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Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies

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Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies

#52
I lived across the street from Warner Brothers Ranch. It was surreal to watch a show like the Sarah Connor Chronicles and see a town blow up and look out my window and see the same church steeple. My nightly walk took me past the backyard of the Wanda/Vision home. Apparently I was trapped in the Hex.

Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies

#53

Two blocks by one block. So, interesting and impressive. Perhaps 'giant' is hyperbole. I'm mostly struck by how perfect it looks. No dirt, no dents, no scratches, no rain-streaked windows, no rust. Not like any place I've ever been.

it's bigger than most fake towns built exclusively for filming.

Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies

#54
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating that something like that is being built at a time when most blockbusters are essentially animation films.

Ground breaking CGI used to be a selling point because you do things that weren't before possible. Nowadays everything is more or less possible in CGI and it has lost its appeal a bit. Now it's appealing to advertise the fact you're doing things for real.

Right, both Nolan and Gerwig made a point of that this summer. And Cruise has been making a point of that for awhile now.

Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies

#55

This would be the perfect setting for a "the Road"-style Twilight Zone episode. The ragtag group of survivors have fended off starvation, thieves, murderers, rapists, nasty weather, wild rabid animals, etc. and stumble on to this scene, thinking wow, we made it to that fabled city where everything is still ok. And then they discover it's all fake. Including, of course, all of the provisions- food, drink. In the last…

the marauders hold up the survivors and start threatening them, but one has an itchy trigger finger...

BANG!

- is written on the flag that unfurls from the barrel a la Bugs Bunny

Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies

#56

You can see both the old and new Eastenders set on Google maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6583379,-0.2755948,240m/data... The old one has now been demolished though

I can't see the old one in the link you sent, only seemingly new.

There are two areas labeled "Albert Square" One near the center right and one near the upper left of where that Maps link starts.

Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies

#58
post #17

I understand the need but it bother me so much to recognise a studio when watching a tv show (or cheap movie). It's like the Wilhelm scream, it immediately reminds me I'm watching a something. Especially the paramount studio https://www.paramountstudios.com/new-york-backlot.html

Parks and Recreation drove me crazy because they used b-roll of the Pasadena City Hall exterior as a stand in for Pawnee City Hall, simply because it’s what everyone in the LA area pictures when they think “impressive city hall”

City Hall was not accurate, but several other exteriors actually are in Indiana in the Indianapolis area, and as a Hoosier, I let the City Hall thing go for it. The building that housed the accounting agency that Ben repeatedly almost worked at is 9333 North Meridian, and the office building where Dennis Feinstein had his office is on Carmel Drive.

https://parksandrecreation.fandom.com/wiki/Filming_Locations

Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies

#59

CTRL+F 'hallmark' = No results...? One would have thought that would be the main location, as dozens (hundreds?) of these have been filmed in Canada. Sets, tons, plots and actors are all generic and interchangable...

They shoot a bunch of Hallmark xmas movies in my town near Ottawa Canada. There is a half-abandoned strip mall that is now filled with Christmas crap and fake snow. They shot I think 4 movies there last year.

Re: Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies

#60
post #47
post #17

I understand the need but it bother me so much to recognise a studio when watching a tv show (or cheap movie). It's like the Wilhelm scream, it immediately reminds me I'm watching a something. Especially the paramount studio https://www.paramountstudios.com/new-york-backlot.html

Reminds me of when Stanely Kubrick had an assistant take hundreds of pictures of doors in London to find the perfect shot of a hooker in a doorway: https://old.reddit.com/r/StanleyKubrick/comments/vhlcha/a_qu... Although Eyes Wide Shut was still filmed mostly on a studio set in London where they recreated Greenwich Village, his other films took quite an interest in perfecting the settings.

> his other films took quite an interest in perfecting the settings.

Kubrick took quite an interest in perfecting all aspects of his films.

https://collider.com/stanley-kubrick-the-shining-scene-guinn...:

“Stanley Kubrick movies are notorious for having multiple takes. One instance is in Eyes Wide Shut, when Tom Cruise's Dr. Bill Hartford walks through a door. He just walks through a door. That's it. 95 times Cruise walked through the same door. It is not surprising, then, to know that the Guinness World Record for "Most Retakes for One Scene With Dialogue" belongs to Kubrick's The Shining with a whopping 148 takes.”

One of the actors in that scene was a kid.

Another example is (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Lyndon#Cinematography):

“After "tinker[ing] with different combinations of lenses and film stock," the production obtained three super-fast 50mm lenses (Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7) developed by Zeiss for use by NASA in the Apollo Moon landings, which Kubrick had discovered. These super-fast lenses "with their huge aperture (the film actually features the lowest f-stop in film history) and fixed focal length" were problematic to mount, and were extensively modified into three versions by Cinema Products Corp. for Kubrick to gain a wider angle of view, with input from optics expert Richard Vetter of Todd-AO. The rear element of the lens had to be 2.5 mm away from the film plane, requiring special modification to the rotating camera shutter. This allowed Kubrick and Alcott to shoot scenes lit in candlelight to an average lighting volume of only three candela, "recreating the huddle and glow of a pre-electrical age."”

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