Magic Makes a Mess of Storybrooke pt. 3 - YVR Shoots

Some great character AND scenery shoots below the cut! Beware of spoilers. ;)

Magic has made a big mess of Main Street in Storybrooke (played by Moncton Street in Steveston south of Vancouver) for modern-day fairy tale series Once Upon a Time. Main Street is a disaster zone, with uprooted ashphalt, overturned and smashed-up cars, a downed telephone pole, blown-out windows, and the hull of a boat near the main intersection. Fortunately, the many local fans of the show could see some main cast amid the debris on the artfully-destroyed street.

Meghan Ory, Lee Arenberg and the Evil Queen herself, Lana Parrilla, did some early morning scenes, leaving the afternoon for Josh Dallas to chase a Mad Hat (see if you can spot the black top hat in the photos below) east along the street and then into the alley next to Storybrooke Bread. Dallas ran and ran and ran all afternoon in stages, and then met with fans at the finish. As I’ve said before, he’s a Prince Charming in real life, too.

When I returned in the evening, it looked like Dallas was in for another bout of running, but to chase the Mad Hatter himself, Sebastian Stan, not a Mad Hat. Stan soaked his shirt with perspiration running west down the street in the evening heat. Why was he running from Charming? It seems the Mad Hatter know something about the whereabouts of Ginnifer Goodwin’s Snow White and Jennifer Morrison’s Emma Swan, who are nowhere to be seen in Storybrooke. What’s happened to them? We’ll find out when season two begins airing.

I don’t know how Once Upon a Time filmed so many scenes and managed the hundreds of fans who flocked to set all day and evening long. Early on, a lot of retirees on their regular morning stroll looked taken aback at what had happened to Moncton Street. One joked, “Steveston’s never looked better.” Later, packs of kids came prepared to spend the day, hoping to meet their favourtie actors from the show. The girls in the photo below are savvy fans, blaming Rumplestiltskin for all the mess — “It’s all his fault.” But when security guard Rick set up the first photo op with Lee Arenberg and Lana Parrilla, some of them raced past me at top speed to get to fan favourite, the Evil Queen. Rick had to admonish them and changed the setup for the next meet and greet to an orderly line. Josh Dallas was mobbed by fans  everal timess throughout the afternoon and evening but there were no incidents. He continued to stroll along Moncton Street with Rick, back and forth between setups. I accidentally made a sudden turn on the sidewalk at one point and Dallas narrowly avoided walking straight into me. I don’t know if there was ever a lull with fans, but the evening crowd seemed to b  even biggerm stretched out along the south side of Moncton Street to watch the scene with Josh Dallas, Meghan Ory and Sebastian Stan. After they wrapped, all met with fans, as did Raphael Sbarge, earlier.

Here are more photos of the artfully-destoryed Moncton Street, which was cleaned up bit by bit throughout the day as production moved west along the street and then east to film Josh Dallas chasing the Mad Hat, and then west again for evening scenes with the Mad Hatter, the Seven Dwarves and Archie and his Dalmation, Pogo.

(Source: yvrshoots.com)