Canadian. 26. Time Lord. Sherlocked. Everyday Avenger. Victim of the slash dragon. In love with a good villain. Fandom stamp maker.
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GUYS
I FEEL I NEED TO CLARIFY THIS PHOTO
THAT WASN’T DEAN AND CAS STARING SOULFULLY INTO EACH OTHERS EYES
THEY WEREN’T FILMING
THAT WAS MISHA AND JENSEN
THEY WERE JUST DOING THAT
A couple days before the filming started, notices were put up around my building in downtown Vancouver to alert the businesses and schools in the area that there would be some disruption on the street. On a whim I decided to bring my camera with me that day and that was basically the best decision ever.
In a stroke of luck my classroom faces the rooftop they were shooting on and was at a perfect level to take pictures. I was shooting at about 160 meters away from them, which meant the pictures were pretty low quality, but I was able to see what was going on.
I realized about halfway through uploading the pictures to tumblr that they weren’t hi-res on clickthrough, so I decided to make it simple and put them all into imgur albums. To access the hi-res version on imgur: click the gear icon that appears on the image in the upper right hand corner on mouse over. There are also a number of pictures in these albums that didn’t make the tumblr cut, but don’t get too excited, because they’re pretty blurry.
Feel free to use these images in any way you see fit (with credit please)!
If you’re looking for the rebloggable versions, you can find them under my Supernatural filming tag.
The first scene (imgur link) had Sam and Dean suited up and talking to what was probably a female detective, and they’re possibly walking around a body. Halfway through the scene Cas comes in, they speak for a moment and the detective walks away. Misha and Jensen also threw some tennis balls off the rooftop, which - while it would be hilarious if that was something they just did - are used to guide the visual effects team in post production.
As an aside: I know we’ve all been through a lot of rooftop related trauma lately, but guys, it’s okay, it’s not Moffat. It didn’t look like they were planning on adding to our fear of rooftops, it looked like a regular crime scene investigation. We’re safe for now.
They wrapped up filming at about 5:30, just as the light was leaving, and I wandered down to their next filming location to see if there was anything going on.
There were tons of trucks and people setting up, but overall it was pretty low key because they weren’t going to be filming until 7:00. They were trying to hide the fact they were shooting for Supernatural by putting up signs saying “We are filming for the show Source, sorry for any inconvenience” and I was all, “Haha I’d recognize that car anywhere, you liars.”
When I told my friend I was going to the Supernatural set she told me I had to touch the Impala and I said, “No fucking way they let anyone get anywhere close to that car.” BUT IT WAS JUST ON THE STREET. AND I TOUCHED IT.
It is an unbelievably gorgeous car in person, and the seats looked so comfortable. I can totally see why Dean likes stretching out in the back.
I met another girl who was having a similar fangirl nuclear meltdown beside the car and we flailed away the next hour waiting for them to start filming. We got shuffled around by the crew a number of times and told that we were allowed to take pictures so long as we didn’t use flash. Everyone we talked to on the crew were the nicest people and so polite. I’m sure they have to deal with some not so great people on a regular basis, but they were absolutely fantastic to us.
It was really cool seeing how they transformed a street in downtown Vancouver to look like a small town. There were little touches like different signs for the hotel, new doors and window decals on the bank they put in, a ginormous neon cross beside the hotel and lights in the alley which made it pretty enough that you could forget for a moment that it smells like pee (the alleyways in Vancouver are seriously noxious).
Big ass cross is on the far right, and there’s a cheap neon ‘open’ sign in the hotel window. I’m pretty sure they replaced the sign on the awning too.
There was also a guy manning a smoke machine up the street which I’m sure will look like eerie fog in the episode, but mostly made it seem like it was 4/20 in Vancouver when everyone tries to hotbox the outside. Another guy had a huge truck full of trees (Yes, actual trees. Different types too, for all your tree needs) that he would pull out and then put back as they needed them.
Going towards 7:00 we realized there were people sitting in the Impala but it was just three of the crew setting up the blocking. Right before 7:00 Jared, Jensen and Misha came out and starting putting on their jackets and getting their final bits of makeup and hair done. Whoever is managing the crew is doing a damn good job because they started filming at 7:00 on the dot.
The second scene (imgur link) was pretty basic. It was Sam, Dean and Cas walking out of the hotel, getting into the car (Dean is driving, Sam riding shotgun and Cas is in the back) and driving off. They’re out of their suits and back in their hunter clothes. They redid this scene about 5 times and took them forty minutes for what must be a minute of footage. Jensen would start the car, drive forward about 30 feet and then reverse and they’d do it all over again.
There was a lot of reversing.
I also got a lot of pictures of Clif, their bodyguard.
This scene wrapped up around 7:40 and the actors disappeared to get ready for their next scene.
While we were waiting around the for the third scene to get started we got talking with some of the other people watching with us. One of the guys was decked out in a red hoodie and a bitchin’ camera. He told us that he tracks down the filming locations a lot and that Jared, Jensen and Misha probably wouldn’t be coming over to sign autographs, which was super disappointing, but not really a surprise. He also said that if Clif saw him there the guys definitely wouldn’t be coming over to sign autographs because apparently there’s some sort of ‘history’ between them. I jokingly told him that he should get away from us (I WASN’T JOKING) so he doesn’t scare them away. I wouldn’t blame Clif for keeping red hoodie dude away from the guys though, he was super sleazy and sounded like a paparazzi style douchebag.
We got to see the hair and makeup people fuss around Jared and Jensen before the scene started, and I snapped a picture of the luckiest ladies on the crew.
THEY GET PAID TO TOUCH HIM.
The third scene (imgur link) This scene was directly across the street from the last scene, but I’m sure the power of tv magic will make it look like it’s in another part of town entirely. Sam and Dean are suited up again, Dean is still driving, Sam’s still shotgun and Cas is in the back. The scene starts with them all sitting in the car. They get out, walk towards the alleyway, flash their badges and stop to talk with two cops who are standing beside the police tape.
None of the pictures I took are actually from this scene because we were asked not to take pictures while they were filming, but you can see the general area from this pic:
In all these scenes Cas is looking decidedly less crazy than the last time we saw him, and he’s actually travelling with the Winchesters instead of zapping himself everywhere. TEAM FREE WILL IS BACK IN BUSINESS.
THE FOURTH SCENE THAT I DID NOT SEE BUT IS RELEVANT TO YOUR INTERESTS
I left at 8:30 because they were done filming until 10:30, but the notices on our building they said they would be filming until 1:00 am, and gave this description of the scenes: “These scenes will involve a car being parked in the alley south of 509 Richards Street, actors will exchange dialogue in several different scenes and in one of the scenes the actors will attempt to break into a bank.”
That would be this bank here, the Oklahoma Bank.
Final thoughts
Team Free Will was smoking hot up close, but I’m sure you knew that already.
I’d never been around a tv film set before and it was a really awesome experience. Tons of fun, interspersed with a lot of waiting around. It gave me a bit more perspective on actors as well - they don’t actually spend a lot of time doing a scene, they spend most of their time waiting around. When they finally do get to do some acting, they do the same scene over and over until they get to wait around again and I can imagine that gets really tiring really quickly.
OKAY ALL DONE. THANKS FOR STICKING WITH ME.
This was the notice that went up in my building telling us about Supernatural filming in the area.
I forgot to mention about one scene from the film set last week. I saw three scenes, but on the notice put up around our building said there was one more filming late at night and this is the description it gave: “These scenes will involve a car being parked in the alley south of 509 Richards Street, actors will exchange dialogue in several different scenes and in one of the scenes the actors will attempt to break into a bank.”
Looks like there’s going to be some Winchester bank robbery in the future.
Scene 3, part 2
This is it guys! This is the final batch to the set pictures I took.
 | ((What do they keep looking up at, do you know??)) |
I wish I knew! I tried looking, but the angle I was at meant I couldn’t see.
