Supernatural season 8 - Day 2 of Shooting - On location pics. Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki AND newcomer Liane Balaban on set

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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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.