Tag Archives: TV series
Freddie Highmore, Max Thieriot & Nicola Peltz Film BATES MOTEL 1×07 in Horseshoe Bay – Updated
Update April 29, 2013 – Had no idea I’d photographed Norman’s crush & one-time hookup Bradley Martin (Nicola Peltz, who’s co-starring in the next Transformers movie) in Horseshoe Bay. Now I wish I’d got there earlier to see Norma (Vera Farmiga) & Emma (Oliva Cooke) spying on Bradley in a yoga class.
In what cast calls an “incredible reimagining” of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho, a teenage Norman Bates and his mother Norma Lousie Bates start fresh with the Bates Motel in the picturesque town of White Pine Bay, Oregon, filmed in the Vancouver area. Until yesterday, I’d never seen Freddie Highmore as future serial killer Norman on location for this upcoming A&E series from Lost co-showrunner Carlton Cuse (see the first promotional trailer) and Friday Night Lights producer Kerry Ehrin . Highmore didn’t look that different from his iconic role as young Peter in Finding Neverland but Bates Motel will be a vastly different world than Peter Pan’s.
On the surface White Pine Bay is as beautiful as its Vancouver locations but underneath there’s something dark and creepy going on. Think Friday Night Lights crossed with Twin Peaks. Normally Horseshoe Bay — on the edge of Howe Sound in West Vancouver — would count as one of those beautiful locations but yesterday it was dark and creepy on the surface too.
Bates Motel crew had turned Bay Market into Bay Market & Hardware for a scene of Norman (Freddie Highmore) and Norman’s step brother Dylan (Max Thieriot) buying supplies at a Fall Hardware Sale, carrying them out to the back of Dylan’s 4 x 4 and chatting with [Norman's crush Bradley (Nicola Peltz)] who’d just been dropped off by her friends in a BMW.
Noah Wyle and Will Patton Film FALLING SKIES Dream Sequence in Gastown
Falling Skies wraps filming of its third season this coming week in Vancouver. And as far as I know, few if any have seen them on location until today at the Coffee Bar in Gastown. But it sure didn’t look anything like the post-apocalyptic Falling Skies we’ve come to know. Where were the Skitters? Where were the Mechs? Where were the Overlords? Where were the even creepier aliens introduced in the season two finale? And where was 2nd Mass, the small band of insurgents named after the 2nd Massachusetts of the American Revolution, who’ve been fighting the occupying alien force for almost three seasons?
Noah Wyle’s Tom Mason had no beard or scruffy clothing. And Will Patton’s Captain Dan Weaver looked more like a homeless lunatic than the military leader of 2nd Mass. And what’s with all the well-dressed people carrying bags of Christmas shopping, coming and going in a cafe decorated with wreaths? It turns out today was a reshoot of a dream sequence. So it provides few clues about what drama will unfold in the third season set to air next summer on TNT in the U.S.
And Now For Something Completely Different on FRINGE for 5×09 – Dr. Carla Warren & Monty Python – Updated
I withheld photos of Jenni Blong as Dr. Carla Warren filming with John Noble’s Dr. Walter Bishop inside a prop New York taxicab opposite the Guiness Tower downtown in late October. Partly because her reappearance was a spoiler but also because I couldn’t figure out how she could possibly be alive in 2036. I should have known that Fringe’s final season wouldn’t be complete without Walter on an acid trip.
“I represent everything that you’re trying to keep buried,” she told him last night in an ongoing hallucination. After all, Dr. Warren is the one in the original timeline who tried and failed to convince Walter not to cross over to the alternate universe to save the other young Peter Bishop who was dying like his own son had. And her death in a lab explosion led to Walter being incarerated for manslaughter in the St. Claire’s mental institution where we met him in the series premiere. On a lighter note, Gene the cow also featured in Walter`s hallucinations during the show’s animated homage to Monty Python. Walter`s wild acid trips are one of the many things I will miss about Fringe.
YVRSHOOTS Series – FRINGE Wraps in Vancouver
Published December 14th, 2012 on Vancouver is Aweome
FRINGE Showrunner Joel Wyman Directing Lance Reddick Under the Cambie Street Bridge for Series Finale, 5×13
Showrunner Joel Wyman is directing the last episode ever of Fringe this week in Vancouver to the delight of fans who follow him on Twitter (@jwfringe). He told American media at the 100th Episode party last weekend at the Fairmont Pacific Rim that the series finale is “massive….really big”. It sure is. Fringe had two units working yesterday. The main unit with Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson and other cast filmed downtown in underground parking at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, then in and around Oceanic Plaza in front of dozens of fans until 2:00 a.m. Meanwhile, a second splinter unit had set up lights under the Cambie Bridge to film scenes with Lance Reddick outside the False Creek Energy Centre. Broyle’s black car from 2036 parked on the gravel suggested Reddick might show up on set with aging makeup but it was a surprise to have Joel Wyman leave the main unit to direct these scenes. I don’t want to spoil plot so I’ve withheld photographs of filming like I’ve done with scenes from the second to last episode but it’s no secret that Reddick is in the final two episodes.
Joel Wyman below is taking a photo of the lit-up pedestrian/bike path above.
SHOOT: Behind the Scenes of Charming Family Reunion in ONCE UPON A TIME Mid-Season Finale, 2×10
It was such a cold, wet October day in Steveston south of Vancouver when Once Upon a Time filmed the happy family reunion of Ginnifer Goodwin’s Snow, Josh Dallas’s Charming, Jennifer Morrison’s Emma and Jared Gilmore’s Henry walking arms round one another past the Storybrooke Library for tonight’s mid-season finale. But there was so much joy. I laughed when I saw Goodwin coming out of the cast van wearing an old-fashioned rain bonnet to protect her Mary Margaret pixie cut. Only Goodwin could look cute in one of these. And when Goodwin walked back from one of the takes with her arms outstretched like a monster.
But it’s been a long wait for this reunion scene to appear on screen. So it’s a bonus to have our season two villains, Barbara Hershey’s Cora and Colin O’Donoughe’s Hook, heading into Storybrooke on his pirate ship in the final scene. I photographed this dastardly pair disembarking from the ship at Steveston’s Britannia Shipyards a few weeks before Once Upon a Time filmed the reunion scene. Storybrooke is going to be one busy place in the new year.
SUPERNATURAL’s Cartoon Suicide on Lumbermen’s Building Roof for Ep. 8×08
Supernatural filmed one of its cartoon deaths from this week’s Hunter Heroici on top of the Lumbermen’s Building in downtown Vancouver two months ago. The guest actor below committed cartoon suicide by stepping off the ledge but not falling right away. He stands for a few moments in mid-air above Richards Street, long enough to exclaim, “It’s a miracle. God wants me to live”, and then suddenly drops in a cartoon whoosh.
I waited until the episode aired to post these photographs because I couldn’t figure out what I saw in this scene. And I still don’t know how they filmed it. I assume there was a green screen on the roof as our cartoon suicide acted as if he was in mid-air and then fell to the street below.
SHOOT: SUPERNATURAL’s 1950s Time Travellers in Gastown for 8×12 – Updated
Tonight a light high on a hoist above Cambie Street in Gastown lit up the alley that runs diagonally to West Cordova where two 1950s era vehicles were parked. Add smoke machines and a strobe light to simulate lightning and it looks like we have the setting for a Cary Grant-style cult member named Henry to travel from 1958 to 2013 when episode 8×12 — As Time Goes By — will air. Supernatural crew added the Arlene’s Golden Comb beauty salon neon sign to the alley for the night shoot.
Debonair and charming, Henry is said to be a rookie member of an anti-demonic cult who hurtles through the time portal, followed by a Katherine Hepburn-style dame named Josie Sands. I didn’t see who was cast in either of these roles tonight. [SPOILER UPDATE: HuffPost TV reports that Gil McKinney is Henry who happens to be Sam and Dean's grandfather on their father John's side. And Alaina Huffman was spotted in Vancouver for her role as the demon Abbadon in the body of Josie Sands.]
But the Impala was parked in the same alley this morning for the day shoot, implying Jared Padalecki’s Sam and Jensen Ackles’s Dean Winchester were two of the three actors talking while standing by the same large door our time traveller entered in the night shoot. Unfortunately this scene was hidden behind scrims.
In between the morning and night shoots in the alley, Supernatural filmed inside The Cambie Pub on the corner.
Lance Reddick Returns for FRINGE Ep. 5×12 – Updated
It was good to see Lance Reddick in aging makeup on set today at Harbour Green Park in Coal Harbour filming the second to last episode of Fringe. This is not his first appearance in the final season but probably the first opportunity for fans to talk to him and express their gratitude for his stellar work as Phillip Broyles. My only complaint — not enough Broyles.
ROGUE wraps filming its first season with Thandie Newton and Marton Csokas
DirecTV’s first original series Rogue stars Thandie Newton (Mission Impossible 2, Crash) as Grace, a morally-compromised undercover cop in Oakland, who’s cavorting with Marton Csokas’s crime boss, who may have been involved in her son’s death. Now that’s a complicated relationship. Rogue wrapped filming of its first season of ten episodes on Friday in Vancouver.
I found them on location twice this past week, filming their season finale. First on Monday in the pouring rain on a closed block of Heatley Avenue in the Downtown Eastside, dressed as Oakland. Thandie Newton walked back and forth between two of the sets in small houses, wearing a blue baseball cap, hoodie, coat, striped track pants and running shoes. If I didn’t know her role as an undercover cop, I would not have recognized her. And then on Tuesday in the pouring rain at the Burrard Ironworks building near the Main Street overpass dressed as MacArthur’s Bar, Marton Csoka came out on breaks carrying his own umbrella to read his script (Csoka also drives his own vehicle from circus to set). It’s unfortunate that miserable, neverending rain was a theme this week.
Here are more photos of Thandie Newton on Heatley Avenue as Oakland, California.
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![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-uH8_Cdsv-pU/UTJbylt002I/AAAAAAAAF2w/NQR34ypsKvg/s300/wp_batesmotel.jpg")
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