Movie locations

[Matt Crunk]

As I was leaving for work one day years ago I drove past a local dry cleaner and saw a crew performing what appeared to be some form of construction on the two sides of the building facing the street (it was/is on a corner lot). When I returned home from work that evening I discovered they had built a facade over the building, transforming it into a "local burger joint". Now, I had worked a full eight hour shift, had a one-hour lunch period, and traveled about two hours to and from work. That's 11 hours, and I have no idea when that crew started or when they finished because they were still there when I returned home and the next day the facade was gone and the business was once again a dry cleaner. Bring it, build it, film it during the day, film it at night, tear it all down and haul it away. Between the time, labor, and materials, I can't begin to imagine what that transformation cost the production company. And what did they do all of that work and spend all of that money for? A three-second establishing shot (i.e., a brief scene that informs the viewers that the characters are now at this burger joint) for a sitcom on ABC. These days they would probably use CGI to create that shot, but this was before that became so prevalent in the industry.

Makes you wonder why thy didn't just pick a location that looked a lot closer to what they needed. Hard to figure the Hollywood rationale.

 

[Bamaboots]

The television movie "Kent State" was was filmed on two AL campuses, Gadsden State Community College and Jacksonville State University near Anniston. I went to an elementary school just down to road from the Gadsden site and attended JSU for awhile.

A buddy of mine was at JSU during the filming and was an extra in a number of scenes. That got me into the "wrap" party with him.

 

[scottyrocks]

Is the Wendy's still there?

Haven't been there in at least a couple of dogs' ages so I don't know.

 

[Zombie_61]

Makes you wonder why thy didn't just pick a location that looked a lot closer to what they needed. Hard to figure the Hollywood rationale.

You would think that's what they would do, but apparently not. I can only imagine they wanted a non-descript "anytown" location, and this particular dry cleaner was willing to let them do what they wanted for reasonable compensation.

For Kevin Smith's movie Clerks II they "rented" a Burger King restaurant in Buena Park, California, that had been closed and was scheduled for demolition, and converted it to Mooby's (the fictional fast food chain in Smith's movies). That makes more sense, because it was a location seen in most of the movie and they filmed there for several weeks.

 

[Fading Fast]

Considering your profile pic is a slice of pizza, I take it you are a bit of a pizza connoisseur. In your opinion, what is the best pizza in NYC?
I've been to Lombardi's which is supposed to be where American pizza originated. It wasn't bad but frankly I wasn't all that impressed.

I've always been underwhelmed by Lombardi's as well. Decent atmosphere, but the pizza is only okay IMHO. I don't know if I'm a connoisseur, but I have eaten and do eat a LOT of pizza (one day I'm going to wake up and either look like a jar of peanut butter or a slice of pizza assuming we turn into the food we eat the most often).

My favorite pizza is John of Bleecker Street http://www.johnsbrickovenpizza.com/menu.html. It's my favorite, first, because of the pizza - brick-oven baked, crunch to the bottom of the crust with a slight chewiness otherwise, a true Italian tasting sauce that doesn't overwhelm and fully covered in cheese (I don't like the "scattered cheese with openings" approach) but not cheese "heavy" - and the mozzarella cheese is done to a golden brown. For me, this is what heaven, I mean pizza is suppose to be like.

But also, I love the atmosphere - it's been there since 1929, worn in wood tables and floors, some left over '50s era looking "upgrades" and a general deshabille from benign neglect - as the focus is on the food - but it's not grotty or gross. You step back in time genuinely - there's no effort to make it "authentic" or a time capsule, it just is.

And thirdly, John's was one of my earliest "discoveries" in the '80s when I was young and first working and living in the city. I went there more times than I could count with friend or on dates - it was the perfect place for that wonderful time in one's life when they are young, life's burdens are light, you have a little financial freedom and a night out of beer and pizza is all you could ask for (well, that last part hasn't really changed).

When I go there now, I look around and see my younger '80s self and remember those friends and that time. It's a nice memory of a good period from my life and, heck, even if I get a bit sadly nostalgic, there is always my favorite pizza in the world coming to the table shortly.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

but I have eaten and do eat a LOT of pizza (one day I'm going to wake up and either look like a jar of peanut butter or a slice of pizza assuming we turn into the food we eat the most often).

We are what we eat.

 

[Benzadmiral]

We are what we eat.

Then I'm a grilled salmon filet mixed with cookies 'n' cream ice cream!

 

[Fading Fast]

For several years (when it was a rental apartment house and hadn't yet gone condo), we lived in a building on 66th and 3rd call Manhattan House (modestly famous for being the first large "white brick" apartment house that ushered in a the post-war modernist movement in NYC). We took the apartment at the time because the rent was surprisingly reasonable, it had a wood-burning fireplace and it hadn't yet been updated much so you could feel like you were living in the late '40s (when it was built) without too much imagination (its casement windows were wonderful).

The building is gigantic (it takes up the full block from 2nd to 3rd avenue and 65th to 66th street and has about 500 apartments) and serves as the background of way too many movie scenes to remember, but two stand out. One, it is in the background of "Annie Hall" in a scene where Woody Allen and Tony Roberts walk and discuss (what else) life's challenges. The other one actually doesn't show the building, but the building across the street and that is from the opening credits for the TV show "The Odd Couple" when Oscar gets out of cab. You can clearly see the street (it's one of Manhattan's rare two-way streets with a planted center island). I live nearby now, walk by it regularly and often think about those and other movies shot there when doing so.

 

[Worf]

The highway chase scenes for Angelina Jolie's "Salt" were done in Albany. Also the entire movie "Ironweed" was shot in Albany as well. Downtown Troy stood in for NY City for portions of Scorsese's "Age of Innocence". That's all I can remember off the top of my head.

Worf

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

The Old Towne area of Orange, California stood in for 1964 Erie, Pennsylvania in the movie That Thing You Do.

 

[galopede]

Well I live about 2 miles from the interior of Hogwarts! Gloucester Cathedral. A few Doctor Who's have filmed there too.

Gareth

 

[MikeKardec]

Makes you wonder why thy didn't just pick a location that looked a lot closer to what they needed. Hard to figure the Hollywood rationale.

Superficially there's only one rationale, efficiency. We just don't know what that means in this case. If they were shooting some other scene within a few blocks it might just be that they didn't want to move the whole circus for a minor shot. I learned early on NEVER move two days in a row ... always have, or reinterpret, enough material so that you spend a minimum of two working days before you pack up your trucks and haul off for the next location. Moving the "unit" is a big money loser. You are spending $10,000/hour at a minimum (for a full Hollywood crew) whether you shoot or not, so it's better to be shooting than driving. Your construction crew can build out a set while you are shooting something else nearby very cheaply compared to those prices. They'd just be standing around much of the time anyway.

Seeing that it was a dry cleaner, here's another hypothetical "for instance:" A real burger joint probably wouldn't allow you to fake something like a fire, possibly chemicals that might impact health codes. A dry cleaning plant uses deadly stuff all the time. I doubt that's the answer but you get my point. Another possibility was that there WAS the right sort of location nearby but at the last minute the negotiation fell through. My experience was that many people thought they were going to get rich off of a film shoot on their property and wouldn't settle for what they were offering when other alternatives existed. Additionally, film companies are notoriously irresponsible with the property of others. In LA the answer to "Can we shoot here?" is "Not for any amount of money on earth." Thus you go find someone more gullible. As fast as possible ...

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

When they were filming That Thing You Do, I hung around there and shot several rolls of film.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

For Kevin Smith's movie Clerks II they "rented" a Burger King restaurant in Buena Park, California, that had been closed and was scheduled for demolition, and converted it to Mooby's (the fictional fast food chain in Smith's movies). That makes more sense, because it was a location seen in most of the movie and they filmed there for several weeks.

I remember that Burger King. It was next door to the UFCW union hall near Knott's Berry Farm. The union hall was a venue for a plastic model kit collector show that I go to (the model kit show has since moved to another venue in Garden Grove). I actually remember seeing the Burger King building dressed as "Mooby's" and thinking that it was an actual restaurant opening up. And then the next time I was there they had torn down the building.

 

[Matt Crunk]

Superficially there's only one rationale, efficiency. . . . Moving the "unit" is a big money loser. You are spending $10,000/hour at a minimum (for a full Hollywood crew)
Additionally, film companies are notoriously irresponsible with the property of others. In LA the answer to "Can we shoot here?" is "Not for any amount of money on earth." Thus you go find someone more gullible. As fast as possible ...

What you say makes sense. I am an occasional filmmaker myself, having worked mostly on my own personal projects but also on commercial productions. However, I have never had the luxury of working with a Hollywood crew nor with that kind of budget. Our location shoots are usually limited to what's easy and cheap, or free as is many times the case. and can be made to work as what we need. It's usually a business owned by a friend or relative of someone working on the production.

 

[EngProf]

Since Robert Altman filmed the movie "Nashville" in and around the city, it's hard to go from place to place without seeing some sort of movie location. The final and most crucial scene was shot at the city's biggest urban park, so multiple thousands of people go there on a regular basis.
However, if they are not classic-movie fans they probably don't know that they are at a movie-location.

Some people from here who saw the movie back when it came out seemed perplexed that some characters would go around a corner and suddenly be 10 miles away in a different part of the city (in real geography). However, if you weren't from here you wouldn't notice that at all.

They shoot a number of country (and other) music-videos here, so they are so common that no one pays any attention to them or where they shoot them.

 

[Zombie_61]

Since Robert Altman filmed the movie "Nashville" in and around the city, it's hard to go from place to place without seeing some sort of movie location...Some people from here who saw the movie back when it came out seemed perplexed that some characters would go around a corner and suddenly be 10 miles away in a different part of the city (in real geography). However, if you weren't from here you wouldn't notice that at all...

Filmmakers count on the fact that so few people will recognize a real-life location in a movie and know the geography presented in the movie isn't "right". They're trying to tell a story, so "details" like that don't matter much to them. Remember, even when movies are "Based on a true story...", they're still nothing more than the illusion of a real story.

 

[Matt Crunk]

This thread reminds me of how much money Hollywood productions waste on things that you don't see on screen. That's why 7 to 10 million dollars in Hollywood is considered a low-budget film, while some independent films shot on not even a tenth of that look more expensive on-screen.

 

[EngProf]

Filmmakers count on the fact that so few people will recognize a real-life location in a movie and know the geography presented in the movie isn't "right". They're trying to tell a story, so "details" like that don't matter much to them. Remember, even when movies are "Based on a true story...", they're still nothing more than the illusion of a real story.

Agree... I think it was more of a local joke about people mysteriously disappearing and then appearing at distant points than a serious misunderstanding of how movies are made.
On slightly related topic, in the movie "Nashville" there is a huge car-crash scene on the Interstate, so that's another common movie-location that you can't help but "visit", but the more interesting aspect is that in the movie - for just an instant - you can see a Metro cop with a bullhorn helping to direct the vehicles involved in the wreck. Cops should appear *after* a wreck, not before and during...

 

[belfastboy]

When I was president of my church's Board of Governors I rented our parking lot and downstairs area for parking, staging and feeding area for the crew. They were shooting the first of the "Percy Jackson" movies and had some underwater scenes to be filmed at the Jewish Comm Centre pool right next door. The trucks, and crew were as if it were a huge military campaign, three days $4000 just for us, no idea what the the JCC charged. AND the kicker; it was for a max of a few minutes of screen time, if it ever made the final cut. After that I now have a better idea why films cost the $150 million tagged for this Percy Jackson episode. I made efforts and offered the church itself to the movie industry in the hopes they would rent our entire church but to no avail.....we could have used the $$$.