Taken by surprise in Vancouver...

[Tabitha]

Hey peeps,

I haven't posted anything on these boards for an age - I have a good excuse though, I have been moving from Edinburgh in the UK to Vancouver in Canada. Now believe me when I say my decision to move here had nothing to do with a certain tv show.....

I was wandering around town yesterday - nice weather, job doesn't start till next week - when I had to double take as I seemed to have just wandered onto the set of stargate. Unfortunately not really (season six doesn't start filming until next month apparrently), but I found myself in the exact spot that teal'c was standing when he gets stung by that bug in season two that starts turning him into a great big cocoon! I wandered on for a few more minutes and realised that I was just outside the "Stargate Terminal" in 2010! I am so sad, but I have to admit I was pretty chuffed with myself!

Vancouver is a pretty great place, for those of you who haven't been here - I have also noticed smallville actually shooting on the street in the centre of town (although I haven't seen the show on tv yet, so it wasn't really that exciting as I didn't recognise any of the actors).

Do any of you posters know anything about the shooting schedule of the show? I would love to see stargate actually being filmed, I mean I am too shy to actually ask for autographs or anything daft like that I would be interested in watching the process, oh and maybe catching a glimpse of the lovely rda....

 

[CynVision]

PM me, darling, and I'll get you the address in Burnaby for the studio. While they frown on people hanging around there, I'm told that it is possible to watch location shoots if you're obediant to the instructions of production assistants. I had that sort of experence when they were filming a movie in downtown Chicago.

Certainly, start by watching other shoots in the area and see how being a spectator works. Not to say you'd make mistakes, but make mistakes with other shows and you won't feel like the ground opened up under you. Then you'll know exactly who to ask on the Stargate teams and get a ringside seat. Learn to ID your production people! And if they say 'sorry' don't be mad. Bargian with them gently. Maybe not 'here' but is 'there' okay? sort of thing.

The Bane and 2010 location you describe is down by the stadium. Avenue of Nations I think it's called. It was part of the Gatecon bus tour last fall. We ended up there on a day when NBC was filming something so while we sort of put a spanner in the production assistants' day, they did let us onto the property and we sat out of sight while they did some work. My big regret was that I didn't get a shot on the flagpole line like in the show. The weather was a perfect match, too. I'm on my video tape exclaiming even the clouds are the same! LOL! They rushed us along. But it was one of my fonder moments on the tour cause I think that part of Bane is a wonderfully simple television special effect.

See my Gatecon pictures here:
www.cynvision.com/silverdreams/gatecon2001index.asp
You'll find a few more location sites to visit as you get orentated around Vancouver.

 

[Tabitha]

hey cyn..

thanks for the speedy reply - I have been doing a little spectating over the last few weeks, but more by accident than by design. There is a movie called "A Guy Thing" with Jason Lee and Julia Stiles that is shooting here at the moment, and I have come across it on location quite a few times, and proceeded to hang around to watch out for the famous people, see if anything exciting happens, you know.
I just get a kick out of seeing this kinda stuff happen live - I have spent most of my life in Belfast and Edinburgh, and to be honest it is rare to see people filming for anything other than the news over there.

FUnny you should mention that the weather was exactly the same when you were at the Plaza of Nations - I was thinking the very same thing. The thing I was most struck by was what a good job they did of making that place look all shiny and new - ah the wonders of television! Another observation is that I had been watching the 2010 episode not that long before and it was quite odd to see the place so deserted in comparison. I gather that the whole area has something to do with expc 86 (or whenever, can't remember), but it seems to be just sitting empty now.

well pm on its way in a min, oh, also, I tried to follow your link and the old ibook was having none of it....

 

[CynVision]

Sorry about the link trouble. I edited it and it should work now.

Ah Plaza of Nations. I don't have a way of memorizing that name correctly...

There's a lot of TV filming going on all year round here in Chicago. But they pick times of the day and night when foot traffic is light, less car noise, etc. to do the filming. If you have a 9 to 5 job and no insider information it's tough to find where they are working. I think I once saw a big setup in the park but was on my way to a theater thing and couldn't stop.

The best time I had to see something big here was the Mel Gibson film downtown. It was really cold and the wind just blew through the buildings where we were watching from the upper level. Despite that, it was a treat because they were doing firearm stuff. Then they had a take were they blew out the back window of a cab. And we got to see Mel.

Watching the alert system they used when guns were on the set was very informative. We didn't have anything like it when I ran my theater shows. The stagemanager was in charge of any guns. In film there's a team of people and they're very careful everyone knows rounds are going to be used. A lot of shouting "Gunfire!" "Standby! Gunfire!"

 

[Tabitha]

sounds like fun! I am in Vancouver until about October (debating whether or not to begin a postgraduate degree in the Autumn), so hopefully I will be able to take in some shoots between now and then.

 

[CynVision]

Gatecon, Gatecon. Gotta go to Gatecon!
So I hope to see you there.
Roll around on that fab bus tour
Hang out in autograph lines...
Can't imagine those stars so different
from how I see them the rest of the time!
Get them up at auction and they're flying
Noone in the world could be so crazy
and not be confined
Don't worry they're just fooling
Given' folks at Gatecon a real good time
Gatecon, Gatecon. Gotta go to Gatecon!
I so hope to see you there.

** This poem brought to you by the Mothers Against Posting While Listening to Asia and the letter "M"

 

[Tabitha]

i am actually thinking about going to Gatecon, I was sort of thinking about volunteering to help out maybe.... have to see how the finances go i suppose.
I have never really done anything like that before, so it could be interesting - I think I will probably have found most of the locations by then, so I might skip the bus tour.

Talking about locations, I still can't get over how they managed to pass off the Museum of Art as Washington - I walk past that pretty much every day and I can't figure out how they did it, mind you I don't really know anything about the medium so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. It was just on that street that I saw Smallville filming a car accident btw.

 

[CynVision]

Originally posted by Tabitha
Talking about locations, I still can't get over how they managed to pass off the Museum of Art as Washington - I walk past that pretty much every day and I can't figure out how they did it, mind you I don't really know anything about the medium so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. It was just on that street that I saw Smallville filming a car accident btw.

I had my doubts about how the heck they did that too. It's all in the digital matting they can do these days. What I mean is that they can cut out stuff they don't want and drop in scenery they carefully filmed elsewhere. I keep forgetting to dig out my tape of that long shot of Jack and Sam on the stairs in the trip to Washington in an episode... But in Foothold it really is the underground area behind the art museum and the restraunt there. That wowed me. As long as they can make up a location that's not specific and popular that a substutition would be widely known, the eyes of viewers are trickable.

 

[CynVision]

http://www.playbackmag.com/resources/ipl.html

You wanted the insider info on what's filming where and I trip and fall over it-- er, deliver it to you! Yeah. I deliver it to you.

 

[Tabitha]

thanks cyn - will check it out soon....