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We'll be back with sightings!

Rufus!

During filming, a Bwogger approached a GG tech person and asked which characters were coming to Barnard. “None of them,” the tech-lady replied. “We’re just pretending they go to Columbia.”

UPDATE: More pictures from the filming, this time of Serena (!) thanks to the quick lenswork of Elissa Mendez-Renk:

There was a flurry of film crews on and around campus this week, and it looks like some of them are here to stay. So look pretty out there, people… you could wind up in a movie!

Top Left: Film crew setting up shooting for Premium Rush starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. No signs of the man himself yet, but a tipster told us that actor Michael Shannon has been spotted strutting around campus in a suit. And now a commenter informs us Gordon-Levitt has been seen at the 116th subway stop… Quick, break out those cameraphones! This is bigger than Blair!

Top Right: Lerner Hall looks conspicuously bare as its banners have been taken down. A notice has been put up saying there will be filming in the building until Sunday, and we can only surmise that these two are related. Start a betting pool with your friends now as to whose mailbox JGL will be filmed in front of.

Bottom Left: Flashing lights and people in suits can only mean one thing around here–Law and Order: SVU. Filming took place on 111th St. between Broadway and Riverside.

Bottom Right: The Batmobile, outside of Nussbaum. For the remake of Arthur starring Russell Brand.

Related: We’ve also gotten numerous tips that our very own 1020 is featured in a scene in the recent buddy cop comedy movie The Other Guys. According to Bwogger Sam Schube, the bar is “set up as even seedier than a regular cop bar,” and stars Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell partake in many a 1020 tradition: discharging weapons, biting priests’ arms (who, as we all know, are frequent clientele), and of course, urinating off the pool table.

Photos by DCS, HEH, HSG, and RV

The beautiful people of Gossip Girl have returned to campus. The cast and crew are set up and shooting on 116th near Claremont, and tipsters are abuzz with sightings of “good ol’ Blair Waldorf” (who, we might suggest, looks like a yellow Carmen Sandiego) and “Lacrosse Hottie and Actor-Extrodinare Chase Crawford” giving “a performance for the ages.” Think twice before heading over there in your sweats, kids! We’re supposed to look like Yale, after all!

More photos after the jump.

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Now’s your chance to indulge your inner Garbo.

Columbia University Film Productions needs extras tonight for a scene in its project, “Serotonin.”

Fortunately, since extras will be playing students, there’s no need to go all Dustin Hoffman on CUFP. Just show up wearing normal student clothes (anything from the Gap family of brands will do) and normal student expressions (sadness, tiredness, disaffection).

The film shoot will run from 6 p.m. to 8 in Fayerweather 313, but you need show up only for one of the two hours. Wages will be paid in free food, your name in the credits, and a DVD copy of the finished product.

Independent reports and Bwog tipsters have told us (xoxo) that the CW show/fashion plate “Gossip Girl” is currently filming near “Earl Hall.” For those of you hoping to catch some spoilers, the popular show is apparently only filming “exterior shots,” which normally do not include cast members. Still, it could include some B-roll footage of cast members and there are at least a few cast members present, so fans might have a shot at meeting them. It’s unclear how much longer they’ll be filming (or if this is the only time the show will be shooting here). We haven’t been able to snap any photos of famous celebrities (or the crew, we guess), but if you have any, send them along to bwog@columbia.edu and we’ll update the post to include them.

Photos from Just Jared, and fearless photojournalist Miram Schachter’s shots of the action — plus plot details! — after the jump.

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A group of first-years (who have collectively named themselves Floor 7 Productions) recently submitted their short film Waking Up and Other Hardships to Apple’s ’07 Insomnia Festival, in which high school and college student groups create their own three minutes of brilliance in under 24 hours based on a set of pre-listed elements. See if you can spot them for yourselves — although it may be a bit difficult to rationally explain the huge oven mits.

You can rate the film until November 9th to help the group win gain their eternal glory, so go! Vote! This is probably the right weekend to do it, anyway.

Earlier this week, Riverside Church passed around this undoubtedly urgent security bulletin:

“Just a heads up:

Incredible Productions, LLC. — are the producers of the film ‘The Hulk’—due out 2008. They will be flying a helicopter around the Riverside Church Tower (500 feet minimum distance—FAA standard) to shoot footage for the film. Please note the particulars:

1. This will take place on Monday and Tuesday—or—-Wednesday and Thursday if weather is bad on Monday and Tuesday—-during the day, early evening.

2. *_They do not need access to the building at all—for any reason_*—I am telling you in case someone calls and is concerned about a helicopter circling the tower—they are not terrorists!!!!!!

3. We have been chosen _only_ because of our height and proximity to Columbia University—which is the ‘unidentified’ university being featured in the film. We are the space that gives them a great vantage point of angle they need of Columbia.

4. When you see the movie, you’ll see our tower —-digitally enhanced, to appear to be providing military surveillance—there will also be a military aircraft hovering nearby—all computer generated.

5. We will in no way be identified as Riverside Church—nor will any footage of any other part of the premises be taken. You will not know it is Riverside—-(well, *you* will because I’m telling you the secret)”

Well that’s a relief. I mean God forbid anybody recognize one of the true architectural highlights of the Upper West Side…anyway, while Bwog is relieved to know that the helicopter circling UTS this week won’t be under the command of terrorists, we’re a bit off put by this “unidentified university” bullshit. Really, Hollywood–can we get a little respect? Please?

Lucy Liu’s new show, Cashmere Mafia, is filming on 113th between Broadway and Riverside.

ABC describes the show as “a thinking woman’s Sex and The City mixed with the wit of The Devil Wears Prada,” but you might want to stop by anyway.

Spiderman and Scarlett Johansson are not the only ones to have visited the CU steps for some film shots — Bwog Editor Chris Szabla came across this clip from the Indian film Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (Never Say Goodbye in English), which was released last August.

The Columbia scene kicks in at about 50 seconds in. What’s particularly impressive, however, is how they’ve managed to get all passers-by in the scene to wear light blue (although it seems like more of a dazzling sapphire than the typical Columbia shade). The film has also won 11 Global Indian Film awards in 2006, in case you were curious.

Now this is what we call globalization!

UPDATE 3:12 pm: More pictures after the jump.

This ain’t just no two-bit background filming—the production crew of The Nanny Diaries is pulling out the big guns for all us College Walker-stalkers. Johansson can be seen filming a scene with an as-of-yet unidentified male (possibly co-star Chris Evans, of The Fantastic Four fame) near the west fountain on Low Plaza RIGHT NOW.

The whole production area is roped off, and imposing looking members of the film’s security team are very rudely keeping onlookers from getting too close to the action. Bwog was yelled at by said men, who even went so far as to scream at us in a threatening voice and call us “dude.” Even the campus security that is patrolling the area is not sympathetic to the plight of the camera-wielding student journalist. Before we were pressured into leaving, however, Bwog managed to snap a few money-shots. Anything for our loyal readers.

If the editors of any celebrity-based publication are interested in acquiring said photos (ka-ching!), we kindly ask that you email bwgossip@columbia.edu.

BONUS: Overheard on the set: “She looks pregnant.” Bwog refuses to comment.

Jacob Weaver writes in to say:

There’s a sign posted at the top of the stairs leading from Low Plaza up to Dodge that says anyone who happens to walk by during filming of the Nanny Diaries today is giving informed consent to being a potentially recognizable extra in the movie. It says that if you don’t want to be in the movie, you better stay away, and “your presence is your consent.” Because, you know, you can easily avoid College Walk and Low Plaza when you’re on your way to class.

Of course, some of our more nefarious students might try to use this as an opportunity to make it onto the big screen. For shame.

Gautam Hans reports:

A horde of 20 “Production Scouts” descended upon the Hungarian Pastry Shop today at noon, apparently investigating it for possible use in the upcoming film adaptation of “The Nanny Diaries” starring Scarlett Johansson. No word on a reaction from the embittered grad students on the possible commercialization of their second home, but they can take solace in the fact that if the producers do decide to shoot at Hungarian, the lighting will definitely have to get better.

Warner Brothers may have censored itself to stay on the good side of the FCC’s new indecency standards, but you can catch the uncut premier episode of the Bedford Diaries, filmed on the Barnard campus, at the WB website before the sanitized one runs on Wednesday. Sexy professors! Suicides! Unrequited love! Is YOUR life this exciting?

The Splog is on the story, too.

The Bwog thinks it might be time for Morningside Heights to send the NYC Mayor’s Office for Film and Television a nice big fruit basket.

All day today Warner Brothers is filming a TV pilot for ABC, sexily called “The Traveler”, on Riverside Dr. between 110th and 114th (and with the mess extending on 113th all the way to Broadway).

Please don’t be disappointed, though, if it’s missing August Rush’s star power. Remember, it’s just the WB.

Yo.

Natalie Portman decided to show up to Bwog’s Terrorism and Counterterrorism class. If you’re in Hamilton, you might be able to catch her as she leaves. The action is on the 7th floor.

Update: It turns out that Ms. Portman’s cameo in Professor Stuart Gottlieb’s Terrorism and Counterterrorism class was part of a MTV-U promotion for her latest flick, V for Vendetta, in which her character mounts a revolutionary campaign against a totalitarian government and generally blows shit up.

A sampling of the truths Ms. Portman imparted in the 20-minute Q&A session following a somber Frontline documentary on Al Qaeda, Guantanamo and the CIA’s counterterrorism tactics: Read more…