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SHOOT: Karl Urban & Michael Ealy Film TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN at Winters Hotel in Gastown

Futuristic Los Angeles police officer John Kennex (Karl Urban) and his android cop partner Dorian (Michael Ealy) led a team of human and android police officers in a raid to rescue a kidnapped policeman this morning held inside the historic but rundown Winters Hotel in Gastown. This is the first time I’ve seen the buddy cops on set together for J.J. Abrams and Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman’s TV pilot Almost Human (formerly Human) and they had a good time of it — except Urban seemed fed up with being photographed at open shoots in Vancouver. Production moved inside the hotel to film the attempted rescue for the rest of the day and tomorrow morning. Fringe fans know the interior of the hotel as the “pocket reality” in the season five episode “Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There”. 

Related: Karl Urban & Minka Kelly film TV Pilot Almost Human in Vancouver’s Business District

Read More »SHOOT: Karl Urban & Michael Ealy Film TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN at Winters Hotel in Gastown

SHOOT: Karl Urban & Minka Kelly Film TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN in Vancouver’s Business District

J.J. Abrams and Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman’s TV pilot Almost Human (formerly Human) is filming in downtown Vancouver’s Business District on West Hastings Street, transformed into a futuristic Los Angeles, for the second day in a row this weekend. Stars Karl Urban (Star Trek’s Bones) and Minka Kelly (Friday Night Lights) are on set as Los Angeles police officers at the crime scene of yesterday’s armoured vehicle heist.

Related: TV pilot Almost Human Films Armoured Car Heist in Vancouver’s Business District

Read More »SHOOT: Karl Urban & Minka Kelly Film TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN in Vancouver’s Business District

SHOOT: TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN Films Armoured Car Heist in Vancouver’s Business District

Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman’s new TV pilot Almost Human (formerly Human) for FOX pays homage to Fringe in so many ways. The production uses many of the former Vancouver Fringe crew as well as its production signs BELLY. Some of the set dressing looks familiar too, but with a twist. Almost Human is about a futuristic Los Angeles where police officers are paired with android partners and stars Karl Urban (Star Trek’s Bones) as one of the human cops and Michael Ealy (Underworld Awakening) as an android cop. Neither actor was spotted in the downtown business district for the armoured car heist although they were on set. Almost Human turned the Guiness Tower into Division Tower and Oceanic Plaza into West Plaza and hired thirty or so PAs (production assistants) to control the set and 80 costumed extras to work as background for the heist with loud prop gunfire. Almost Human is a big for a pilot. Huge, in fact. Almost Human’s second unit filmed up on Galardi Way on Burnaby Mountain at the same time as the downtown shoot. The heist drew a crowd, who lined the Hastings pedestrian bridge to watch the action, leaving only enough room for the camera crew on the bridge.

Read More »SHOOT: TV Pilot ALMOST HUMAN Films Armoured Car Heist in Vancouver’s Business District

SHOOT: John Stamos Films NBC Pilot VICTOR at St. Andrew Wesley United Church Downtown

Victor (formerly I Am Victor) had camera crews on two corners of the downtown Burrard and Nelson intersection  last night to film a scene of John Stamos (ER/Full House) as a high-powered divorce attorney waiting on the north steps of St. Andrew Wesley United Church for a young woman coming out of the church and then walking with her to the main entrance where they sit together on the steps. Later crew set up on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance to film closeups of Stamos talking with the young woman. It was a big shoot for the NBC pilot with lots of people stopping and staring throughout the evening until the film lights went out around 11 p.m. and Stamos left.

Read More »SHOOT: John Stamos Films NBC Pilot VICTOR at St. Andrew Wesley United Church Downtown

WEEK: March 11-17, 2013

  • Sunday, March 17th – Red Widow 1×04 The Escape with Radha Mitchell, Goran Visnjic and Wil Traval.
  • Sunday, March 17th – Welcome to Storybrooke circa 1983 on Once Upon a Time 2×17. Except if you’re an outsider. Then not so welcome. And you might end up the target of a high-speed chase by Sheriff Graham (Jamie Dornan) & Regina (Lana Parrilla).
  • Sunday, March 17th – News of Rainn Wilson (The Office) cast as lead in Hart Hanson’s CBS pilot Backstrom.
  • Friday, March 15th – Once Upon a Time films Jennifer Morrison & Michael Raymond-James on Third Beach in Stanley Park for 2×21
  • Friday, March 15th – Arrow films flashback scenes with Stephen Amell & Katie Cassidy & Oliver’s parents at Harbour Cruises in Coal Harbour for 1×21.
  • Friday, March 15th – The Killing films in Langley.
  • Friday, March 15th – CBS pilot Intelligence starts filming at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby. Josh Holloway not on set.
  • Friday, March 15th – Cult 1×04 with Matt Davis on The CW.
  • Thursday, March 14th – Vancouver played Toronto for Motive 1×06 Detour with scenes filmed at the Victorian Hotel as a Toronto apartment building and Belkin House as a Toronto police station.
  • Thursday, March 14th – Continuum‘s Eric Knudsen & Ian Tracey film at Catch-122 restaurant on West Hastings downtown.
  • Thursday, March 14th – CW pilot The 100 w/ Thomas McDonell as one of 100 juvenile delinquents sent back to Earth after nuclear war starts filming on its Langley set.
  • Thursday, March 14th – Supernatural films in Riverview in Coquitlam.
  • Thursday, March 14th – News that Arrow‘s Stephen Amell, Colin Donnell, Willa Holland, Paul Blackthorne & showrunners, & Falling Skies‘s Drew Roy, Sarah Carter, Seychelle Gabriel & showrunner Remi Aubuchon will be at WonderCon in Anaheim in late March. Schedule.
  • Thursday, March 14th – News that Amanda Tapping of Sanctuary, Stargate SG1 will direct second season’s 12th episode of Continuum.
  • Wednesday. March 13th – Psych‘s Big Foot episode directed by star James Roday airs on the USA Network.
  • Wednesday, March 13th – FOX pilot Human starts filming inside empty bank building on West Pender downtown. Karl Urban on set. Productions signs BELLY pay tribute to Fringe.
  • Wednesday, March 13th – Continuum films in Woodward’s Building downtown.
  • Wednesday, March 13th – Once Upon a Time films scenes at the Steveston Cannery and on Moncton St. with Jennifer Morrison, Michael Raymond-James, Robert Carlyle, Emilie de Ravin and David Anders (on his knees as he tweeted).
  • Wednesday, March 13th – Constellation Award nominations for Continuum, Fringe, Once Upon a Time, Primeval: New World, Supernatural, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Read More »WEEK: March 11-17, 2013

The-Hunger-Games-Meets-The-Bachelor TV pilot THE SELECTION

If TV pilot The Selection is The Hunger Games meets The Bachelor, as described by TV Guide, does that mean that The Selection bachelorettes will fight each other to the death? Aimee Teegarden (Friday Night Lights) stars as a poor girl chosen by lottery to enter a fierce competition to marry the Prince and become the next Queen of a war-torn nation far in the future. I didn’t see Amy Teegarden as America Singer, William Mosely as servant Aspen or Ethan Peck as Prince Maxim on set, but did visit all of their shooting locations. And eventually managed to photograh Pieta Sergeant below as rebel leader Gaia.

On the first day of filming, The Selection set up a village market inside the Terminal City Ironworks complex in east Vancouver with Aimee Teegarden on set as young America Singer. I dropped by too early to see the market scene, catching a glimpse through an open gate of prop wagons and stalls still covered in plastic.

Scenes of America saying goodbye to her village were shot over three days at the Britannia Heritage Shipyards in Steveston, captured beautifully by commercial photographer Clayton Perry in his The Selection photoset on Flickr. In  Perry’s photos you can see villager extras holding up hand-lettered signs on cardboard reading: Queen America, We Love You America, Make us Proud, America Our Next Queen. William Mosley’s Aspen was also on set but when I dropped by the filming was behind one of the xxx.

To depict the war-torn country, The Selection went north on the Sea to Sky highway to the Squamish Municipal Airport for scenes of fighting with Royal forces on an airport runway. I zoomed in but couldn’t pick out Peta Sergeant on set as the rebel leader fighting the Head of the Military.

Scenes from the royal palace must have been filmed at Hycroft, the University Women’s Club in Shaughnessy,Read More »The-Hunger-Games-Meets-The-Bachelor TV pilot THE SELECTION

Stephen Amell is Arrow for TV pilot ARROW in Vancouver

Arrow, based on DC Comics The Green Arrow, is one hot TV pilot. And by all accounts, Stephen Amell is one hot Arrow in this more Jason Bourne-like and less Smallville-ish production. Like The Dark Knight’s re-imagined Batman, Arrow’s vigilante superhero fights crime with martial arts and technology plus the special skill of archery. “Working theory: The most expedient way to shoot a show where I’m an expert at archery is to become an expert an archery,” Amell tweeted in late February. And he must have hit the gym too. “You should see what’s under that hood……you’ve never seen ripped until you’ve seen this guy,” tweeted Arrow fight coordinator James Bamford.

None of my photographs do justice to how much Stephen Amell resembles a Jason Bourne-type action star. This is the closest I came with Amell in character as his secret identity Oliver Queen, crouched in Gastown before filming a take with Katie Cassidy as his former love Dinah “Laurel” Lance.

Pre-production set up on the same lot near a Burnaby Skytrain station that served as a Smallville permanent set for years. Filming on the Arrow pilot started on March 10th inside the Terminal City Ironworks complex in east Vancouver. The next morning, I missed an exterior scene of Oliver Queen jumping over the gate at the TCI entrance on Victoria Drive, but did spot the Oliver green arrow production sign on a walkby.

The next day, March 12th, Arrow set up at the foot of Gore Avenue in the Downtown Eastside during a wild west coast windstorm. Background performers dressed as homeless street peoople huddled around a fake fire and tried to keep their costumes intact in the wind. Stephen Amell and Colin Donnell, as his best friend and trustafarian Tommy Merlyn, were more sheltered, filming scenes inside Merlyn’s ride, a Mercedes 2012 SLS AMG ,with two wings and cockpit, as the ad says. Tents almost went airborne and Amell and Donnell looked like they were finally feeling the cold while waiting for their ride back to circus.

Read More »Stephen Amell is Arrow for TV pilot ARROW in Vancouver