THIS BLOG POST HAS POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILERS ON SEASON 8 OF SUPERNATURAL FILMING.
If you dont want to see or read any spoilers... DO NOT continue on.
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Last Warning.
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On monday July 9th, the 8th season of the hit show on The CW "Supernatural" started filming in Vancouver.

As with the past 2 seasons, they are filming a later episode before the premiere to compensate having 1 of the shows stars, Jensen Ackles direct it. Season 8 Episode 3 will mark Jensens 3rd crack at directing an SPN episode.

As with all productions, I had it in the back of my head "keep an eye out for SPN, they could be around somewhere" for the upcoming little while. Tuesday I woke up to emails, tweets & texts asking me if I was going out to the set..and eventually even phone calls, for day 2 of shooting.

After perusing where the location was, I realized "I know where that is & can actually get there easily enough". They were at the same place (the place where Meg drives the Impala thru the sign & the Winchesters & Cas fight Dick to his death) I last saw the SPN cast last year... sort of. This time, they were across the street in a park that was beside the Fraser River.

I made the trek out there & realized when I got there, they hadnt started yet. I ran into 1 of the local photographers who was also there, and we went on a walk to see what/where to be. On our walk thru the pathways of the very wooded park we ended up at a fork in the path, and who was 40 ft away along 1 of those paths? Jared Padalecki, the man who plays Sam Winchester. I realized pretty quick, they were not gonna let us hang out there for too long, so we walked along till we ended up back out on the street. Thats where we camped out for the next 3-4 hours.

A little while later the photographer noticed Jensen on the set. Eventually he left the set for a bit & sat in his transportation vehicle. His driver/bodyguard got pretty displeased when he realized myself & the pap were out there & started playing games. He drove Jensens vehicle away from where it was partked, to a further away place, all so we could in theory not get up to him when he went back to the set. When he came back out... he had changed shirts (had a lighter coloured one on originally...then was in a black shirt for the rest of the shoot). He strolled to the set and shortly after they started their day of filming.

The scene seemed to entail just Sam at 1st, then we realized there was also a dog involved (too many high bushes...never got a pic of the pooch) walking thru the park. Sam seemed to be looking for the dog or someone as he yelled out quite loudly a name that I failed to catch/recall (was being distracted by crew whom Clif had assigned to inconvenience me & the pap.).

A little later was a scene where Sam walks along the path & runs into a girl sitting down... the girl turns out to be Liane Balaban. If that name isnt familiar to you yet... it will be. She was recently cast as Sams love interest this season in a recurring role. Whether they introduce her character in 1 of the 1st 2 episodes is yet to be known... but it is certain she will be in episode 3, and by the way the scene seems to play out, I get the feeling this is Sam's 1st interaction with her possibly. There appeared to be no scenes involving Dean in this shoot. Whether he is still in purgatory at this time, or not is yet unknown.

I find it interesting that they were in a VERY PUBLIC PARK that had pathways I could have gone on & gotten closer than I was, but respected their work space & stayed back..and Clif STILL was trying to make this harder than they had to be. It is stunts like this that eventually lead to people being more disrespectful of public spaces. Luckily, some of the crew understand and are better at dealing with the public. If it were not for these specific crew members wh essentially said "we would prefer if you stayed back" things could have turned far more intrusive thru out the shoot, as no less than 5 paps, autograph hounds, bloggers and fans were out there for most of the day... and none of us HAD to listen to the crew...but we all did. That is what professional courtesy can get you. Throwing a temper tantrum & demanding crew walk around with umbrellas to block potential photos from being taken from a football field distance away leads to less co-operative people then & in the future. I thought this had resolved itself after last year when I called out the umbrella tricks on set. Maybe someone forgot how that turned out last year? If he wants the photographers to be more intrusive...I am sure that can be arranged. Just keep being a nuisance for no good reason.  Anyways...rant over.

The entire shoot lasted less than 3 hrs. They shot 3 or 4 scenes that likely will all flow in 1 consecutive scene and then they wrapped up and headed to the studio.

Below are a few pics of Jared, Jensen & newcomer Liane Balaban on set. Hope you enjoy...because the crescent shaped sunburn on my neck better not have been for nothing.
 


Comments

Dana
07/12/2012 2:00am

Thank you so much for sharing. Appreciate it:). I don't know why Cliff is so annoying, after all this time you'd think he'd know better:(

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Karen Dawson
07/12/2012 3:00am

This is awesome thanks.

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Mary Smith
07/12/2012 6:44am

Liane Balaban is pretty and cute, @Lianebalaban_ on twitter, official. great!

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Marilyn
07/12/2012 12:06pm

The correct twitter is @Lianebalaban with no space after the name. That one is a fake account, just so you know.

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Truth
07/12/2012 7:52am

This site sucks! Why in the world do you put thosee watermarks? Let me guess, because you are so very selfish to share them without any marks. Can't you just at least put those water marks at the bottom of pictures? They are HUGE and not going to let us see photos clearly!

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07/12/2012 9:29am

Dana - Thanks. For awhile, I thought he had learned.... seems no.

Karen - you are welcome

Mary Smith - FYI, that IS NOT Liane's official twitter, her official twitter is @LianeBalaban NO UNDERSCORE AFTERWARDS. You should stop following the blatant intentional imposter.

Truth - Perhaps if people were capable of being respectful & posting photos WITHOUT cropping around the tags... I wouldnt make them so visible. Even with these tags, as visible as they are, I have already had to file 10+ complaints with different sites for hosting them without permission/credits. If I ONLY had the tag at the bottom, they would be stolen & re-posted on 100s of sites within hours, with few to no credits. How would that benefit this site? It doesnt.

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Erin
07/12/2012 9:56am

And why, exactly, does the SPN crew *owe* you guys anything? Some shows keep their sets completely sealed, but since SPN films out in public spaces, that's not possible. However, trying to keep at least *some* of what they do concealed from spoiler hounds is not, IMO, grounds for the sort of complaining and sense of entitlement you display.

Nowhere does it say a TV show must make its shoots accessible by its fans. But apparently SPN paparazzi think otherwise. I don't blame Clif for losing patience over 7 and now 8 years.

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Marilyn
07/12/2012 12:17pm

Thanks for the pics! I love BTS photos (unless they're obnoxious.) These are nice.

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07/12/2012 1:44pm

Erin - Never said they "owe" us anything. All I said is his actions are unprofessional & generally seen as a nuisance by most crew. Its not the crew, or the actors or even the directors doing this... its ONE guy who shouldnt actually care.
"SPN paparazzi"? LMAO, you make it sound like theres 10 of them chasing them around day 7 night. Of the ONLY 2 paps who have shot SPN ever, 1 of them has a working arrangement with someone on the crew for info. Also, your math sucks. NO ONE gave 2 shits about papping SPN till about 3 yrs ago. If it werent for the likes of me & 1 other local blogger even talking about the show around here & posting a few candid photos, the paps in this town likely still wouldnt take the show seriously. 8 years? LMFAO, Clif hasnt even worked for them that long. If you are going to be critical of them... you should at least have all your facts straight 1st.

Marilyn - thanks. I have seen that FAKE Liane account spammed on almost every board that has anything to do with the show. It shocks me to no end how many people are following it compared to the REAL Liane. There was a fake Jensen & a fake Jared with over 80K & 105K followers each not too long ago. Same gimmick, the underscore at the end.

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Sam
07/12/2012 4:46pm

I understand your frustration. I enjoy seeing your pictures of Jensen and Jared, even though I don't take the show seriously, I am really, sometimes you just have to give up something knowing you aren't sending good quality material out there, but I do follow J2, so I enjoy seeing pictures of them and hope we see more pictures of Jensen and Jared in the future.

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C
07/13/2012 2:31am

Really hate Cliff. He's such a joke in the fandom, no one knows why he's still there since he obviously sucks as a bodyguard. But glad to see some news about the new season, at least :)

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Lisa Reames
07/13/2012 12:50pm

Thanks for sharing your photos and commentary. This will be the closest I will ever be to any of them. Thank You.

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Ray
07/14/2012 3:22am

Wow, cool.I'm a fan of Russia and it's very interesting to me because I've never been on the other hemisphere, and to observe all this is not possible. I look forward very much Season 8 * _ *

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07/28/2012 10:50pm

I love the pics you get BTS having worked on sets here in Toronto I love all that stuff Your hard work is much appreciated. But it;s a shame Clif is so difficult (putting it mildly :)

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julia
08/11/2012 1:30pm

Hey thanks for the pics they are awsome! can you maybe tell me where they are shooting right now because i will fly tomorrow to vancouver and so i would like to see them shooting (if i can get close enought=))

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