telling me happily after Dibbuk Box wrapped its first day of shooting that he’d just talked to “Jensen” on the phone and made plans to “see my boys”.

Sam Raimi`s Ghost House Pictures developed Dibbuk Box, a “based on true events” story of the terrible, inexplicable things happening to people who buy this haunted European antique on eBay. On the first day of shooting, I managed to photograph the pivotal scene where the young girl played by Natasha Calis runs to the car with the box she purchased at the yard sale, filmed at a corner ranch house near Lanagara College. She will refuse to give it up and so force her divorced parents – Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgewick (the Emmy-winning star of The Closer) – to work past their hostility over the next 29 days to save their youngest daughter from the malicious, ancient spirit which inhabits it.

When I next found Dibbuk Box a week later on location at a corner arts-and-crafts house in Kerrisdale, I witnessed plenty of hostility to get through. While their daughters wait in the car, Kyra Sedgewick chases after Jeffrey Dean Morgan (carrying suitcases) in her slippers to hector him with a list of instructions on how to care for them, such as no pizza and vegan diets. Her new boyfriend played by Grant Show (best known for Melrose Place and his porn-star mustache on cancelled-too-soon 70s series Swingtown) scraps with Dean Morgan on the lawn on the second day of filming at this house. Read More »BIG READ: Jeffrey Dean Morgan in THE POSSESSION (formerly Dibbuk Box)