Tag Archives: Vancouver

Highlander, Wolverine, and a Tiger Shark rescue! [I read stuff]

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Wherein I read things, laugh, and pass them on to you…

Highlander reboot loses director:

Bad timing has caused Justin Lin to step down from the helm of relaunching the popular fantasy franchise. Summit’s remake of the original Highlander film, a property which spawned a huge franchise including a long-running television series, has been in development hell for over three years with only one name tied solidly to it: Director Justin Lin. This week, Summit decided – likely because their Twilight franchise is coming to an end – that production on Highlander needed to move into the next phase. This comes at a bad time for Lin who has already agreed to direct the next Fast and Furious film (as if we need another) and is currently in talks to direct the Terminator reboot. This is all too much for the up and coming director, so he’s chosen to step down from the helm of Highlander, though he will stay on as a producer.

[tgdaily.com]

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Beautiful Vancouver morning

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Getting up super early has some advantages. No one around for one, but here, it’s this weird colour of the sky over the sea that only lasts for a short time in the morning. Rare to catch it, but well worth it.

Click to embiggen!

Another nice thing about going for a walk down here this early? Rabbits. Tons of rabbits. Most of them were pretty still for us but then again, there weren’t any dogs about, so they didn’t all dash off to the warren they’ve got under the big bramble patch. Spotted this big black bunny first, and then they were everywhere, but I only bothered taking a picture of this one. Some more pics from the walk:

Playing with early anniversary presents!

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This year, the wedding anniversary falls on a Friday but there wasn’t a hope in hell that the better half and I would have the time then, so Monday was our date :)

And for that day, I got a shiny new camera! For years I’ve loved the IDEA of having a camera because I see all kinds of things I’d love to take pictures of but I have this problem taking a decent picture. My hands shake. Not enough to stop me doing most stuff and mostly no one would ever notice, but on film? Yep. Big old shaky hands that make every pic look like a still from Reefer Madness. But now, I have a LITTLE camera (which means less shaking in the first place) that cancels out my shakes. So, nice shots again!

One of the things I really like having the camera for is that I get to play with the shots I take.

This one was an interesting enough shot on its own – The Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island. All of Granville Island is pretty cool anyway, but the older building especially so, and this is one of them. It would have been simple to just make the whole thing sepia, but it was not only too easy, but didn’t have enough variation for me. Levels have been tinkered with to cast that underhang in shadow while making the whitespace brighter. Contrast kicked it up a notch. It’s been slightly desaturated and selective colour enhanced some of the more rustic shades. Lastly, 2 gradient maps, one in black and white and one in a stack of roughly 5 shades of brown and gold, were layered over it with different effect, followed by a light grain and lastly – sharpened.

Yes, yes, I like my new toy!

I read stuff

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Wherein I read things, laugh, and pass them on to you…

•READ: Serial Killer Barbie: Art Project of the Day: Mariel Clayton’s macabre doll dioramas place Barbie in several compromising Dexter-esque crime scenes. [Frisky]

•READ: Vancouver Gigapixel Panorama Project: [14 Jan 2011] Local photographic services company Gigapixel has created a series of panoramic views of the city of Vancouver utilizing advanced photo-technology that allows the user to zoom in to see incredibly fine detail from miles away. Using this tool, you can zoom in on any point across the city and see enough detail to pick out street signs on the other side of town, Christmas trees in high-rise windows – even skiers on Grouse Mountain. To see how this technology works, zoom in using the slider in the image below, and move the focal point of the image using the directional tool.
All images and functionality courtesy of Ronnie Miranda at www.gigapixel.com, Canadian distributors of the Gigapan EPIC Imaging System.

•READ: Ridley Scott Abandons Alien Prequel: [15 Jan 2011] “With Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox announcing that the much-vaunted 3D Alien prequel has now mutated into an original SF film project called Prometheus, starring Noomi Rapace, the author of this article recalls his 2007 interview with the late Dan O’Bannon, who presumably is happy about the news, wherever he is. Asked what he’d like to see happen to the xenomorph franchise, the Alien co-creator said: ‘I’d like to see it stop. A horror movie’s a fragile thing, and once you’ve gotten past the original, it isn’t scary anymore. So you do a bunch of sequels to a horror movie, all they do is drain any remaining impact out of the original…it’s not as effective as it would have been if you had just left it alone.’”

•READ: Ridley Scott’s Alien Prequel is dead, but out of its ashes rises a brand new alien: [14 Jan 2011] The Alien prequel is dead. But Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof are salvaging the script’s carcass by reconstructing the original premise into a new film titled Prometheus. Noomi Rapace will still star, and “strands of Alien‘s DNA” will remain. [THR]

Why are so many science-fiction series shot in Canada?

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Space is the place

Jason Anderson, CBC News

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After spending five years making a successful science fiction TV show with a largely Canadian team of writers, directors, actors and production talent, producer Brad Wright thought it was high time for his Stargate franchise to add a Canadian character.

‘One of the reasons our show does so well overseas is because it’s not written from a completely American sensibility.’

— Brad Wright, producer, Stargate TV franchise

This was in 2002, when Canuck actor David Hewlett had been cast in the recurring role of Dr. Rodney McKay halfway into the fifth season of Stargate: SG-1. As Wright recalls in a recent interview, “I said, ‘Let’s put a Canadian flag on his arm – we’ll make the smartest character the Canadian!’ Of course, the American studio president at the time said, ‘You’re not really doing that, are you?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Oh… I guess that’s OK.’”

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Visual effects Emmy nominations show B.C. is a ‘sci-ficapital’

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John Mackie, Vancouver Sun

The Vancouver film industry has become a hotbed for visual effects. Thursday, four of the five Emmy nominees for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series were for programs produced here.

“It certainly shows how high the quality of work is here in Vancouver,” said Mark Savela, the visual effects supervisor for Stargate Universe.
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My walk on the beach yesterday

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We’ve had the most incredible weather this week. Sunny, hot, not a cloud in sight. Normally this would be cause for some concern on my part and I’d be hiding in the dark, cursing the sun, but since this wackiness with my back, hot weather has been a great help. Being in Vancouver, there’s never any guarantee that the weather will last though. At any minute, the clouds could roll in and we won’t see sunshine for a month. So seize the day takes on a whole rich meaning.

And I’ve been seizing!

Okay, so I’ve been walking, not so much seizing, but it’s been lovely!

To add to it, I decided to take out the camera and try to capture it. For those that know me, you know how crazy that idea can be. I can’t take decent pictures. Everything shakes. It’s out of focus. If there are people, they’ve all been decapitated. But what the hell, I gave it a shot.

When I got home and downloaded what I had, I was pleasantly surprised. No, scratch that. I was freaking amazed! Not a single blob shot. No black shots. No camera cords in the pictures. All of them came out crystal clear and they all captured that certain feel of a Vancouver morning close to the water. There’s something about the air here, where the light blue of the sky doesn’t look real and it softens just as it hits the mountains. If I’d gotten up even earlier, I would have loved to capture green light, but maybe sometime next week, if the weather holds.