Have you ever visited movie/tv locations?

[Samurai8472]

More exotically, I visited Hong Kong earlier this year. While I didn't recognize the cityscape (day or night) while I was there, I watched The Dark Knight a couple of weeks later and found myself saying "I recognize that building and that building and Oooo! I remember that building!"

I have been to the escalator area where Bruce and Lucius meet.

In 2000 I visited Hong Kong. My mom's aunt lives at the top of the escalator system.

I would walk up and down the escalator system on a daily basis.

 

[Christopher]

I've ... also been to San Juan Bautista, which doesn't have the famous tower.

From Vertigo? Yeah, I believe the tower was a matte painting.

 

[bigdaddy]

The Mel Gibson movie, Edge of Darkness was partly filmed about 20 miles miles from me, in Northampton MA, so I have been there. They used a church in downtown as I think a City Hall, but maybe the guy was coming out of church.

Then the cooler thing they built a fake building on Mount Sugarloaf in South Deerfield MA and made it into an office for a USA contractor making weapons. The building only lasted three days, but if you watch the movie you can see the amazing fall views of Amherst and UMass in the movie.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/mount_sugarloaf_state_park_to.html

 

[RandyS]

I live 30 minutes away from the California State Capitol building and have been there many times. In 1994 it was featured on our local CBS news when the cast of Dr. Quinn, medicine Woman came up here to use it as a stand in for the US Capitol in the 2 hour episode where they go to Washington.

I've also traveled across the Golden Gate Bridge in my wheelchair many times, which is the site of MANY TV and movie productions.

And, in 1983, I visited Hollywood and took the Universal Studios tour.

 

[Rush Limborg]

When my father was young, his father took him to the set of Prey for the Wildcats (My grandfather was a consultant for the film).

Dad met, shook hands with, and took a picture with Andy Griffith and William Shatner.


Now...for me, for some time, I lived in Lakeland, Florida. The Southgate Shopping Center there was a location used in Edward Scissorhands and Cocoon.

We visited Washington, D.C., when I was young--and I distictly remember seeing the Lincoln Memorial--which, of course, has been used a lot.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Incidentally, there's also a plaque at the diner table where Meg Ryan faked an orgasm in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.

Yeah, and you take a picture of it with the 7,000 other people squeezed into that Deli.

 

[Goliath]

I was surprised to discover that a number of exterior shots in the Silent Hill movie featured buildings in Hamilton, Ontario, where I lived for years.

The "Grand Hotel" was an abandoned office building downtown, on James Street. The Church was actually the Cathedral of Christ the King, seat of the Diocese of Hamilton.

And most amusingly of all, the "Toluca County Orphanage" was actually the Masonic Temple on King Street West. I always thought that was a spooky-looking building--nice to see it finally made it into a film.

 

[Greg Cox]

Here's an obscure one. I've visited the abandoned Pennsylvania coal mining town where THE MOLLY MAGUIRES, an old Sean Connery-Richard Harris movie, was filmed. Believe it or not, a multi-story breaker tower built for the movie back in the sixties is still there.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I live in Los Angeles. My entire city is a movie set.

Don't we have anyone here from Vancouver? You probably can't walk ten paces there without tripping over a film location.

I've heard that the reason Vancouver is so popular for filming is that it looks like every big city in North America but has no distinctive features or landmarks. There’s no Vancouver Tower, Vancouver Bridge, Vancouver Fountain, Vancouver Arch, or Vancouver Sign that audiences would recognize and say, “That’s Vancouver!”

Why would that be an advantage? Might as well film in Cleveland. The real reason is that it's the only major city in Canada (for the tax breaks) that's in the same time zone as LA.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

. . . I've often been to the path near the GG Bridge where Kim Hunter jumped into the bay in Vertigo and also been to San Juan Bautista, which doesn't have the famous tower.

I assume you mean Kim Novak?

Oops right - not the girl from Planet of the Apes.

Here's another one: Joshua Tree National Park, which was used in DS9 in S7. I guess someone thought Joshua trees look "alien" but they look very ordinary and Earthlike to me.

Also: the Eastern Sierra around Lone Pine has been used in a wide range of movies, including standing in for Afghanistan in Iron Man.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Well, having been in Rome, I've visited the set of a whole lot of movies set in that city, like St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, etc. A list would include both old Italian movies like La Dolce Vita to American blockbusters like Angels and Demons. Same with other famous Italian cities like Milan or Florence or Venice.

More peculiarly, I was born in Turin, where the epic car chase of the original The Italian Job takes place, so I know those streets quite well.

 

[J.T.B.]

I have been to a lot of Utah film locations: Monument Valley (Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, The Searchers and so on; the Moab area (Wagon Master, Rio Grande, Thelma and Louise), Goblin Valley (Galaxy Quest), the ghost town of Grafton (the "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" part of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and others of course from more Utah-centered movies.

I've also visited Franklin Canyon Reservoir near Beverly Hills because of The Andy Griffith Show (and TOS "This Side of Paradise") and sought out "Station 51" from my childhood favorite Emergency in Carson, CA.

--Justin

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Incidentally, there's also a plaque at the diner table where Meg Ryan faked an orgasm in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.

At Katz's? That's not a plaque. It's a sign hanging from the ceiling. Like I said, I've been there.

 

[TheGodBen]

That's the Craggy Island parochial house from Father Ted. I heard directions to it on the radio one morning, and when I realised that it was less than an hour away from where I live, and I had nothing better to do that day, I took a trip up there. It's right in the arsehole of nowhere, I'm amazed that the vans with all the camera equipment made it up there. I'll have to go back there with a proper camera some day, because I went there on a whim, all I had with me was the camera on my crappy old phone.

Actually, when I was 15 my geography teacher took my class on a trip that included Ailwee Cave ('The Very Dark Caves' from The Mainland), Fanore beach (the camping site from Hell) and what seemed to be the picnic area from The Old Grey Whistle Theft. I'm not sure if he knew that he was taking us on a Father Ted tour, but that's what it ended up being.

The Cliffs of Moher were used in The Princess Bride.

Also, this Conan O'Brien bit was filmed in Adare village, a nearby tourist trap and traffic bottleneck. (And no, I have no idea what the drunk guy is saying either. )


I've also been to many locations used in films in London and Paris, but they're famous locations that were used in films and not locations famous for being in films.

 

[Greg Cox]

Incidentally, there's also a plaque at the diner table where Meg Ryan faked an orgasm in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.

At Katz's? That's not a plaque. It's a sign hanging from the ceiling. Like I said, I've been there.

Hmm. I've been there too. I could've sworn I remember a plaque on the actual table, but maybe my memory is fooling me. It's been a few years.

Other prominent landmarks that have appeared in multiple movies: Niagara Falls, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center (before), the Space Needle, and, of course, the Pike Place Market in Seattle.

And, besides being blown up in GODZILLA, the Flatiron Building in New York doubles for the Daily Bugle building in the SPIDER-MAN movies. (In real life, it's the home of St. Martin's Press and Tor Books.)

Oh, one more: Highgate Cemetery in London, which I toured many years ago, was used as a location in TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA.

 

[Silvercrest]

I've been onboard the Lady Washington a few times, the boat that was in the holodeck scenes early in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS and also appears in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL.

Same here. My wife got to hold the tiller! I've also been to Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA, where they filmed all those old bunker scenes for "An Officer and a Gentleman."

 

[Owain Taggart]

I live in Los Angeles. My entire city is a movie set.

Don't we have anyone here from Vancouver? You probably can't walk ten paces there without tripping over a film location.

I've heard that the reason Vancouver is so popular for filming is that it looks like every big city in North America but has no distinctive features or landmarks. There’s no Vancouver Tower, Vancouver Bridge, Vancouver Fountain, Vancouver Arch, or Vancouver Sign that audiences would recognize and say, “That’s Vancouver!”

Err, well, I'd probably be careful in saying that. Just because there isn't anything inherently obvious, I'm sure there are tons of landmarks. Filmmakers are probably just smart enough to film around any of them that would scream out saying, "Hello America, I'm Vancouver!", because doing so would break the illusion of it being something in an American city. That and the filmmakers have become rather elaborate with the greenscreening process as to make practically any location be what they want it to be.

 

[Holdfast]

So, have you ever knowingly or unknowingly visited a location from a movie or tv show? Have you ever gone hunting for movie locations?

Never gone hunting for them, but have ended up at some anyway. Part of that is just inevitable when visiting cities on holiday that happen to have be used extensively in movies (NYC, LA, SF, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, etc, etc, etc) and living in a city (Oxford) that also tends to be featured in many movies and TV series, as well as being less than an hour from London, another ubiquitous film/TV location.

But Nerys Myk's mention of Monterey Bay Aquarium reminded me that when I visited it, I didn't actually know it was used for the Cetacean Institute. Walking around the interior, it didn't really click either (hey, one aquarium tends to look like another). Only when I walked outside and it looked naggingly familiar, did I realise where I knew it from and then I figured out the (matte?) changes the filmakers must made to the environment. That was a pretty cool moment of realisation.

 

[gh4chiefs]

I've been to Old Tuscon Studios where many Westerns have been filmed. Unfortunately it was after the 1980's fire and most of the old historical sets were destroyed. The TV show High Chapparal (sp?) set was still intact.

I think it was the summer of 98 I was in San Fran and I went down to Hyde Street Pier and walked onto the old ferry boat they have on display and thought it looked familiar. Then I realized it was the set they used for the police station for at least one season of Nash Bridges.

About 10 years later, a few days after my second visit to San Fran I happened to be watching a rerun of Nash Bridges, and one of the scenes was in a restaurant that I had just eaten at days before, and it looked to be shot at the very table I sat at.

I've also been out to Monument Valley and have taken the guided tour into the valley, and recognized several sites from various John Wayne movies, including the spot where Natalie Woods ran down the red sand dune and up to John Wayne to warn him about "Scar."

 

[RoJoHen]

I live in Los Angeles. My entire city is a movie set.

Don't we have anyone here from Vancouver? You probably can't walk ten paces there without tripping over a film location.

I've heard that the reason Vancouver is so popular for filming is that it looks like every big city in North America but has no distinctive features or landmarks. There’s no Vancouver Tower, Vancouver Bridge, Vancouver Fountain, Vancouver Arch, or Vancouver Sign that audiences would recognize and say, “That’s Vancouver!”

Err, well, I'd probably be careful in saying that. Just because there isn't anything inherently obvious, I'm sure there are tons of landmarks. Filmmakers are probably just smart enough to film around any of them that would scream out saying, "Hello America, I'm Vancouver!", because doing so would break the illusion of it being something in an American city. That and the filmmakers have become rather elaborate with the greenscreening process as to make practically any location be what they want it to be.

Isn't that one Caprica City building from BSG in Vancouver? It was also in an episode of SG-1.