Vancouver Screen Scene: Casey Affleck, When Calls the Heart, Public Schooled, and more

As we head into the holiday season, numerous productions shooting in Vancouver are winding up or taking breaks to give their cast or crew time some seasonal relaxation.

While things may slow down a bit around Christmas and New Year’s Eve, January will usher in a new wave of productions heading into town.

One such case is a new film by Casey Affleck.

Affleck has been riding high on a wave of critical acclaim for the recent release Manchester By the Sea (which is currently playing in Vancouver theatres).

Next up, he’ll be directing and starring in Light of My Life, which shoots in Vancouver from January 23 to March 8.

In the survival drama, based on Casey’s own screenplay, a father and his young daughter become trapped in the woods. Aside from Affleck, the cast hasn’t been announced yet and not many details have been revealed.

But it’ll be the second survival drama shooting around town.

The other one is The Mountain Between Us, starring Kate Winslet and Idris Elba as a writer and doctor who survive a plane crash. The two must rely upon each other as they struggle to get out of the wilderness—and their bond becomes something more than either expected.

The production is on holiday season hiatus from December 20 to January 3, and then resumes shooting until February 24.

If you’re spending the next few weeks in town, you might want to take note that several other productions are also taking breaks for the holiday season.

That includes the feature film The Predator (December 17 to January 9), and the TV series Altered Carbon (December 14 to January 24) and Mech X4 (December 22 to January 9).

The TV series Arrow, Bates Motel, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, Lucifer, iZombie, Once Upon a Time, Riverdale, Supergirl, Supernatural, The 100, The Flash, and Timeless are all on hiatus from December 17 to January 3.

Meanwhile, the Canadian-American TV series When Calls the Heart wraps up production today (December 12) on Season 4.

The drama series, set in the early 1900s in Canada, began shooting on August 22.

Erin Krakow stars as Elizabeth Thatcher, a teacher who relocates from the city to a small frontier town in Alberta. There, she meets Mountie Jack Thorton (Daniel Lissing). Although the two began their relationship with some friction, they soon gave into a mutual attraction.

The cast includes Jack Wagner (Melrose Place, General Hospital), Pascale Hutton (Arctic Air), Lori Loughlin (90210), and Kavan Smith (Supernatural).

The third season saw the threat of a gang of outlaws and miners trapped by a mudslide. Brooke Shields (Suddenly Susan) also had a guest starring role at the end of the season.

Fans will have to wait until 2017 for Season 4 to hit the air but in the meantime, there is going to be a Christmas present in the meantime.

In the two-hour special episode When Calls the Heart Christmas, a train scheduled to bring food, supplies, and gifts is derailed, throwing the town in jeopardy. With the help of a mysterious stranger who arrives in town (Terrence Kelly, Bates Motel), the town begins to learn the true meaning of seasonal giving.

A day after that series wraps, Frequency ends (on December 13).

The series stars Peyton List as an NYPD detective who discovers she’s able to communicate with her deceased father (Riley Smith) back in 1996. The two team up to work together to crack cold cases.

The series also stars Devin Kelley, Lenny Jacobson, Mekhi Phifer, Anthony Ruivivar, and Daniel Bonjour.

Although we previously mentioned the sci-fi feature film Parallel would end on December 5, it now also ends on Tuesday (December 13).

Directed by Isaac Ezban, Georgia King and Martin Wallström star in this thriller about app developers who discover and take advantage of a mirror that is an entranceway between alternate realities.

Then on Sunday (December 18), the Canadian feature Public Schooled completes its shoot.

The coming-of-age comedy centres around an awkward teenager who leaves the home-schooling of his control-freak mother (Judy Greer) for enrolment in public school—to pursue the one-legged girl of his dreams. However, he soon finds himself in a crash course for all things social studies, including, sex, drugs, and more.

Among the cast are Canadian stars Grace Park (Hawaii Five-O) and comedian Russell Peters in supporting roles.

Since many shows are wrapping up for the holiday season, here’s some advance notice of which TV series will be wrapping up in January: iZombie (January 9) DC’s Legends of Tomorrow(January 10), The 100 (January 16), Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce (January 23), and Bates Motel (January 24).

That’s it for this week’s roundup of what’s shooting or finishing shoots in Hollywood North. There’ll be more next week of the local screen scene as we edge closer to the end of the year.