That’s quite a spread of topics eh? Everything but the kitchen sink! I’ve got a couple weeks of activities to catch up on here… so here we go!

The weekend before last we got a chance to go out with some friends to the Marpole Curling Rink for… yes… some curling! It was a blast.

There were only 5 of us, so it was a small group, but I think 6 or 8 people would have been just perfect.

We got a quick introduction from the manager on how to curl, and then we were off on our own to have fun! We all picked it up really quickly and I gotta say… curling is one of the most fun sports I have ever played and I can’t wait until September when the rink opens again so we can get out and shoot some rocks!

After curling was Allan’s championship hockey game… and the Puck Nuts won! Wohooo! After 5 years in the league it was their first win and it was really exciting. I’ve been coming out off and on to the games (although much less lately) and it was a real treat to see the boys finally get a win.

Proud of you guys!

The Friday before last was some of my favourite people coming into town to visit: Alex, Sandy, Niki, and Moritz. Allan and I went out for dinner with them to Lumiere here in Vancouver.

The ambience was amazing. Gorgeous intimate room, great seating and really beautiful lights.

We did the 5 course meal which was delicious. It was meticulously prepared, pretty good flavour combinations and beautiful presentation.

My only complaint was that they ONLY offer prix-fixe meals so there’s not a lot of choice. For this reason alone I probably wouldn’t visit Lumiere more than once a year. Not enough variety.

The best part of the meal was definitely the dessert… soooo soooo good. I had the hot and cold tiramisu (hot chocolate sauce melting the chocolate top mixing with the cold tiramisu in the cup), but I really loved the chocolate fondant that Allan ordered. The fruit pavlova also looked good.

And to cap it off, my favourite part… the warm freshly baked madeleines… oh so good.

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In other news, this weekend I will be heading with my friend Amy to do some press coverage of the Twilight Convention here in Vancouver. We’ll be bringing our cameras and press passes and looking forward to meeting Twilight fans and the stars.

Is anyone else going? Stars appearing are Peter Facinelli (Carlisle), Charlie Bewley (Demetri), Bronson Pelletier (Jared), Kiowa Gordon (Embry), and Jodelle Ferland (Bree). There will be exclusive footage, panel discussions, themed parties, musical performances, competitions, auctions, autographing, merchandising and photo ops!

The lineup looks pretty good if you’re a fan. You can still buy tickets at the Twilight Convention website for only $10 a day.

This is a new Eclipse set in Vancouver. So, here are your first look photos at this urban set! It’s definitely a city set… I’m thinking maybe a backstory… or possibly newborns.

So the ONE day I don’t bring my camera to work, I decide to check out an Eclipse set. I apologize in advance for the photos… they were taken with my Blackberry. I may go check out the set another day or a bit later… so stay tuned as I’ll have better photos. For those of you who follow my other Twilight blog posts, you know that normally my images are much higher quality.

Here they are setting up what I believe to be a rain machine. Water will come through the tube and then is dispersed through hundreds of little holes along the beam. You can see that the buildings look old and historic, and set the scene nicely for an urban set.

Here’s another shot. I believe filming will take place in the alleyway nearby. Lots of old props are being set up… very grunge, urban items like trash cans and garbage littering the  street. They were also seen painting graffiti and other enhancements to add to the set.

So that’s just a quick preview! Hopefully I have some better photos and a better set report soon. Enjoy! Please be respectful of the photos and of course the filming locations and the crew.

You can always follow me on Twitter for more updates, and I’ll let you know if I end up getting better photos.

What scene in Eclipse do you think this set is from?

It’s the new sets for Eclipse that I find truly exciting! Being a fan of the books and the movies, it’s always interesting to see how the scenes change from the books… as well as see what each Director’s style is from one movie of the Twilight Saga to another.

I had a chance to see a new set being filmed for Eclipse… the scene where the newborns arrive in Forks. It’s a picturesque scene, with mountains and water framing the background of the shot, and a sparse unoccupied beach for the newborns to arrive on… then they disappear into the forest. The vampire newborns looked absolutely chilling, and their rugged military-like outfits along with steely, determined glares just added to the mood. Filmed early in the morning, this scene was designed to look as if it had been shot at night, possibly just after dusk or just before dawn.

Riley (Xavier Samuel) and Bree (Jodelle Ferland) were on set as well as a number of newborn vampires we have NEVER seen before.

I’m always amazed at what a huge production it is to film just a few seconds for these movies. Second Unit Director EJ Foerster was on set, calm but directive… doing dozens of different takes for only a couple scenes. An amazing number of people involved plus tons of equipment and hours of filming from so many different angles just to get a 5 second shot… wow. Check out all the equipment on the shore, including the scuba diving gear and the dinghys. You can also see some of the shorter fake trees they used in the foreground on the beach.

There are two distinct scenes… scenes where the female newborn is talking to a male newborn, and the main scene (which they spent most of the time shooting) where there are three newborns including Riley coming out of the water onto the shore. They don’t come out of the water in the books, but I think it is a nice dramatic addition.

The water here was quite cool in temperature, so I’m not surprised at all to see the actors with thin wetsuits on under their costumes. They were also given small weights under their clothing to help keep them weighed down under the water before the “take”. I have my PADI scuba diving license so I was really curious about how they were using the divers for the filming. The scuba divers served two purposes: One, to give their extra regulator to the actors so they could breathe underwater when necessary… and two, to help give the actors cues and guide them to certain checkpoints when necessary.

HD video coming soon (tomorrow night… sorry guys, I got really sick tonight).

In this scene in the video (coming soon), you’ll see the Director ask them to go underwater (“Under water!), then he counts as they are rolling with the movie cameras “OK, Riley”… then the first actor emerges (my guess is they were using “Riley” as the code word, since the first actor that emerges is NOT Riley). Then the Director calls them out “2…. and 3″… and the other actor and then Riley emerges from the water. The vampires moved slowly, slinking through the water but very clearly with purpose.

You can see from the camera that it is going to be a very tight shot with how close some of the production members are standing in the water.

Several iterations of this shot continued, with different combinations of the newborn vampires in the water. They also tried different lighting setups, either with a white sheet to bounce water off in the water, or with a large spotlight shining through a diffuser straight at the actors. The camera rig was very flexible, above to move up down and really get around the actors in any angle necessary for the shot. The actors had very pale makeup on.

I also had my suspicions confirmed by one of the PAs that the entire scene was being shot with no sound. Music and effects were to be added later in post-production. Good thing — because an entire squad of geese started squawking their hearts out during the middle of several scenes. It was hilarious.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see Jodelle film any of her scenes (that’s not her in the water), but you can see her here grabbing some food. Her makeup was already done though, as you can see how pale she looks.

I absolutely loved visiting this set. It was one of the coolest I have seen in a while, at least since New Moon

Hope you enjoyed the photos and the video! You can always follow me on Twitter for more updates, or check here to see my other blog posts with Twilight cast members and live set filming.

Last night we went to see Jackson Rathbone and his band 100 Monkeys perform at the Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver. Hastings and Main isn’t the greatest area for young girls to be hanging out in an alley after midnight… but, I digress.

Jackson (“Japer”) and his band rocked out to a jam-packed venue of screaming fans, in front of some of his fellow cast mates and friends Nikki Reed (“Rosalie”), Elizabeth Reaser (“Esme”), Paris Latsis (Paris Hilton’s ex), and Twilight author Stephenie Meyer.

Check out the HD video above to see Jackson and the 100 Monkeys perform an improvised song (with a suggestion of “Acorn” from the audience), and see Nikki and Paris get cozy as well as Elizabeth Reaser and Stephenie Meyer in the video.

It was a neat venue… I thought they did a nice job with the stage setup and the lighting. Shadows, vibrant coloured lighting, and tall dark angular shapes danced across a back screen as the band played to hundreds of photo flashes going off every minute for the duration of the show.

After two opening acts, the band was escorted on stage from an upstairs VIP room by more-than-necessary security and played for about an hour and a half.

Nikki, Paris, and Liz were there right at the start, watching with friends from a VIP booth overlooking the stage. Nikki and Paris were very close and “touchy touchy” during the evening, often leaning in close to talk and giggle, touch cheeks and discretely kiss (sadly, no picture but I saw it with my own eyes).

Jackson looked suave with his white fedora, skinny black tie, lightly pinstriped white shirt, and grunge jeans.

Band members often switched instruments, and Jackson played every instrument on stage over the course of the evening.

Here’s a look at the entire VIP booth that was there… recognize anyone else?

Liz looked like she was having a blast the whole time.

I love these silhouettes of Jackson against the show lighting.

Stephenie Meyer was also there, mingling with the crowd at first unnoticed, and then eventually escaped to the VIP booth once she was discovered, mobbed and flashed… *sigh* I love Stephenie. Getting to talk to her last year and take pictures with her definitely had Amy and I fangirling last year. (Check out my older Twilight-related blog posts)

Nikki, Paris, Liz, and Stephenie all left halfway through the show. I’m not sure why, that is pretty uncharacteristic of them… but I would guess that it had to do with the insanely hot and sticky temperatures inside the theatre. We were on the ground floor close to the concrete walls where it was cool, and we were sweating. Jackson and his band were dripping with sweat, and I would guess the VIP booth way up in the air was even hotter, forcing some of the cast members to leave a little early.

I love Liz’s sexy black thigh high boots (so hot this Fall, right?) and backless dress.. Nikki had on some cool shoes with a tunic adorned with a large sequined/studded flower and tights. Paris had a hat, wife beater (hmm, not so hot) and jeans. It was quite a climb to get from the booth to the backstage, so here are some fun shots of everyone climbing down to leave. They left through the backstage which tunneled through to the front door and took a taxi home. Some of my friends got a signature and photo with Liz in the front.

The end of the show consisted of us (and a few other girls and paps) waiting in the back alley to see them leave. Some friends got photos with Ben G from the band, and then shortly after Jackson exited the theatre quickly surrounded by 4 bodyguards (was that really necessary?) and hopped into a vehicle with Scott “The Scientist” (also played that night) and gave us a little smile before taking off. We were surprised that he didn’t stop to say hi to any of the fans, as Jackson is normally very fan-friendly.

Fun night, great performances, and neat to see the cast again. Sorry for the lateness of the post, we were out till 4 AM last night

You can always follow me on Twitter for more updates, or check here to see my other blog posts with Twilight cast members and live set filming. There are more photos on my Flickr as well that I didn’t post up here.

When Allan and I first started dating about 2.5 years ago, we spontaneously decided to go on a road trip to La Push, Washington. At the time, all Allan knew was that it was a fabled surfing destination. We really didn’t know anything else. So with a car, surfboards, camping gear, and a trusty old map (I didn’t have Google Maps on my phone back then), we set out for La Push with no plans, no accommodations, and no idea of where we were going to end up.

It was an exciting adventure, and was the first step towards us really getting to know each other, and figure out what it was like to travel together. It is funny when I look back on those times… how it was such a romantic trip… and I look at how we are together, today. I’m grateful that we are still adventuring together and exploring new places.

It was about a 7 hour drive down there. We took ferries, crossed many bridges, and eventually found our way to the right road.

La Push was a small fishing village at the time. Today if you go there, it’s completely Twilight-itized. When we visited 2 and a half years ago, we had never heard of Twilight and neither had the town it seemed. It’s funny that when I was reading the Twilight books I was relating many moments in the book to our experiences a couple years ago. I’m sure it would be a very different scene today.

We surfed (well, I surfed for the first time in my life), we stayed at the Quilete Reservation there, we explored the beaches and the forests…

We traveled up to Hurricane Ridge and saw snow at the lookouts and tons of deer, tried the mineral hot springs in the Olympic National Park, and went on many nature walks.

Allan and I considered that trip to be the mark of our relationship, so we still use the date of that trip as our anniversary. I have to admit I feel a bit sentimental looking back on these photos. It would be great to visit that region a few years from now, to see how it has changed and to share that special place again together.