Published on OpenFile.ca on September 13, 2011.
At any given moment, Twitter connects people to pop culture chatter and real-time events developing across the globe. But for Vancouver-based journalist Susan Gittins, the popular social media tool boasts some star-studded appeal.
Gittins, a self-professed movie and television aficionado, created the Twitter hashtag#yvrshoots in November 2010 at the suggestion of a friend who was interested in organizing Vancouver filming location Tweets and making them accessible.
She began slipping #yvrshoots into her film-related Tweets, and today, people all over metro Vancouver—and even around the world—are chipping in their celebrity sightings and camera crew discoveries to the information-rich pool.
“Some days, it feels like Vancouver is just one big film set,” Gittins says of the numerous Tweets that have accrued under the hashtag.
“Someone sees a film crew setting up and it’s on Twitter. It’s on the hashtag. And if it’s not discovered immediately what show is filming, it happens within a couple of hours. It’s instant information all the time. There’s no other place really to get it. It’s quite amazing.”
Vancouver, often referred to as Hollywood North, is a major North American filming hotspot. As a result, #yvrshoots has allowed fans to follow productions ranging from the television series Fringe to the latest movie phenomenon, the Twilight series’ Breaking Dawn.
According to Gittins, who blogs about her film location adventures forVancouverIsAwesome.com, we live in a tabloid age interested in big-name actors. She says star-spotting drives a lot of interest in the hashtag, but many people also just like to know what’s going on when trailers and cameras swarm their neighborhood.
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