Fake town built exclusively for filming TV and movies

I've done combat training in one (a 3-story aluminum sided building furnished like a large office) and they had rigged the whole building with an interactive surround sound system. Once the course started and we got up to the building, I thought I heard music coming from inside. We opened the door and Metallica was blasting at 120db and none of us could hear each other. We had to communicate using signals while navigating the course with fake hostages and combatants etc. all while Master of Puppets was assaulting my ears. You couldn't escape it either, we were being sound-gunned on every floor and every room.

Anyway, just thought I'd share since Sound is something people forget when imagining training in these buildings and the experience was invaluable.

this is so grotesque to read. Imagine a fake all-American town constructed in China, and someone commenting "This is not only good for reducing infantry casualties but also reducing civilian casualties."

35°20'58.0"N 116°35'39.1"W

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

The exterior of JJ's Diner is of a shopping center in Atlanta. Easily recognizable to locals because of the presence of Galaxy Trading Company (part of Starship Enterprises), which was a headshop.

> 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."”

Yes, the Westworld Church is the only thing standing there now.

> It's all charcoal now though

I heard. :( So sad. A piece of my childhood. That same fire actually took the homes of some of my childhood friends too. Heartbreaking.

Go to the left and you'll see the old set

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

And we are seeing the backlash to that, hence real sets struggling to be built up in time before movie-goers are permanently soured on blockbusters.

A lot of viewer time — and thus money — is coming from serial shows these days.

There are a tonne of mid and high-budget shows that are set in grounded settings which can utilize sets like this.

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.

Georgia doesn't "steal" business from California. The vast majority of the production houses in those productions are California centered with California staff, and many of the actors fly out to Georgia to film their on set scenes.

It helps local business in Georgia during filming and gives local talent a chance, but the majority of the money still flows back to California. Same goes for Germany, Vancouver, Croatia and all the other places that offer subsidies for filming there. Movie productions are ephemeral and exist temporarily, it's not like having a major corporation headquartered in your town.

Okay but real talk (that's only tangentially related I guess). I want a Batman remake that's true to the original series. Goofy shit like that all the time.

I've had enough dark dystopia. I want more penguin with a monocle and a riddler in a green man suit.

;-)

If you go hiking about four miles into the santa monica mountains, you can visit the M*A*S*H set and see some of the left over trucks and some historical markers.

I see those sets constantly and always annoy the wife commenting on them.

It was in the Twilight Zone episode "Where is Everybody?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khvo6TH-DXc

I remember watching it more recently and when he runs down the alley I wondered if he was going to buy that almanac.

Pioneertown in CA is about 10 blocks by 5.

But yeah, most are much smaller.

Not really. Every Hollywood studio has multiple lots larger than this. People have posted dozens of them already in this thread.

Aha... for some reason I thought they did most of that in the GTA, makes sense though.

Think they are in the process of tearing down the WB one (christmas vacation, bewitched, partridge family, wandavision, etc) to make room for sound stages.

The universal one is unique if you know what to look for. It pops up in a lot of older TV shows. It is kind of neat to see it in twilight zone before they built some of it out.

There are quite a large number of vids on youtube where people go inside the buildings. Most end up being storage for stuff or setup areas for different productions.

> You can buy vast tracts land for pennies and...

That sounds remarkably like the just-revealed "Flannery Associates plan" - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/land-purchases-s... .

And still, even with ~50,000 acres and a bunch of billionaires behind them, the media coverage seems to agree that they'll be fighting against regulations and red tape and NIMBYs for years, to actually build anything useful. With success far from assured.

That's what Space Jews want you to believe. There is no moon, it is just projection by space lasers.