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| Once Upon a Time, Lana Parnell and Robert Carlyle |
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| The Company You Keep - Terrance Howard |
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| Once Upon a Time - Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas |
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| The Company You Keep - Anna Kendrick. |
Tomorrow, January 1, will mark the first day of a brand new year.
Looking back on 2011, it wasn't so bad but it could have been better. The film industry in Vancouver saw a few great features and some famous faces around Vancouver but it doesn't compare to Toronto which is enjoying a booming film and television industry.
Early last year a couple of shows didn't make it past their first season and we said good-bye to Hellcats, Human Target, V, Eureka, Life Unexpected and long running shows like Smallville and Stargate Universe.
We welcomed some new shows such as the hit series, Once Upon a Time and The Secret Circle which are gaining audiences with each episode. Supernatural celebrated Season 7 with the Winchesters and its competition in the Friday night time slot, Fringe came back for season 4. The popular series Psych wrapped season 6 a few weeks ago and it looks like they will be back in Vancouver for season 7.
Other new series include, Artic Air, Falling Skies and Alcatraz which will all debut in 2012. Back for a second promising season is the live audience show, Mr. Young along with the drama The Killing the law show Fairly Legal and kids shows Level Up, The Troop and Tower Prep.
2011 saw a few major motion pictures call Vancouver home and brought some very famous faces that were Celebspotted around town.
Tom Cruise brought his family to Vancouver for three months while he filmed the action block buster Mission Impossible 4, The Ghost Protocol. His wife Katie Holmes and daughter Suri Cruise lured some extra paparazzi to Vancouver for a few weeks much to the chagrin of the local papps. However, Katie and Suri made daily excursions to Starbucks and some shopping at Holt Renfrew which allowed for dozens of beautiful candid photographs.
I was interviewed by CBC News for a little segment titled "Finding Tom Cruise". We ended up finding Tom Cruise and a few dozen people braved the unseasonably cold weather to watch Tom chase actor Michael Nyqvist through a street made to look like they were India. You can see the photos on my Flickr, here
2011 saw the return of our favorite production company, Summit Entertainment. The much anticipated Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn began filming in February and continued to film until mid April. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart finally came out as a couple and Taylor Lautner enjoyed a brief romance with his Abduction co-star, Lily Collins. Dozens of actors new to the franchise were spotted in Vancouver and Squamish where most of the filming too place. There are too many to name but you can check out some of my candid pictures on my flickr set here.
During the summer Matt Damon and Jodie Foster made Vancouver their home while filming a science fiction thriller entitled Elysium. Jodie was spotted several times at Commune Cafe and Matt and his family enjoyed the waffles at Cafe Medina on the weekends.
The cast of Nickelodeon's Big Time Rush arrived in Vancouver with little fan fare to work on their new action/drams/musical Big Time Movie. It looked like the four main stars of the series were always having a blast working on their movie.
Diary of a Whimpy Kid number 3 filmed though out the summer in numerous locations and Robert Redford brought Shia LaBeouf and an interesting Hollywood hotshot cast to Vancouver this fall.
Redford's project in which he directs and stars, The Company You Keep, kept it interesting for star spotting with actors Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte, Anna Kendrick, Terrance Howard, Stanley Tucci, Chris Cooper and many more. Shia was often spotted downtown Vancouver and made headlines when he got into a dust up at the Cinama Lounge late one evening and a video of the event was sent directly to TMZ.com.
The reboot of Superman Man of Steel arrived in Vancouver mid fall and continues to shoot in locations around Vancouver until the end of January. We can expect to see the tiny village of Ucluelet and Nanaimo on Vancover Island featured and locations around the lower mainland in the action movie due out in 2012.
Henry Cavill was spotted on set in North Vancouver late October and everyone was able to catch the actor doing some action sequences against a green screen with other actors and stunt people.
Amy Adams, Micheal Shannon, Laurence Fishburne, and Henry Cavill were all *Celebspotted around Vancouver.
Note* I've been using #Celebspotting on twitter when a celeb has been spotted around Vancouver. Anyone can #Celebspot an actor and anyone can post the sighting. The majority of Celebspotting items I've posted are from my own experience or from DMs sent to me of a sighting where the source wishes to remain anonymous. There was some confusion about the use of hashtag Celebspotting and by no means was it a way to inform anyone where the celebrity was at any given time. It was simply a way for people to add their hash tag celeb sightings for fun.
Supernatural, Fringe, The Secret Circle, Once Upon a Time, Mr. Young, Superman, Alcatraz, Artic Air, Fairly Legal, Falling Skies, The Killing and Out of Time will all be returning to work next week so it is a sure bet you will see someone at the airport tomorrow.
There are at least 9 flights coming from Los Angeles so pick your flight and you may catch a glimpse of your favorite TV star, that is if you can see them through the crush of autographs hounds staked out at the arrivals gate. Keep you eye on them and when they push their pictures onto someone to be signed, you will know they are a celebrity. I wouldn't get to close to the autographs hounds, they are mean junk yard dogs who are very territorial and they have been know to bite.
All the best to everyone in 2012 and I hope for more feature films, more TV series and more work for everyone involved in the industry in Vancouver and Happy #Celebspotting.
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| Once Upon a Time - Jennifer Morrison and Jared Gilmore |
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| The Secret Circle, Thomas Dekker & Britt Robertson |
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| Superman, Man of Steel Henry Caville |
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| The Company You Keep, Karolyn Pho and Shia Labeouf. |
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| Big Time Movie - Kendall Schmidt |
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| Random Star sighting of Sir Richard Branson |
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| Big Time Movie, Kendall Schmidt, Logan Henderson and James Maslow |
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| Random celeb sighting of Jimmy Kimmel |
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| Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, Tom Cruise |
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| Suri Cruise shopping with her mom. |
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| Wolf Pack from the Twilight Saga. |
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| Once Upon A Time - Lee Arenberg & me On Location. |
