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Freddie Highmore, Max Thieriot & Nicola Peltz Film BATES MOTEL 1×07 in Horseshoe Bay – Updated

yvrshoots — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:43:36 +0000

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.

Background performers crossed the intersection from all four corners and it proved difficult to stay out of the shot unless you kept behind the prop grey White Pine Bay Fish Co. van.

Rehearsal in the rain.

Filming in the rain without umbrellas and rain gear.

The young cast had more fun than you’d expect. I could see Freddie Highmore dancing around to keep warm between takes as Max Thieriot laughed at his antics.

Bates Motel is expected to premiere on A&E in March 2013.

Noah Wyle and Will Patton Film FALLING SKIES Dream Sequence in Gastown

yvrshoots — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 01:45:27 +0000

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.

Will Patton’s homeless lunatic is inside when Noah Wyle’s Tom Masonenters the Coffee Bar. I could see Patton inside waving his arms and looking like someone you’d cross the street to avoid.

And Now For Something Completely Different on FRINGE for 5×09 – Dr. Carla Warren & Monty Python – Updated

yvrshoots — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 19:31:45 +0000

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.

Fringe`s tenth epsisode from its final season airs next Friday, December 21st, at 9 p.m. on FOX in the U.S. and Citytv in Canada.

YVRSHOOTS Series – FRINGE Wraps in Vancouver

yvrshoots — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 22:16:57 +0000

Published December 14th, 2012 on Vancouver is Aweome

After five seasons — four of them filmed in Vancouver — American TV series Fringe wrapped filming this morning at The Bridge Studios. Almost all of its fifth and final season takes place in the dystopian future of 2036 with our amber-preserved Fringe family leading the resistance against Observer overlords. Local and visiting fans spotted Anna Torv’s Olivia Dunham, Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop, John Noble’s Dr. Walter Bishop and other members of the former Fringe Division all over Vancouver this summer, fall and winter — from Stanley Park to UBC to Pacific Central Station to the Burrard Bridge to Victory Square to the West End to the Olympic Village to Hasting West to Robson Street to the Vancouver Art Gallery to Granville Street to Hornby Street to Gastown to Chinatown to Coal Harbour to the Vancouver Public Libary to the Cambie Bridge to Oceanic Plaza. Each a public location where people were welcome to watch. That’s one of the reasons why Fringe will be so missed in this city.

Fringe’s fifth season opened in Stanley Park with a utopian scene of Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop and Anna Torv’s Olivia Dunham (aka POlivia) out for a family picnic with their daughter Etta in 2016. A family picnic that was interrupted by Observageddon, the Observer invasion from the future, and the abduction of little Etta.

That same day, Fringe crew went from utopian to dystopian, filming scenes of the Observer-ruled world twenty-odd years later when Loyalist soldiers and collaberating citizens dressed in 1940s garb help keep a desperate population in order. Amber-preserved POlivia reunited with grownup Etta as well as Walter and Jasika Nicole’s Astrid and the original Fringe team joined the Resistance.

But Walter Bishop was captured by Michael Kopsa’s Captain Windmark, the final season’s Big Bad, and his mind wiped of his plan to defeat the Observers. In the second episode, the Fringe team broke into Walter’s old lab on the Observer-occupied Harvard University campus, played by the University of British Columbia, hoping to find information to reconstruct Walter’s plan.

After infiltrating Pacific Central Station dressed as a New Jersey Monorail station to retrieve part of Walter’s plan in the fourth episode, the group met up with Lance Reddick’s 20-years-older Philip Broyles under the Burrard Bridge. It proved an emotional respite before the Observers cornered the Fringe team in an abandoned building played by the Terminal City Ironworks complex in east Vancouver. There Captain Windmark shot Georgina Haig’s Etta. She had a chance to say goodbye to the parents she’d known for a mere handful of episodes before blowing up herself and the building.

Dead Etta became a poster girl for the Resistance and drove her father Peter to torture an Observer and carve out the Observer tech to put in his own head in the fifth episode.

Unbeknownst to Olivia and Walter, Peter used the Observer tech in his head to track and anticipate moves by Captain Windmark’s lieutenants on West Hastings and then kill them in the seventh episode. Meanwhile, Olivia, Walter and Astrid approached Blair Brown’s silver-haired, wheel chair-bound Nina Sharp for help at the Ministry of Science played by the Olympic Village.

Peter targeted Captain Windmark himself in the eighth episode filmed on Robson Street near B.C. Place, inside CBC Vancouver and on the roof of the Vancouver Art Gallery in a rainstorm. Under a scrim, Anna Torv’s Olivia convinced Joshua Jackson’s Peter to remove the Observer tech in his head before he lost love.

Tonight’s Fringe is the ninth episode of the final season with Peter himself and Walter on a bad acid trip to recover his memory. I’m looking forward to a scene of Walter filmed opposite the Guiness Tower on West Hastings in a prop yellow NYC taxicab.

And the tenth episode airing next Friday is an epic one with five downtown shoots in one day and most of the main cast on set to the delight of fans who’d travelled from as far as Australia, Toronto, Seattle and Portland to see filming. More fans flew in from around the world (one from as far away as Russia) to watch filming of the three-part sereis finale, with the eleventh episode on location in Gastown, Chinatown and the West End. And the twelfth episode on location in Coal Harbour and at the Vancouver Public Library.

Ahead of the filming of the 100th and final episode, Warner Bros. TV hosted a gala 100th episode party at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel decorated with white tulips and attended by Fringe creator JJ Abrams, showrunners Joel Wyman and Jeff Pinker, cast and Vancouver crew. And then after a day to recover, Fringe cast and crew started work on the last episode of Fringe ever. Directed by showrunner Joel Wyman, the final episode proved to be much tougher to find with only one day of public shoots downtown. A week ago Wednesday, the main unit filmed Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson and other cast in underground parking at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and then in and around Oceanic Plaza in front of dozens of local and international fans until 2:00 a.m. I was at the False Creek Energy Centre where a second splinter unit had set up lights under the Cambie Bridge to film finale scenes also directed by Wyman.

Unfortunately this week’s shoots were all private as Fringe crew either blew up stuff overnight on Port Metro Vancouver land near the old BC Sugar building or worked in studio. But that means the secret of how Fringe ends remains largely intact.

The 2-hour Fringe series finale airs on Friday, January 18th, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on FOX in the U.S. and Citytv in Canada.

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FRINGE Showrunner Joel Wyman Directing Lance Reddick Under the Cambie Street Bridge for Series Finale, 5×13

yvrshoots — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 04:28:34 +0000

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

yvrshoots — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 01:40:37 +0000

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.

Once Upon a Time returns with a new episode on January 6th, 2013.

SUPERNATURAL’s Cartoon Suicide on Lumbermen’s Building Roof for Ep. 8×08

yvrshoots — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 21:57:38 +0000

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.

If I’d stayed a bit longer and not rushed off to Steveston to see Captain Hook’s pirate ship coming into port for Once Upon a Time, I would have seen this episode’s demon-hunting trio — Sam & Dean & Cas — arrive to investigate the crime scene on the roof. A fan snapped a wonderful photo of Misha Collins’s Cas leaning over the roof and looking down at the street below. When she posts it, I’ll link to it. Luckily I did get back in time for the night shoot and photoographed Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles and Collins laughing in the Impala.

SHOOT: SUPERNATURAL’s 1950s Time Travellers in Gastown for 8×12 – Updated

yvrshoots — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 05:58:05 +0000

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

yvrshoots — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:18:34 +0000

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.

[Update: Broyles is talking to the rest of the Fringe team gathered in Walter's ambered Harvard lab, telling them that the boy Michael is being held on Liberty Island and sending them schematics]

ROGUE wraps filming its first season with Thandie Newton and Marton Csokas

yvrshoots — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:01:13 +0000

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.

And Marton Csoka at the Burrard Ironworks Building as MacArthurs Bar. His co-star Thandie Newton did media interviews most of Tuesday.

DirecTV is expected to air the first ten episodes of Rogue in the summer of 2013.