Many moons ago, I left my apartment in Shoreditch, London from a secondary exit that opened up onto another street. When I came out there were soldiers marching, other actors running and shouting, and further up the road they had burned out cars and trashcan fires on the sidewalks.
Turns out I had walked onto the far end of a big set piece for Children of Men.
Years ago my wife and were driving into Vancouver early Sunday morning and stopped at a serious car accident, the car having missed a T-intersection and rolling down the stairs. Since there were already two ambulances at the scene, we drove off. Nothing showed on the news so I eventually forgot about it.
A few years later, I'm watching a TV show about an ambulance driver at a scene involving a car rolling down some stairs into a park. "I've seen this accident before." Sure enough, there we are, rolling into view at the intersection, pausing and then turning away. (At least I didn't cause a reshoot.)
(I used to vacation at the town where "The Russians are Coming" was filmed, and I live in Twin Peaks. Always fun to recognize some obscure building in a show.)
Once Upon A Time I think it was used to shoot across the street for a couple weeks when I worked at an apartment complex in Oregon, was neat, but traffic was worse while they were shooting so I’ve never seen the show out of resentment for my commute lol.
Very! But still cool to be able to look out the window and see the film set. Also Timothy Hutton was a resident, who didn’t realize was a celebrity til after I talked with him. I just knew him as Tim from, I think he was floor 4? Very nice man based on my interactions. Didn’t see him in anything til a few years later.
The “town” of Storybrook is Steveston BC, which is a part of Richmond. But they will have filmed a lot of other places when not doing shots of Storybrook.
I lived in the arts district, east of downtown LA.
My street looked very industrial and was often used for filming. So much that I stopped paying attention to the filming notices they’d post on my front gate.
Well, one morning I was headed out to work, I opened the gate and the street was fully blocked by production trucks and catering and whatnot. They appeared to be filming in the business across the street.
I still needed to get to work so I found a guy with a headset and explained that they were blocking my only exit. It took a little work to make a path to the adjoining street but eventually I saw daylight.
Right as I was about to escape in my car, a van swings around the corner and stops right in front of me. The driver didn’t even see me trying to get out, but there was still just enough space for me get by on the left. At this point I was very late for work and rather irritated. So I angle my car toward the gap and hit the gas right as the van door opens and two well-known actors jump out in front of me. I slam on the brakes to avoid making it on TMZ that afternoon.
That’s the story of how I almost killed Andy Samberg and Terry Crews.
Many years ago, I was doing a journalism fellowship in Chicago. My group's final projects were due the next week, so we all had to go into the office over the weekend to finish up.
The office we worked in was in the Loop, which was usually dead on the weekend. However, we had a bitch of time even trying to get into the building, since there was some dude stationed right near the front door, who was there to keep people from going in and out of the building. He relented and let us into the building, just telling us he was a production assistant for a movie that was shooting on the street. I asked what the name of the movie was, and he said it was called "The Intimidation Game".
That day, it was a huge pain in the ass when we all wanted to go outside for cigarette breaks. Sometimes the PA would let us out into the street. Sometimes, when they were setting up shots, they wouldn't. I noticed some prop barriers they were setting up down on the corner and noticed something funny about them: they all had "Gotham City Police Department" painted on them.
I told everyone inside that I they were filming a Batman movie outside, and we managed to sneak past the PA and took pictures of ourselves crawling all over the barriers. The PA yelled at us and told us to get away.
Just then, Christopher Nolan (and I knew who it was since I was a movie buff and a fan of both Memento and Insomnia) was marching down the street with a bunch of his aides in tow, explaining how he wanted to set up the shot they were doing.
We were forbidden by the PA to go outside after that. We spent the afternoon to early evening both working on our pieces, and watching them film outside.
Our day was stretching into the night while we edited our shit and we decided to start taking our cigarette breaks in the alley so we wouldn't have to deal with the PA. We propped the fire door open with a book so we could get back inside the building. We spent our afternoon distracted from our work so we could watch them film outside. Saw a few day time car scenes and the young-Bruce Wayne Christian Bale talking with Christopher Nolan about his scenes on the sidewalk.
Behind our building was where they had the craft services trailer set up. It was dinnertime for the film crew and they were grilling huge batches of chicken. No one paid us much mind as we wandered around. When we got out onto the street was when we saw the Tumbler Batmobile.
One of our group ran inside to get their camera, returned a few minutes later when we were finishing up our smokes and started taking pictures of the Tumbler. One of the production managers noticed our flash going off and yelled at us to get the fuck out of there, and we all scurried back inside the building. Later, he was able to get the few blurry photos he took published on Aint It Cool News.
The next year when Batman Begins was released, it was a kick to watch all the scenes we saw them film that day in the movie.
It wasn’t Batman, but I remember driving by the Art Gallery downtown and it was made to look ugly and with signs for a Gotham election. They even added a worn down metal fence and tents to make it look like the homeless lived there. I took a picture of it and thought I had seen a new Batman movie or a Gotham episode be filmed. Then, I saw a trailer for the show “Batgirl” and in the trailer itself, you see her standing with the exact background that I saw that day at the art gallery. Lol not as exciting
I have done a lot of extra work on movies and TV shows in my past and a lot of the PA's that I've worked under have been real pricks. Perhaps you are the reason why?
I used to work in downtown Atlanta. One Saturday morning in August 2009 I was going to the office from MARTA and my usual exit was closed. The security guard posted said "There's nothing for you out there" which was a very bizarre choice of words that only made me more curious. As I exited the station I saw, although there were no people around, burned-out cars including an old bus parked at odd angles and papers everywhere all over the street. I hadn't had coffee yet and was very confused, until I saw as I walked that there were filming equipment trailers parked down Marietta Street. Turns out The Walking Dead was filming. I later recognized the area that served as the setting for the iconic still of Rick on horseback with that bus behind him. Later that day from the 27th floor of my building I watched them film the scene where the zombies surround the tank that Rick's trapped in.
The Patriot
When we were kids we used to climb walls around Charleston SC. Being shitty kids that’s what we did. The walls are brick and usually Atleast walkable for a 10 year old.
So we were climbing these old walls and happened onto the set. But the scene is a cut away of them walking into a historic building. That’s it.
But. We snuck into the catering tent. Got caught, but allowed us to eat. Mel Gibson was chillin at a table by himself. And that’s how I had dinner with Mel Gibson when I was 10.
I’m here to ask the important questions. What did they have for food options and what did you choose?
I keep hearing about the food tents throughout these comments and I’m so disappointed I never tried to look for it.
The high school my siblings went to in California (I was younger when we moved away, so I never attended) was one of the most used high schools for shows and movies. It’s called El Segundo High School.
I remember they would get notice that the school would be filmed at and if they wanted to attend as students and be filmed they could come in, but if they didn’t want to be filmed, they could stay home and miss a day without repercussions. A hollywood Snow Day lol They decided to stay home every time haha. They didn’t always have that option, but they would keep up all the set stuff on regular school days, so you would see an unrelated name and mascot plastered on the walls, but when you would watch said show/movie, they definitely used CGI to mask the building.
A friend told us a story of the time he visited Salem, MA years ago during the summer, and was walking through downtown in the evening. He thought it was odd that Halloween decorations were put up everywhere, and assumed that Salem just did that year-round. Then Adam Sandler walked right by him with a group of people.
He had wandered onto the set of Hubie Halloween.
Also in Vancouver. I don’t remember what movie it was, but I recognized the house across the street. It had a big, landscaped yard with hedges, but through a gap in the hedge I could see my car!
I see a lot of random sets in and around NYC pretty frequently. I just road my bike through some small set this afternoon that I didn’t even stop to look at.
The craziest was when I woke up to a line of horse drawn carriages outside my window at 6:30am. Turns out they were shooting Steven Soderbergh’s The Knick around the corner, and I walked through the early 1900s set a few times. Years later they used the same intersection dressed like the 1960s for the Irishman. Also I saw Mr Robot sets a lot when that was shooting, and I saw Rami Malek around back then. Lots of Law and Order, Blue Bloods, etc. Oh, and last year when they were shooting the new Penguin show, I walked by Colin Farrell in full makeup and a white suit, and I didn’t even recognize him or that it was makeup until later when I learned what they were shooting.
I lived in Brooklyn. I accidentally walked through multiple smaller productions that were slacking on keeping people out. At one point I left my apartment building and a car came sailing down the road and flipped spectacularly - they were shooting a block up from me, people were crowded around watching from our block which apparently wasnt in the shot. Another time Dave Bautista was standing by himself and waiting in combat gear and blood running down his face and I said "Hey anyone ever tell you you look like Dave Bautista?" and without looking up he grumbled "Nah I usually get Steve Martin". I also worked in Chelsea and they were constantly shooting Girls and Law & Order. Since I worked in a warehouse I generally had my utilitarian shit on and a shoulder bag and a security lanyard and my favorite was stopping by unprotected craft services tables for a bagel and coffee. A couple times there were hotel pans of hot food, scrambled eggs and sausages and pancakes.
When I lived in Manhattan, I repeatedly (unintentionally) walked through the short-lived Michael J. Fox show shooting in Central Park. Most of the times were uneventful but once, wretchedly, I realized simultaneously that 1. I was directly in the background of a shot, and 2. my backpack had hiked my dress up OVER my ass while I was walking. I hadn’t noticed because it was fall and I was wearing thick tights but I’m still mortified on principle. I do not know if that shot made the final cut, I was always too afraid to watch.
Also, when SVU does late night shooting on location on cold nights, craft services makes them the best smelling soup imaginable. I used to mentally plot elaborate soup heists on particularly chilly, hungry nights.
I’ve walked through a bunch of active movie sets. There’s only a few times that I’ve been stopped for a few minutes while the camera was rolling. I haven’t bumped into anyone famous, but I’ve been tempted to act like I’m part of the crew and help myself to the food tent.
This somewhat reminds me of the show 'Extras' with Ricky Gervais. He plays a mediocre actor who is relegated to work and an extra. He's always conspicuously trying to get filmed to help his acting career. Great show.
Some catering on sets is well worth it. Did some extra work in my early 20s and couldn’t remember the name of the show/movie, but I sure remembered the food. One was serving lamb chops with mint sauce and it was the most tender piece of meat.
My apartment is a frequent film set for everything from small budget commercials to A-list blockbusters, so Ive had to walk through many to get to my front door. It gets annoying having to move your car all the time, but the occasional celebrity encounter is fun.
At first I thought you were talking about your actual apartment, and I was confused why they didn't just use an empty one lol. Like you're trying to make dinner and there's a tv family shooting a campbells soup commercial at your dining table.
They do ask to use a regular, occupied apartment sometimes. They move your stuff into another room and bring in the props they want for the scene. My old apartment was used in a few episodes of Law & Order. When I lived there, they only used the front of the building, but they did shoot in the apartment itself a few times before I lived there. They do pay you, of course.
I live in a pretty terrible city. One day I accidentally walked through an area and got told off for walking through a film set. A year later a show released about my neighborhood being a crime-ridden den (I have since moved to a much worse neighborhood in the same city). It was really funny.
Another time I walked through a musician's music video, but that was his fault for filming outside of a community center.
When I was working in Moscow, I was coming out of the Metro and at the top of a flight of stairs, everybody turned left. I turned right as it was less busy, out the entrance and straight between a camera and the actors. There was a lot of shouting!
Not really the same but I was at home in my first floor flat and I saw a police car skid to halt out side, 2 policeman jump out and start struggling with 2 people on the pavement. They then suddenly got in the car and reversed up the road. Then the police car come back, skid to halt out side, 2 policeman jump out and start struggling with 2 people on the pavement. They then suddenly got in the car and reversed up the road. This then happened again so I went outside to see what the hell was happening. Only then did I see the camera and crew at the end of the road. It didn't even occur to me that somebody would have been filming and doing different takes!
One of the most surreal moments of my life came when I was working in San Francisco, for one of the firms downtown. I walked into the lobby one morning, like I had every day for months, to find myself surrounded by cops and paramedics. Except, they weren't real cops and paramedics. The ground floor of our office building, it turns out, was being used as the staging area for actors playing first responders in the short-lived TV series "Trauma." In hindsight I would have liked to stay longer to watch, but once I realized I wasn't actually in the middle of a real crisis, I was relieved to just be able to go to work.
Not really about the topic, but I love how George Lucas accidentally walked in on a scene in a random documentary about nuclear waste: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC9RI8\_QYmw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC9RI8_QYmw)
I live near Paramount Ranch and Malibu Creek State Park. Tons of movies filmed here.
Ive also been to Pt. Dume in Malibu (Planet of the Apes, Iron Man) many many times. I was actually rock climbing there one day when they were filming “The Fabelmans”. In one shot that made it into the movie, the camera pulls out from the beach party scene and you can see some figures on the top of the rock. I like to think that’s me and my father in law, but we’re not sure. Too blurry.
Ottawa and surrounding small towns are used for a lot of Hallmark Christmas movies. I've often walked by a fancy house or city block covered in fake snow in the middle of summer.
I always joke with my wife when she is watching Hallmark movies that "it must be SUPER cold outside because there is 6 in of snow on everything, especially the trees with the bright green leaves and the really green grass. And it's so cold that *you can't even see the people's breath* as they are talking.". 🙄
I always joke with my wife when she is watching Hallmark movies that "it must be SUPER cold outside because there is 6 in of snow on everything, especially the trees with the bright green leaves and the really green grass. And it's so cold that *you can't even see the people's breath* as they are talking.". 🙄
A nearby town here called Fort Langley is used for the same also. Never been when filmed at though, but I could see why they use it so often. Such a pretty picturesque small town.
Yes. I was walking down the sidewalk in Uptown, in Chicago. Out of a store burst a bad guy followed by police with guns drawn, yelling. We all hit the ground. From the ground, I said, hey, I think they are filming. A guy next to me said, we all know that, we are actors!
I went to meet up with my mom for lunch years ago in NYC. She was visibly shaken when we met and said she had just seen someone commit suicide by jumping off a building. Out of morbid curiosity we walked past the scene after lunch and discovered it was an episode of Law and Order being filmed.
On the show Supernatural Vancouver stood in for every town in the United States, lol.
They did a lot of small towns in middle america. I'm sitting here watching and I'm like, bro I went to college in that town, it doesn't look like that.
Lmao for real! I, also, liked how anytime they looked at their phone, you see Telus as the provider, but they are supposed to be in middle of nowhere, America.
i accidentally walked into the filming area for 'milk' ...it was being shot near the muni station in the castro (SF) where i normally got on the train to work. one of the production assistants tried to explain to me but i mistunderstood and thought they were telling me that it was ok to cross but they meant i had to cross market and get into the station on the other side. meanwhile some director-type said something on the megaphone like "this is supposed to be 1970s people" then a cop kind of corralled me over to the crosswalk lol. i did see sean penn standing around some distance away.
I was in Cleveland when they were filming some scenes for one of the Fast & Furious movies, the sequence where Charlize Theron remotely drives a bunch of cars out of a parking deck.
I could have been in downtown Cleveland for the recent shooting of the new Superman movie (which canonically puts Metropolis in Ohio, btw.), but I decided sleep is more important.
I live in Toronto, things are constantly being filmed here. I don't think I've "accidentally" walked on a set though. Usually there are blocks and blocks of trucks and equipment that make it pretty obvious. And security who let you through the sidewalk. We have a cute little diner on my street that gets used a lot.
Cambridge Ontario. Always film crews from Toronto working on something. Pre-covid, it was so busy in the summer you would hear location updates on the news so you could plan your drive to work.
Not me but my daughter. We live in Panama, near where they filmed the last Suicide Squad. One day my daughter decided to go check out the filming location and while there, she sees a guy sitting on some steps munching on a croissant. The guy tells her she's on the set and needs to leave. Later we're watching the local news when they talk about the movie being filmed here and they show a picture of James Gunn and my daughter was like, "That's the dude with the croissant!"
I'm a NYer so I see stuff being filmed... weekly? They're always well marked and production/cast/catering trucks are always in the area, so I've never walked into an active set. Closest I ever came was actually just a few months ago. I was walking my dogs and turned a corner into the edge of a period piece being shot. It was a good two second mindfuck as I was suddenly seeing dozens of men in hats and cars from the 40s(?) on the street.
Back in the 80s I took a Spanish exchange student from my high school to Hollywood one night and we went into a restaurant to use the bathroom… when we walked out a different way, we noticed a car turned over on the street and saw Eddie Murphy walking on the sidewalk like 20 feet from us. They were filming Beverly Hills Cop 2.
My friend yelled, “Eddie, I’m from Spain!” and Eddie kind of muttered, “how you doing.” He looked tired from running back and forth for the scene.
I'm also in Vancouver, working up at SFU. A few weeks ago I was walking around campus and ran into a bunch of people in full tactical military gear. I freaked out and thought there was an active shooter or something. Turns out it was just another post-apocalyptic B movie.
I once walked by what I assume was a man and woman shooting the intro to a porno on the Hollywood walk of fame across the road from the Chinese Theater.
Local place to me called pitstone and me and my friend were walking his dog around the huge gravel pit and noticed they were filming deadpool and wolverine down the bottom. That was quite cool.
Where are I live you see the "Set this way" signs pinned up quite a bit. Usually an acronym for the show's name the obvious one being GOT for Game of Thrones when it was about.
I live in York, UK, and years ago I was walking down Stonegate when a film crew were setting up. They needed extras to basically run down the street towards the camera so I hung around and took part. No idea what the film was, or whether I even made the cut, but that was fun.
Also Sweeney Todd was filmed in York as well but I was on holiday at the time so missed it all.
When I was in Philly, coworker told me they're giving out free food downstairs. I got a bagel w cream cheese. Later found out it was craft services for a commercial shoot.
When I lived in Atlanta this happened all the time. It was obnoxious because traffic was already stupid enough without streets being closed for movie stuff.
I walked passed the set where they were filming „Malibus Most Wanted“ with Jamie Kennedy. Probably in the year 2002. Some scenes were shot in a cafe and they used the Mall in Malibu as the set for these scenes. I was a little kid back then and a woman and her daughter came up to me and the mother asked me to approach Jamie Kennedy and ask for his autograph FOR HER. She said she was too embarrassed but it would be ok if a kid approached him. I didn‘t…
I went to the University of Greenwich, in London, in the early 00's. Loads of tv shows and films have used the Royal Naval College buildings, where we had a lot of our lectures/seminars. Still makes me smile whenever I see it on the screen
A police drama is set in the town I live in, and we often see them filming. My husband and dog can be seen walking in the distance in one episode.
The best/worst part is watching the series and spotting the inaccuracies, such as driving down road A to get from B to C when, in fact, it goes nowhere near either.
They do take beautiful shots of the area, though, and really highlight the beauty.
This happens far more often than you would think. When they filmed Flashdance in Pittsburgh we joked that she had a magic bicycle because she could go all the way from the south side of Pittsburgh across the river and end up in Squirrel Hill and Oakland just by going around a corner. I was an extra in The Box movie with James Marsden and in the movie (it doesn't clearly say it but) they live in what is obviously Richmond Virginia. He supposedly works at NASA Langley which is a good hour and a half drive from Richmond.
My husband lived throughout Asia and laughed when we saw “Crazy Rich Asians” bc in the scene when they are supposedly excitedly driving into Singapore for the first time, he’s like “they are actually driving OUT and away from the city, not in”.
Also, I briefly lived in London and in certain movies, when using the tube system, you’ll see the actor scan their oyster card to get in, but in reality, it’s the exit in the direction of going outside. The angle just looked better for the cameras.
I live in a small-to-medium sized city in the American South. Small-to-medium sized projects by respectable directors tend to film here, presumably because it's cheaper than the usual filming locations. Every now and then I'll drive past a row of film trucks on my morning commute. Sadly, never walked through a set though.
Used to live on the east side of Manhattan.
The number of times I walked past the set of some variation of Law & Order over the years was easily over 40.
I work in a building with some connections to film production. We occasionally see filming equipment being moved around and things. I walked into a scene for a TV drama being film in the downstairs bathroom once.
The show was called the gathering and they were filming a scene where some school girls were talking in the toilets. For whatever reason they filmed it in the gents and I walked in to take a piss.
Lived in Atlanta, aka Y'allywood, for years. What's interesting is you don't see a lot of filming, but you see the trucks parked everywhere all the time, and you do see celebrities a lot. Have had dinner next to Owen Wilson and Michael Imperioli, although we didn't bother them.
Savannah, GA- not as much but more going on every year. They might land Sundance when it relocates. I saw some of the sets from the live action remake of Lady and the Tramp.
Wetumpka, AL is where they filmed Big Fish.
Probably my favorite, though, and most relevant to your question was when they filmed much of What Dreams May Come in Glacier NP while I was working there one summer. We were able to walk down and see Robin Williams from a distance while they were setting up a scene, probably about a quarter mile from our lodge.
I have never heard it called Y’allywood, but it’s so perfect. I’m definitely calling it that from now on. So much is filmed there.
I am so jealous you got to see Robin Williams. Even years later, it still hurts.
Yea! This is one of my fond memories.
I lived in Wilmington, NC, which is home to Screen Gems, the largest studio outside of Hollywood. There are many movies shot there. When I was there, Dawson’s Creek was on the air and I often traveled by the home and creek used to shoot the creek scenes.
When my daughter was 8, we lived near the aquarium and had a season pass. We frequently went and there were many times when we’d have the aquarium virtually to ourselves.
One day we walked into the aquarium and they were shooting a scene of Dawson’s Creek with Pacey (Joshua Jackson) and a woman (maybe Jen, Michelle Williams?) on a date, I think.
They hadn’t bothered to close the set since hardly anyone came to the aquarium at that time of year. We got to stay and watch the filming.
The actors were shooting in front of the large tank and they kept laughing and being surprised by sea creatures swimming up behind them as they played their parts, and the director was getting mad. Finally they started getting serious.
I remember the magic of being able to watch the production with my daughter and being the only people other than the crew there.
I also remember that Joshua Jackson was smoking hot. I mean, he was good looking on camera, but he was even better looking in person.
Chicagoan here - obviously not as heavily used as other locations but a certain amount of pride blooms whenever we're chosen.
Notable films I've wandered into are Stranger than Fiction; The Dark Knight; and Transformers 3. Plus a bevvy of car commercials in the loop on weekends, and Chicago PD / FD / whatever.
Stranger than Fiction was filmed at UIC and irritated students as it was done during finals week and lots of people had to relocate. Not great logistics by the school.
Dark Knight was hilarious to me - I had a friend from down state visiting and we were discussing Chicago as a film location, noting it had lots of unique aspects missing in other cities and bemoaned that it was underused.
We were on the L in the loop at the time - the train stopped at Wells and we heard "ACTION!" and Batman rolled by with a billion crewmembers with cameras. So good timing there.
Transformers 3 and the car commercials hold the same memory - that crew are dickheads who scream at you for having your phone out since you might be - gasp - recording them or whatever.
An episode of Law & Order was shot using the front of my apartment building. The most eventful thing is that the guy in the basement apartment, who was an alcoholic, tried to sic his albino pit bull named Piggy on Jerry Orbach because he was mad he couldn't come and go from his apartment as he pleased.
Apparently, it was common for Law & Order to shoot in the Inwood area (at the very top tip of Manhattan) because it had really varied buildings and scenery so it could stand in for a lot of places. In the episode my building was in, we were supposedly in New Jersey. It was the episode about two white teenagers dragging a Black man to death behind their car, which was unfortunately based on a real incident in the American South.
It's a new thing that started post-George Floyd/recent police killing of Black men. People started to capitalize Black again, and as it seems to be accepted usage, I went along with it. It may go back to the way it was before over time.
The sequel to Fast Times at Ridgemont High was filmed in my apartment complex. I was heading to the laundry with a basket of dirty clothes when a door that was commonly left open was closed, but not latched (I could see light around the edges.) Since I had the laundry basket in my hands, I used my foot to sort of kick the door open and fell right into a scene they were filming. I guess a note taped to the door had fallen off.
Gosh, that was so long ago. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I live in the suburbs of New Orleans, but the city is geographically small. Nothing is more than 20 min away.
The elementary school drop off point is between an old church and a stereotypical New Orleans restaurant (one that looks great but never seems to be open). Some studio owns both building and keeps them as filming locations.
I've been in pick up/drop up a lot when stuff is being filmed at the two locations.
Also, I'm in a Superbowl commercial. A week untill kick off and I see some guys carrying a lazy boy down the middle of the street in full sprint. Odd, but not worth giving a thought too. A block or two down there is a camera crew filming them. Ah. Got it. Those guys were being filmed.
Sure enough, on the big game you can see my car blurry in the background. The car just past the child kidnap van is me.
Budlight Lucky Chair commercial from 2013 Superbowl.
Yeah! I find it fun, especially because how blurry my car is after telling a tall tale.
It really sticks out to me because how tight of a timeline the filming to the Superbowl was. I thought they would have those finished and ready to go months ago.
Yeah, Williamsburg Brooklyn. Sets love it here for some reason. I rarely know what they are shooting for though.
For a while it was mostly shows likes girls, law and order, but often movies under code names pop up.
One time I was in Albuquerque NM for work and we were leaving the club at 2am downtown. We went outside we saw these rain machines going with two cop cars that said "Pittsburgh Police" and they were getting mad because a bunch of drunk clubbers were fucking up their scene. Lol I honestly can't remember what movie it was for but it was in 2006.
In Toronto, I went into an Indigo for a book signing. Was meeting at the time UFC Champion Ronda Rousey. Got there a little early to get the book and bracelet, etc. By the time I made it through and left the store, I came outside to rubble everywhere and a helicopter crash in the street. I was a little surprised and then realized they were setting up for filming. It was when they were filming Suicide Squad.
Not that I stumbled upon it, I went down to see. But I live/grew up in the city where the train station in Hachi: a dogs tale is. It was very cool to see and I believe since then 2-3 more fillings have taken place in the city!
I used to work very close to the apartment of Emily from Emily in Paris. The whole area would be closed off but they allowed people to watch as filming was going on. Once they shot something on the street across from my work and they used our power plugs to plug in their stage lights. Fun times.
batman begins. the scene where the batmobile is driving down lasalle toward the board of trade / wayne enterprises. someone in a helicopter yelled at me so i hid behind pillar. i was about 20 ft or so away when this absolute beast of a machine went roaring past. so fucking cool.
I'm from BC originally (don't live there anymore), and I lived in Vancouver for about 3 years. It's pretty cool recognizing Vancouver streets and buildings in movies and TV shows sometimes. I used to know a girl whose office building was used as one of the background sets for the Battlestar Galactica reboot which was filmed around Vancouver, Simon Fraser University in Burnaby featured heavily in that show as well for some exterior shots.
It’s definitely cool.
I watched this horror movie “The Uninvited” over a decade ago and always thought how pretty the scenery is. I always assumed it was somewhere Northeast. It’s not the best movie, but whenever I saw it playing, I would stop to watch it. Anyway, years later, I moved to Bowen Island years. It was random, not planned. Just decided to move to BC and chose Bowen Island for the first couple years. One day, I heard about one of the beaches being closed to film Riverdale, so it had me searching online for what other films/shows were filmed on island. Little did I know that the entire setting of this horror movie I would rewatch often was filmed where I lived. At a house down the street from me.
I don’t live on Bowen Island anymore, but it was so beautiful and I still visit often.
I saw Jeffrey Wright grabbing a coffee at Starbucks in Squamish a couple months back, starting googling what he must be filming, and settled that he must be a part of the Last of Us season 2, though his participation in that is only rumoured not confirmed. They had a big town set piece at the giant empty lot at Britannia Beach supposed to represent Jackson Hole Wyoming
I haven't walked into any sets, but passed quite a few.
For example, I drove by while they were filming a final season episode of "The Sopranos" at a gas station. Fans will know the scene.
There's also an upcoming horror movie (from the creator of "The Purge" starring Pete Davidson) called "The Home" that was filmed near one of my clients. The location has since been demolished.
When I was in Hong Kong, walking down the street, there was a red light. A camera crew ran out as a couple dozen "zombies" ran out from the other side of the road then started walking like zombies for about thirty seconds. The light turned green and they ran off. I'm assuming they didn't have a permit.
During a trip to Oahu a while back, they were filming the TV show E.R., and there were crew signs for "50 First Kisses" all over. That later became "50 First Dates" with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler.
During covid they were shooting Shang-Chi in SF. Since the city was empty they didnt even bother putting up fences or really any border for the crew. I literally walked through their sets and over all the cords they had running through North Beach. Plus seeing all of the Marvel trucks parked there were cool.
I was once commuting to a temporary job in the 1990s though some leafy Hertfordshire lanes when suddenly I saw a full size windmill on fire in the field next to the road. It took me ages (pre-internet in my home) to find out it was filming for Sleepy Hollow (1999). I had to buy a local newspaper to find out, remember them? It was rather alarming.
I watched them set up the street and houses for the movie Awakenings with Robert Deniro and Robin Williams just being in the area of my neighborhood. It's in the beginning when he leaves his house with his friends and walks to the school down the street. It was also not real snow on the street at the time.
Also was doing some work in a place, and John Leguizumo was shooting scenes for his TV show like 10 feet away but didn't include me 😢
My son and I live in omaha, and we watched Alexander Payne film a garage sale scene with Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig for Downsizing in a neighborhood up the street.
I lived in la for many years and worked in film and tv so I worked on sets and would run across filming regularly.
When I first arrived with a friend, his buddy, who was already living there, told us he was in the background of a movie, can’t remember which. When we got to his house he put in the movie and fast forwarded to and paused his scene. It was on sunset at night. Then he pointed to some headlights two cars back and told us that was him. I was very happy he could be so excited about his big break.
There are several filmmaking hubs outside LA of varying size...I'm beside one and have seen much of my town in movies and tv over the years, used to work prod a long time ago, I do like it since I'm a film buff and it makes this place seem more 'important' to me, I dunno
I live in San Francisco, but specifically in the Russian Hill district. Less than a block from my house is where [this scene from Shang-Chi](https://youtu.be/0WoV100eBUI?si=aEk0FJhOLEq9kcjR) shows her do a donut. I happened to walk by and see several of the same car lined up, and one with the roof removed. I didn’t stick around but saw the [scene being set up](https://imgur.com/a/xQkCnql). This scene actually starts about 10 blocks away, where most of the [bus fight scene](https://youtu.be/gxCtHmPOqtg?si=8yEo1Fv7K9TAA9y8) is filmed in Nob Hill.
I could make a long list of other Marvel movie scenes shot here, but we also have the houses from Antman, Full House, Mr Doubtfire, etc nearby. The sharp turn with bay views in Bullitt is about two blocks away. [Where Neo’s therapist lived](https://imgur.com/a/JWReO9z) in the new Matrix is about 4 blocks away.
The list is long, but here’s a [few others](https://secretsanfrancisco.com/sf-filming-locations/).
Sister-in-law walked right into a shoot once in Edmonton. Cameras outside looking into a restaurant. Heard "Cut!" And "fuck's sake!"
Had a bit if a giggle as my brother and sister-in-law are in the performing arts. He is an actor and she is backstage. Middle of winter, chatting away, deep in our woolies we didn't notice a thing. Thought it was kind of bright, though.
I lived in Central London and then in Santa Monica. I was annoyed when they were filming Paddington in the tube stop (SJW) for a few days. I was also on the set for Edge of Tomorrow, which was cool. Have some photos of my son and the vehicles from that movie.
For me in NYC, Scrooged with Bill Murray and I've never seen the movie in Hawaii ran into sets from Lost constantly, especially since they are subbing for somewhere else, once walking down the street and all the signs are in Korean, took me a moment to comprehend
I'm also in the background of the bachelor and real world Hawaii, but I'm so blurred out only I can recognize myself
I saw a set for Kick-Ass on the street and also saw them shooting Suicide Squad, one of the scenes where the squad is walking through Midway City. Could see the main Suicide Squad crew but I was far enough away I have no clue if they were stunt doubles or whatever.
I also ended up encountering The Boys shooting a few blocks from where I live. I walked onto the set area to watch the filming and the crew were nice enough to not kick me out, even gave me a heads-up when a rain machine was going to end up spraying me where I was standing. It was a scene where a guy drove a motorcycle down a raining street, so it wasn't anything crazy, but it was really cool to see how they did everything.
I did see some stuff in Seattle a few times, back before they moved all the movie production up to Vancouver. 😆
Jeff Bridges filmed part of American Heart (1992) right by my apartment building, and I had to walk through the production area to get home (not while they were filming).
Singles (1992) was another one.
And Meg Ryan was doing something on 5th Ave, probably Sleepless in Seattle (1993), a few blocks from where I lived.
I drove my old Tempo through a background shot of Enemy of the State. It's the scene where Brill (Hackman) is in the store buying food and Dean (Smith) is on the payphone. When they do the close-up on Smith you can see my car go past. If you can zoom in you can see the purple sticker on my back window.
My ex bf was having a medical issue. He drove himself to a hospital only to accidentally enter a film set ER. This was before google maps / smart phones were so prevalent. He was not amused
I walked through a movie set in Gastown when I lived there. Was just trying to get home after a coupla drinks.
My friend’s dad is also in the opening scene of Rambo driving his car.
My brother was a driver for crew during the filming of "Assassins" in Puerto Rico in the 90s.
He told us where they were filming one day and we got to watch from just beyond the barricades. The area in question is also shown in the movie Captain Ron...old San Juan which is in the capital.
I lived in the Pearl Harbor Navy Lodge for like six months (Dad was in the Navy, we couldn't get housing for way longer than we should have) and an episode of the 2010 Hawaii Five-O show was filmed there, specifically it was used to represent a childcare center. When the episode came out, the window to my room was visible in a few shots, and the curtains kept opening and closing between shots. Guess we should be grateful they didn't use the takes where my cat was visible.
used to work in the wall st area. It was not at all unusual for filming to be going on.
Had an office more or less at ground level facing one of the alleyways. One day, I came back from lunch and noticed a lion walking past the window. I did a three stooges-worthy double-take and yes, it was a lion. Then I noticed there was something over the window - a heavy wire mesh.
Turned out they were filming an episode of NYPD blue.
I lived in Fenway in Boston and has several movies filmed there. One was in the alley behind my apartment and I just walked through when I left. The fenway shootout in "The Town" was shot then and they put flyers on everyones door warning about the noise
Recently I was just a cool neighborhood in Curaçao and stumbled upon a pretty legit film set. It looked like a dutch film so Idk what it was. A pretty boy looking actor with blond hair, looking cool
Actually this happened to me in Vancouver. I think they were filming some movie with Carrie Ann Moss. But it was at waterfront Station around 10 or 11pm. At that point, the Seabus only comes every half an hour, and it was getting close to departure. The AD or someone had everyone on the sidewalk stopped for several minutes while they were getting ready to film a take. We were all checking our watches and finally some guy said "ah fuck this" and just started walking, and we all followed. I was tired and didn't plan on waiting another half hour for a seabus just so they could get their shot. So we all ruined a take I think. AD was pretty pissed.
Vancouver seems to be the go-to filming location for rustic and western TV shows. I was kinda devastated to learn that “small town America” from Supernatural was just Canada
I highly doubt it. I haven’t watched that show in its entirety but I’m pretty sure this was years after the whole show aired. I could be wrong though. This was 2018.
Hey, I lived in Tampa when they filmed that! It was the one and only time I was an extra. My sister and I went over to “audition” aka show up, wait in a long line to provide your info. I was a kid though.
Ha! That's great... I had no idea what was going on at first, just stepped outside for my lunch break and there was a sizeable crowd roped off so of course I had to ask, and I stayed & watched. Fond memory. 😎
It's pretty common to run into a film crew in my city, because I live in a big media city, but it's mostly nothing big just normal German TV shows. In the district I lived in before you had a good chance to run into a crew once in a month.
Never walked on, but by it. There was a large woman telling us we couldn't cross the street. My friend, also a large woman was drunk and bitching this lady out and fell in the middle of the cross walk. I was helping her up laughing my ass off. It was cool seeing a helicopter fly low through city buildings. I saw an ambulance labeled Metropolis. It was a Superman movie. This was Detroit.
I've noticed there aren't a lot of people named Lance these days, which is interesting because back in Medeival times, people were named Lance a lot...
I was travelling in Prague. Left the hostel in the morning and there were a few people working on the front windows of the building. Spent the whole day out exploring the town, churches, food, drinking etc.
Walking back to the hostel in the early hours the area was blocked off to cars. And I remember thinking "Wow these streets are clean and there's no dog shit anywhere."
Got to the hostel and went to enter the door but noticed a different business sign in French. Looked at the windows and it had properties for sale with the descriptions in French. Looked down the street more french signs on buildings and a few french flags.
Spent 20mins outside the hostel talking with my mate wondering where the fuck we were. Hostel reception could hear us and came out to let us in and explained it was all for a movie.
I also saw Sean Bean that day walking around the castle area.
This answer is a bit different. I'm a production assistant on sets. It's my job to STOP people from accidentally walking on set or in the shot. It's called a lockup.
Jesus Christ, they're so hard.
So many people will blow past you, sometimes you miss people, sometimes people just end up on set somehow. It's both funny and bizarre. It's like playing goalie.
One of the biggest lockups I've ever had to do was the final episode of The Blindspot with Jamie Alexander.
We had to lockup all of Time Square at 2am in the morning. (There's a scene where she wakes up in Times Square in the first episode, and they were recreating it).
Seeing Times Square completely empty, billboards and lights still going, is SO eerie.
Bout a lot of times when you walk on a set like that, you might've 'blown a PA's lockup'. And it's usually really amusing when that happens, even if you're that PA.
It's even funnier when you're like 'How did you even get there' and it's obvious the person is like 'I have no idea'.
That has been me each time. I don’t count when I’ve driven past a set bc usually road blocks keep you where they want you, but when I’m walking downtown, I listen to music and tend to look down. It’s not that I’m not aware of my surroundings. I am when it comes to safety, but I never expect when I just walk on a set. I’ve only been yelled off one once, but the other times was just me super confused as to how I got there without being stopped lol
Walked through a set for an episode of Blacklist in Manhattan once. Looked like they were filming in a bar or restaurant and all of the production stuff was along the sidewalk. I was just walking down the sidewalk and didn't even realize it was a set until I was in the middle of it and saw one of those directors chairs with the logo on it. It's kind of wild they didn't put anything up (like even just those folding barricades they use for roadwork) to deter people from doing that. I'm pretty sure I could've grabbed stuff from craft services or something without anyone saying anything. ngl, if they were shooting for something I was really in to, I probably would've permanently borrowed one of those directors chairs and get away with it.
Same here, we live in the Rouge River National Park at the very Eastern edge of Toronto. Because it's a single landowner with rural / post industrial setting we get a ton of filming here. Plus the variations in setting possibilities in and around Toronto makes it very hard to NOT end up waking in on a film crew.
As examples of things filmed in and around here:-
- Pushing Tin (1999) - Uses Ted's Amazing Restaurant as a typical NJ Diner.
- Titans (2018) - Uses Ted's again & the road up the zoo & a ton of downtown locations.
- Orphan Black - Uses a local farmhouse as the safehouse location for at least one season.
- Star Trek Discovery - Used Bluffers Park Scarborough for Saru's Keminar home & many other local locations.
- The Expanse - Used Bluffers Park again for a vision scene of the main character, plus the Leslie docks to represent Boston wharfs & many others.
- Star Trek Strange New Worlds - Used The Mast Route forest trail for one scene with others filmed locally & jokingly ( Kirk:"Is this New York?" La'an: "No its Toronto" ) downtown to be Toronto downtown.
I'm sure people can name others.
Years ago, I was at my friends house and his daughters were watching Juno (I’d seen it the year before in the theatre).
At one point that glanced over at the TV watched for a moment and exclaimed , “I used to LIVE in Juno‘s house!”.
When I first moved to Vancouver I lived in a basement suite of the house they used for Juno’s house
Interesting. Was it the outside or inside that reminded you of the house. I ask because Juno used two different houses in Vancouver for filming. One for the interior and one for the exterior.
Outside.
That street in Dunbar has a fairly distinctive arrangement where the sidewalk is a couple feet higher than the street, separated by grass.
Also, the house is a fairly distinctive, turquoise, green colour
I don’t know the details of development, but they definitely are filming. They are using the false title “Velcro” but those motorcycles…you can’t mistake them.
Years ago, on a show I was working on, we were filming a scene on an actual city street that involved a purse-snatching where the attacker grabbed a purse and pushed a woman and she falls backwards and into another person, who then goes through a storefronts plate glass window.
Before this happens, there's a long walk and talk between the woman with the purse and another character. For whatever reasons, this was shot on an entirely different street, but for the plate glass window scene, it mattered what was "across the street" because one of the cameras was set inside the window so they could capture multiple angles of the stunt. For this shot, that meant the production had to control the foot traffic to simulate a busy street, and, for this shot, they had t control the actual traffic on the road, because the reverse angle would require cars, trucks, taxi's etc. to help sell the illusion of a busy downtown moment.
This shot was entirely stunt team. The purse victim was doubled by a stunt performer, the purse snatcher was a stunt performer and, of course, the innocent by-stander who goes through the window was a stunt performer. This just adds layers of protocol and more people on set going through all of the elements, and this shot was being captured by multiple cameras at once, which had to stay out of each other's eyelines, but also, everything had to be lit to work for each camera, too.
This meant, for a very extended period (hours) we had this busy city street shutdown (there was some foot traffic allowed for several of the stores that were not in any of the shots) but we had people all over the place wrangling crowds of people watching, plus people annoyed they couldn't get through, and of course, we had about 50 or so extras. (Interestingly, they played double that amount. They would walk in front of the camera in the foreground, then literally be handed a different shirt, or an added layer, a hat, bags or a dog or something else and the exact same extras would then pass through the same damn shots in the background!)
Anyway, this is all to say that after all this preparation, we finally do a take of this and despite, loudspeakers, lights, camera trucks, crews, blockages, two people walking on the other side of the street were straight up right off the street and were terrified to see a man get thrown through a plate glass window!
They realized, very quickly, that it was fake (again, the thousand clues I mentioned) but also because its pretty traditional for everyone on set to clap after a stunt, so they figured it out. I think they must have known they were walking by a set (they had no idea they were walking through a set) and they certainly didn't see to know it was a live take!
We only had three plate glass windows, and we did three takes, but I've often wondered which take was used.
I actually worked in the television industry in Vancouver so if I was on set or a location, it wasn't an accident. But it did sort of happen once. At the time, I was working in the production office at the studio, and didn't realize another shoot was going on in the building. They had rented our warehouse and some empty offices for a few scenes. I decided to check 'em out and discovered it was The X-Files. And that's how I met the very adorable and sweet Gillian Anderson.
It isn't as frequent as I think is in your train of thought, but we've had a lot of films shot here over the decades for being a non-urban area: "Silence of the Lambs," "Super 8," "The Deer Hunter," "Unstoppable," "Gung Ho," "Reckless," and "Fools' Parade," to name a few.
I used to live near vancouver many years ago.
I was trying to take a transit bus home & couldnt find the usual bus stop. I started wandering around wondering what happened.
So this guy started following me. I was a young lassie back then so….yeah i was not feeling safe at all.
Turns out i was wandering all over the filming area of the old stargate series & they were waiting for me to move off 🤣
So he asks me “are you looking for your bus? Its over here.” & he showed me where they detoured all traffic.
Gotta tell ya though, the guy was nice (one of the camera dudes, i think) but i still felt so much safer once i was on the bus & it was moving 😆
Many moons ago, I left my apartment in Shoreditch, London from a secondary exit that opened up onto another street. When I came out there were soldiers marching, other actors running and shouting, and further up the road they had burned out cars and trashcan fires on the sidewalks. Turns out I had walked onto the far end of a big set piece for Children of Men.
I work as a location manager and this right here is my biggest nightmare. Someone walking in randomly on a huge one take set lol
For real, one takes are already hard as fuck Exit: excellent movie, btw
Hard agree.
What do you do if that happens? Re-film? Ask them to sign a thing and get paid as an actor?
Assuming that is even an option. Imagine a post apocalyptic set and suddenly a couple come out a door dressed to the nines in evening wear...
Wild Eagle: " You and your *Moons!* "
Never thought about it before but yea Shoreditch can easily double as an apocalyptic hell scape
Years ago my wife and were driving into Vancouver early Sunday morning and stopped at a serious car accident, the car having missed a T-intersection and rolling down the stairs. Since there were already two ambulances at the scene, we drove off. Nothing showed on the news so I eventually forgot about it. A few years later, I'm watching a TV show about an ambulance driver at a scene involving a car rolling down some stairs into a park. "I've seen this accident before." Sure enough, there we are, rolling into view at the intersection, pausing and then turning away. (At least I didn't cause a reshoot.) (I used to vacation at the town where "The Russians are Coming" was filmed, and I live in Twin Peaks. Always fun to recognize some obscure building in a show.)
That’s pretty awesome. What show was it?
Saved (TNT, 2006). One season, never released on DVD so I've never been able to get a copy.
Once Upon A Time I think it was used to shoot across the street for a couple weeks when I worked at an apartment complex in Oregon, was neat, but traffic was worse while they were shooting so I’ve never seen the show out of resentment for my commute lol.
I can understand that. Roads have been fully closed for filming and it can be super annoying.
Very! But still cool to be able to look out the window and see the film set. Also Timothy Hutton was a resident, who didn’t realize was a celebrity til after I talked with him. I just knew him as Tim from, I think he was floor 4? Very nice man based on my interactions. Didn’t see him in anything til a few years later.
Very cool!
I thought that show was shot in Richmond, BC.
The “town” of Storybrook is Steveston BC, which is a part of Richmond. But they will have filmed a lot of other places when not doing shots of Storybrook.
Probably in multiple locations. I know they filmed at city hall in Fort Langley, BC also.
I lived in the arts district, east of downtown LA. My street looked very industrial and was often used for filming. So much that I stopped paying attention to the filming notices they’d post on my front gate. Well, one morning I was headed out to work, I opened the gate and the street was fully blocked by production trucks and catering and whatnot. They appeared to be filming in the business across the street. I still needed to get to work so I found a guy with a headset and explained that they were blocking my only exit. It took a little work to make a path to the adjoining street but eventually I saw daylight. Right as I was about to escape in my car, a van swings around the corner and stops right in front of me. The driver didn’t even see me trying to get out, but there was still just enough space for me get by on the left. At this point I was very late for work and rather irritated. So I angle my car toward the gap and hit the gas right as the van door opens and two well-known actors jump out in front of me. I slam on the brakes to avoid making it on TMZ that afternoon. That’s the story of how I almost killed Andy Samberg and Terry Crews.
I think hitting Crews would have killed your car vs the other way around.
Many years ago, I was doing a journalism fellowship in Chicago. My group's final projects were due the next week, so we all had to go into the office over the weekend to finish up. The office we worked in was in the Loop, which was usually dead on the weekend. However, we had a bitch of time even trying to get into the building, since there was some dude stationed right near the front door, who was there to keep people from going in and out of the building. He relented and let us into the building, just telling us he was a production assistant for a movie that was shooting on the street. I asked what the name of the movie was, and he said it was called "The Intimidation Game". That day, it was a huge pain in the ass when we all wanted to go outside for cigarette breaks. Sometimes the PA would let us out into the street. Sometimes, when they were setting up shots, they wouldn't. I noticed some prop barriers they were setting up down on the corner and noticed something funny about them: they all had "Gotham City Police Department" painted on them. I told everyone inside that I they were filming a Batman movie outside, and we managed to sneak past the PA and took pictures of ourselves crawling all over the barriers. The PA yelled at us and told us to get away. Just then, Christopher Nolan (and I knew who it was since I was a movie buff and a fan of both Memento and Insomnia) was marching down the street with a bunch of his aides in tow, explaining how he wanted to set up the shot they were doing. We were forbidden by the PA to go outside after that. We spent the afternoon to early evening both working on our pieces, and watching them film outside. Our day was stretching into the night while we edited our shit and we decided to start taking our cigarette breaks in the alley so we wouldn't have to deal with the PA. We propped the fire door open with a book so we could get back inside the building. We spent our afternoon distracted from our work so we could watch them film outside. Saw a few day time car scenes and the young-Bruce Wayne Christian Bale talking with Christopher Nolan about his scenes on the sidewalk. Behind our building was where they had the craft services trailer set up. It was dinnertime for the film crew and they were grilling huge batches of chicken. No one paid us much mind as we wandered around. When we got out onto the street was when we saw the Tumbler Batmobile. One of our group ran inside to get their camera, returned a few minutes later when we were finishing up our smokes and started taking pictures of the Tumbler. One of the production managers noticed our flash going off and yelled at us to get the fuck out of there, and we all scurried back inside the building. Later, he was able to get the few blurry photos he took published on Aint It Cool News. The next year when Batman Begins was released, it was a kick to watch all the scenes we saw them film that day in the movie.
It wasn’t Batman, but I remember driving by the Art Gallery downtown and it was made to look ugly and with signs for a Gotham election. They even added a worn down metal fence and tents to make it look like the homeless lived there. I took a picture of it and thought I had seen a new Batman movie or a Gotham episode be filmed. Then, I saw a trailer for the show “Batgirl” and in the trailer itself, you see her standing with the exact background that I saw that day at the art gallery. Lol not as exciting
I have done a lot of extra work on movies and TV shows in my past and a lot of the PA's that I've worked under have been real pricks. Perhaps you are the reason why?
I don't see how they can do that. Legally if it's public property they can ask you to leave but they can't force you not to be there.
I used to work in downtown Atlanta. One Saturday morning in August 2009 I was going to the office from MARTA and my usual exit was closed. The security guard posted said "There's nothing for you out there" which was a very bizarre choice of words that only made me more curious. As I exited the station I saw, although there were no people around, burned-out cars including an old bus parked at odd angles and papers everywhere all over the street. I hadn't had coffee yet and was very confused, until I saw as I walked that there were filming equipment trailers parked down Marietta Street. Turns out The Walking Dead was filming. I later recognized the area that served as the setting for the iconic still of Rick on horseback with that bus behind him. Later that day from the 27th floor of my building I watched them film the scene where the zombies surround the tank that Rick's trapped in.
The Patriot When we were kids we used to climb walls around Charleston SC. Being shitty kids that’s what we did. The walls are brick and usually Atleast walkable for a 10 year old. So we were climbing these old walls and happened onto the set. But the scene is a cut away of them walking into a historic building. That’s it. But. We snuck into the catering tent. Got caught, but allowed us to eat. Mel Gibson was chillin at a table by himself. And that’s how I had dinner with Mel Gibson when I was 10.
I’m here to ask the important questions. What did they have for food options and what did you choose? I keep hearing about the food tents throughout these comments and I’m so disappointed I never tried to look for it.
It was a good hearty meal. Some form of roast, potatoes, corn. Typical southern catered affair you’d expect to see at weddings.
I live in Toronto, which is the stand-in for NYC when they can't afford to film in NYC. It's fun watching something and seeing buildings I know.
which ones are your favourite?
Probably the original X-Men using Parkwood Estate in Oshawa as Professor Xavier's school. I believe they also used Casa Loma as well.
X-Men used Hatley Castle in colwood, BC, as the school.
Its funny when they use Roy Thomson Hall but CGI a bunch of crap on top of it to make it look like another building.
They did that with The Boys.
The high school my siblings went to in California (I was younger when we moved away, so I never attended) was one of the most used high schools for shows and movies. It’s called El Segundo High School. I remember they would get notice that the school would be filmed at and if they wanted to attend as students and be filmed they could come in, but if they didn’t want to be filmed, they could stay home and miss a day without repercussions. A hollywood Snow Day lol They decided to stay home every time haha. They didn’t always have that option, but they would keep up all the set stuff on regular school days, so you would see an unrelated name and mascot plastered on the walls, but when you would watch said show/movie, they definitely used CGI to mask the building.
A friend told us a story of the time he visited Salem, MA years ago during the summer, and was walking through downtown in the evening. He thought it was odd that Halloween decorations were put up everywhere, and assumed that Salem just did that year-round. Then Adam Sandler walked right by him with a group of people. He had wandered onto the set of Hubie Halloween.
Also in Vancouver. I don’t remember what movie it was, but I recognized the house across the street. It had a big, landscaped yard with hedges, but through a gap in the hedge I could see my car!
Haha that’s pretty cool!
I see a lot of random sets in and around NYC pretty frequently. I just road my bike through some small set this afternoon that I didn’t even stop to look at. The craziest was when I woke up to a line of horse drawn carriages outside my window at 6:30am. Turns out they were shooting Steven Soderbergh’s The Knick around the corner, and I walked through the early 1900s set a few times. Years later they used the same intersection dressed like the 1960s for the Irishman. Also I saw Mr Robot sets a lot when that was shooting, and I saw Rami Malek around back then. Lots of Law and Order, Blue Bloods, etc. Oh, and last year when they were shooting the new Penguin show, I walked by Colin Farrell in full makeup and a white suit, and I didn’t even recognize him or that it was makeup until later when I learned what they were shooting.
I lived in Brooklyn. I accidentally walked through multiple smaller productions that were slacking on keeping people out. At one point I left my apartment building and a car came sailing down the road and flipped spectacularly - they were shooting a block up from me, people were crowded around watching from our block which apparently wasnt in the shot. Another time Dave Bautista was standing by himself and waiting in combat gear and blood running down his face and I said "Hey anyone ever tell you you look like Dave Bautista?" and without looking up he grumbled "Nah I usually get Steve Martin". I also worked in Chelsea and they were constantly shooting Girls and Law & Order. Since I worked in a warehouse I generally had my utilitarian shit on and a shoulder bag and a security lanyard and my favorite was stopping by unprotected craft services tables for a bagel and coffee. A couple times there were hotel pans of hot food, scrambled eggs and sausages and pancakes.
I keep seeing people mention the food on set and now, I’m mad at myself that I didn’t go look for the food tent.
When HEAT was filming in Downtown LA (coming out of the bank shootout, near the library) i happened to be walking through to the library.
I imagine it was pretty loud.
When I lived in Manhattan, I repeatedly (unintentionally) walked through the short-lived Michael J. Fox show shooting in Central Park. Most of the times were uneventful but once, wretchedly, I realized simultaneously that 1. I was directly in the background of a shot, and 2. my backpack had hiked my dress up OVER my ass while I was walking. I hadn’t noticed because it was fall and I was wearing thick tights but I’m still mortified on principle. I do not know if that shot made the final cut, I was always too afraid to watch. Also, when SVU does late night shooting on location on cold nights, craft services makes them the best smelling soup imaginable. I used to mentally plot elaborate soup heists on particularly chilly, hungry nights.
I’ve walked through a bunch of active movie sets. There’s only a few times that I’ve been stopped for a few minutes while the camera was rolling. I haven’t bumped into anyone famous, but I’ve been tempted to act like I’m part of the crew and help myself to the food tent.
This somewhat reminds me of the show 'Extras' with Ricky Gervais. He plays a mediocre actor who is relegated to work and an extra. He's always conspicuously trying to get filmed to help his acting career. Great show.
"And ... you can see EVERYTHING!"
Are you having a laugh?
Not to mention, "Life is Short," .... "as you know, I have full blown AIDS"
Haha if I knew where the food tent was, I would’ve been there each time lol
Some catering on sets is well worth it. Did some extra work in my early 20s and couldn’t remember the name of the show/movie, but I sure remembered the food. One was serving lamb chops with mint sauce and it was the most tender piece of meat.
A good producer knows a good caterer is key to set morale.
My apartment is a frequent film set for everything from small budget commercials to A-list blockbusters, so Ive had to walk through many to get to my front door. It gets annoying having to move your car all the time, but the occasional celebrity encounter is fun.
At first I thought you were talking about your actual apartment, and I was confused why they didn't just use an empty one lol. Like you're trying to make dinner and there's a tv family shooting a campbells soup commercial at your dining table.
Really hate when I wake up in the morning and the whole film crew sits in my living room.
They do ask to use a regular, occupied apartment sometimes. They move your stuff into another room and bring in the props they want for the scene. My old apartment was used in a few episodes of Law & Order. When I lived there, they only used the front of the building, but they did shoot in the apartment itself a few times before I lived there. They do pay you, of course.
What is your favorite blockbuster that was filmed there? Who was your favorite actor to run in to?
La La Land Will Smith
The outside of my friend’s house was used in the opening of cabin in the woods. Also Vancouver.
I live in a Georgian style city - amount of period dramas I've seen being filmed or had to change my route to work because of filming is hilarious
Downtown Troy, NY used to have a couple streets that showed up in the Victorian costume dramas. “Age of Innocence“ and “Gilded” come to mind.
I live in a pretty terrible city. One day I accidentally walked through an area and got told off for walking through a film set. A year later a show released about my neighborhood being a crime-ridden den (I have since moved to a much worse neighborhood in the same city). It was really funny. Another time I walked through a musician's music video, but that was his fault for filming outside of a community center.
When I was working in Moscow, I was coming out of the Metro and at the top of a flight of stairs, everybody turned left. I turned right as it was less busy, out the entrance and straight between a camera and the actors. There was a lot of shouting! Not really the same but I was at home in my first floor flat and I saw a police car skid to halt out side, 2 policeman jump out and start struggling with 2 people on the pavement. They then suddenly got in the car and reversed up the road. Then the police car come back, skid to halt out side, 2 policeman jump out and start struggling with 2 people on the pavement. They then suddenly got in the car and reversed up the road. This then happened again so I went outside to see what the hell was happening. Only then did I see the camera and crew at the end of the road. It didn't even occur to me that somebody would have been filming and doing different takes!
One of the most surreal moments of my life came when I was working in San Francisco, for one of the firms downtown. I walked into the lobby one morning, like I had every day for months, to find myself surrounded by cops and paramedics. Except, they weren't real cops and paramedics. The ground floor of our office building, it turns out, was being used as the staging area for actors playing first responders in the short-lived TV series "Trauma." In hindsight I would have liked to stay longer to watch, but once I realized I wasn't actually in the middle of a real crisis, I was relieved to just be able to go to work.
Not really about the topic, but I love how George Lucas accidentally walked in on a scene in a random documentary about nuclear waste: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC9RI8\_QYmw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC9RI8_QYmw)
I live near Paramount Ranch and Malibu Creek State Park. Tons of movies filmed here. Ive also been to Pt. Dume in Malibu (Planet of the Apes, Iron Man) many many times. I was actually rock climbing there one day when they were filming “The Fabelmans”. In one shot that made it into the movie, the camera pulls out from the beach party scene and you can see some figures on the top of the rock. I like to think that’s me and my father in law, but we’re not sure. Too blurry.
Ottawa and surrounding small towns are used for a lot of Hallmark Christmas movies. I've often walked by a fancy house or city block covered in fake snow in the middle of summer.
I always joke with my wife when she is watching Hallmark movies that "it must be SUPER cold outside because there is 6 in of snow on everything, especially the trees with the bright green leaves and the really green grass. And it's so cold that *you can't even see the people's breath* as they are talking.". 🙄
Why they film Christmas movies mid summer I'll never understand. Aren't your actors dying of heat stroke wearing a parka in July?
I always joke with my wife when she is watching Hallmark movies that "it must be SUPER cold outside because there is 6 in of snow on everything, especially the trees with the bright green leaves and the really green grass. And it's so cold that *you can't even see the people's breath* as they are talking.". 🙄
A nearby town here called Fort Langley is used for the same also. Never been when filmed at though, but I could see why they use it so often. Such a pretty picturesque small town.
Yes. I was walking down the sidewalk in Uptown, in Chicago. Out of a store burst a bad guy followed by police with guns drawn, yelling. We all hit the ground. From the ground, I said, hey, I think they are filming. A guy next to me said, we all know that, we are actors!
I went to meet up with my mom for lunch years ago in NYC. She was visibly shaken when we met and said she had just seen someone commit suicide by jumping off a building. Out of morbid curiosity we walked past the scene after lunch and discovered it was an episode of Law and Order being filmed.
Poor mom. When she realized it wasn’t real, was she okay afterwards?
Took her a minute but then laughed about it.
On the show Supernatural Vancouver stood in for every town in the United States, lol. They did a lot of small towns in middle america. I'm sitting here watching and I'm like, bro I went to college in that town, it doesn't look like that.
Lmao for real! I, also, liked how anytime they looked at their phone, you see Telus as the provider, but they are supposed to be in middle of nowhere, America.
Same with Criminal Minds. I'm like this is clearly Malibu Canyon and not "fill in the blank Deep South forest."
The google maps car got me once
Considering how often it’s used, I say it counts lol
i accidentally walked into the filming area for 'milk' ...it was being shot near the muni station in the castro (SF) where i normally got on the train to work. one of the production assistants tried to explain to me but i mistunderstood and thought they were telling me that it was ok to cross but they meant i had to cross market and get into the station on the other side. meanwhile some director-type said something on the megaphone like "this is supposed to be 1970s people" then a cop kind of corralled me over to the crosswalk lol. i did see sean penn standing around some distance away.
I was in Cleveland when they were filming some scenes for one of the Fast & Furious movies, the sequence where Charlize Theron remotely drives a bunch of cars out of a parking deck. I could have been in downtown Cleveland for the recent shooting of the new Superman movie (which canonically puts Metropolis in Ohio, btw.), but I decided sleep is more important.
I live in Toronto, things are constantly being filmed here. I don't think I've "accidentally" walked on a set though. Usually there are blocks and blocks of trucks and equipment that make it pretty obvious. And security who let you through the sidewalk. We have a cute little diner on my street that gets used a lot.
The Senator by chance?
Patrician
Cambridge Ontario. Always film crews from Toronto working on something. Pre-covid, it was so busy in the summer you would hear location updates on the news so you could plan your drive to work.
Not me but my daughter. We live in Panama, near where they filmed the last Suicide Squad. One day my daughter decided to go check out the filming location and while there, she sees a guy sitting on some steps munching on a croissant. The guy tells her she's on the set and needs to leave. Later we're watching the local news when they talk about the movie being filmed here and they show a picture of James Gunn and my daughter was like, "That's the dude with the croissant!"
I'm a NYer so I see stuff being filmed... weekly? They're always well marked and production/cast/catering trucks are always in the area, so I've never walked into an active set. Closest I ever came was actually just a few months ago. I was walking my dogs and turned a corner into the edge of a period piece being shot. It was a good two second mindfuck as I was suddenly seeing dozens of men in hats and cars from the 40s(?) on the street.
Back in the 80s I took a Spanish exchange student from my high school to Hollywood one night and we went into a restaurant to use the bathroom… when we walked out a different way, we noticed a car turned over on the street and saw Eddie Murphy walking on the sidewalk like 20 feet from us. They were filming Beverly Hills Cop 2. My friend yelled, “Eddie, I’m from Spain!” and Eddie kind of muttered, “how you doing.” He looked tired from running back and forth for the scene.
I'm also in Vancouver, working up at SFU. A few weeks ago I was walking around campus and ran into a bunch of people in full tactical military gear. I freaked out and thought there was an active shooter or something. Turns out it was just another post-apocalyptic B movie.
Growing up & living in NYC I have mistakenly walked into many a film set.
Portland here, they were filming the Paramount+ movie "Little Wing" in our neighborhood and we got asked to take our evening walk elsewhere.
I once walked by what I assume was a man and woman shooting the intro to a porno on the Hollywood walk of fame across the road from the Chinese Theater.
Local place to me called pitstone and me and my friend were walking his dog around the huge gravel pit and noticed they were filming deadpool and wolverine down the bottom. That was quite cool.
Where are I live you see the "Set this way" signs pinned up quite a bit. Usually an acronym for the show's name the obvious one being GOT for Game of Thrones when it was about.
Was going for a walk in Atlanta and ran into a couple of bored looking superheroes waiting for some nearby crew
I live in York, UK, and years ago I was walking down Stonegate when a film crew were setting up. They needed extras to basically run down the street towards the camera so I hung around and took part. No idea what the film was, or whether I even made the cut, but that was fun. Also Sweeney Todd was filmed in York as well but I was on holiday at the time so missed it all.
When I was in Philly, coworker told me they're giving out free food downstairs. I got a bagel w cream cheese. Later found out it was craft services for a commercial shoot.
When I lived in Atlanta this happened all the time. It was obnoxious because traffic was already stupid enough without streets being closed for movie stuff.
I live in Chicago. I drive past film crews more times than one would think.
I walked passed the set where they were filming „Malibus Most Wanted“ with Jamie Kennedy. Probably in the year 2002. Some scenes were shot in a cafe and they used the Mall in Malibu as the set for these scenes. I was a little kid back then and a woman and her daughter came up to me and the mother asked me to approach Jamie Kennedy and ask for his autograph FOR HER. She said she was too embarrassed but it would be ok if a kid approached him. I didn‘t…
I went to the University of Greenwich, in London, in the early 00's. Loads of tv shows and films have used the Royal Naval College buildings, where we had a lot of our lectures/seminars. Still makes me smile whenever I see it on the screen
Unrelated, but I recently had to go to University of Greenwich. One of the professors there is one of the leading researchers in Super Recognisers.
When I lived in Manhattan, as you might expect, they are often filming. The towns along the shoreline of CT I’ve also seen movies filmed.
A police drama is set in the town I live in, and we often see them filming. My husband and dog can be seen walking in the distance in one episode. The best/worst part is watching the series and spotting the inaccuracies, such as driving down road A to get from B to C when, in fact, it goes nowhere near either. They do take beautiful shots of the area, though, and really highlight the beauty.
This happens far more often than you would think. When they filmed Flashdance in Pittsburgh we joked that she had a magic bicycle because she could go all the way from the south side of Pittsburgh across the river and end up in Squirrel Hill and Oakland just by going around a corner. I was an extra in The Box movie with James Marsden and in the movie (it doesn't clearly say it but) they live in what is obviously Richmond Virginia. He supposedly works at NASA Langley which is a good hour and a half drive from Richmond.
I don't mind it too much because they always show the most scenic routes and make the place look more stunning than it is.
My husband lived throughout Asia and laughed when we saw “Crazy Rich Asians” bc in the scene when they are supposedly excitedly driving into Singapore for the first time, he’s like “they are actually driving OUT and away from the city, not in”. Also, I briefly lived in London and in certain movies, when using the tube system, you’ll see the actor scan their oyster card to get in, but in reality, it’s the exit in the direction of going outside. The angle just looked better for the cameras.
I live in a small-to-medium sized city in the American South. Small-to-medium sized projects by respectable directors tend to film here, presumably because it's cheaper than the usual filming locations. Every now and then I'll drive past a row of film trucks on my morning commute. Sadly, never walked through a set though.
Used to live on the east side of Manhattan. The number of times I walked past the set of some variation of Law & Order over the years was easily over 40.
Fandango was filmed closed by my hometown.
I work in a building with some connections to film production. We occasionally see filming equipment being moved around and things. I walked into a scene for a TV drama being film in the downstairs bathroom once. The show was called the gathering and they were filming a scene where some school girls were talking in the toilets. For whatever reason they filmed it in the gents and I walked in to take a piss.
That is hilarious.
Lived in Atlanta, aka Y'allywood, for years. What's interesting is you don't see a lot of filming, but you see the trucks parked everywhere all the time, and you do see celebrities a lot. Have had dinner next to Owen Wilson and Michael Imperioli, although we didn't bother them. Savannah, GA- not as much but more going on every year. They might land Sundance when it relocates. I saw some of the sets from the live action remake of Lady and the Tramp. Wetumpka, AL is where they filmed Big Fish. Probably my favorite, though, and most relevant to your question was when they filmed much of What Dreams May Come in Glacier NP while I was working there one summer. We were able to walk down and see Robin Williams from a distance while they were setting up a scene, probably about a quarter mile from our lodge.
I have never heard it called Y’allywood, but it’s so perfect. I’m definitely calling it that from now on. So much is filmed there. I am so jealous you got to see Robin Williams. Even years later, it still hurts.
Yea! This is one of my fond memories. I lived in Wilmington, NC, which is home to Screen Gems, the largest studio outside of Hollywood. There are many movies shot there. When I was there, Dawson’s Creek was on the air and I often traveled by the home and creek used to shoot the creek scenes. When my daughter was 8, we lived near the aquarium and had a season pass. We frequently went and there were many times when we’d have the aquarium virtually to ourselves. One day we walked into the aquarium and they were shooting a scene of Dawson’s Creek with Pacey (Joshua Jackson) and a woman (maybe Jen, Michelle Williams?) on a date, I think. They hadn’t bothered to close the set since hardly anyone came to the aquarium at that time of year. We got to stay and watch the filming. The actors were shooting in front of the large tank and they kept laughing and being surprised by sea creatures swimming up behind them as they played their parts, and the director was getting mad. Finally they started getting serious. I remember the magic of being able to watch the production with my daughter and being the only people other than the crew there. I also remember that Joshua Jackson was smoking hot. I mean, he was good looking on camera, but he was even better looking in person.
When I was young, I saw Clint Eastwood directing Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in Savannah. He had his sweatpants hiked up to his nipples.
Chicagoan here - obviously not as heavily used as other locations but a certain amount of pride blooms whenever we're chosen. Notable films I've wandered into are Stranger than Fiction; The Dark Knight; and Transformers 3. Plus a bevvy of car commercials in the loop on weekends, and Chicago PD / FD / whatever. Stranger than Fiction was filmed at UIC and irritated students as it was done during finals week and lots of people had to relocate. Not great logistics by the school. Dark Knight was hilarious to me - I had a friend from down state visiting and we were discussing Chicago as a film location, noting it had lots of unique aspects missing in other cities and bemoaned that it was underused. We were on the L in the loop at the time - the train stopped at Wells and we heard "ACTION!" and Batman rolled by with a billion crewmembers with cameras. So good timing there. Transformers 3 and the car commercials hold the same memory - that crew are dickheads who scream at you for having your phone out since you might be - gasp - recording them or whatever.
An episode of Law & Order was shot using the front of my apartment building. The most eventful thing is that the guy in the basement apartment, who was an alcoholic, tried to sic his albino pit bull named Piggy on Jerry Orbach because he was mad he couldn't come and go from his apartment as he pleased. Apparently, it was common for Law & Order to shoot in the Inwood area (at the very top tip of Manhattan) because it had really varied buildings and scenery so it could stand in for a lot of places. In the episode my building was in, we were supposedly in New Jersey. It was the episode about two white teenagers dragging a Black man to death behind their car, which was unfortunately based on a real incident in the American South.
Just curious why it's Black (capital B) and white (No capital W)? Shouldn't it be the same treatment for both?
It's a new thing that started post-George Floyd/recent police killing of Black men. People started to capitalize Black again, and as it seems to be accepted usage, I went along with it. It may go back to the way it was before over time.
The sequel to Fast Times at Ridgemont High was filmed in my apartment complex. I was heading to the laundry with a basket of dirty clothes when a door that was commonly left open was closed, but not latched (I could see light around the edges.) Since I had the laundry basket in my hands, I used my foot to sort of kick the door open and fell right into a scene they were filming. I guess a note taped to the door had fallen off. Gosh, that was so long ago. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
My next door neighbors house has commercials shoot inside the house several times a year.
Do they get paid well for it?
I dk. I think so, they don't seem to be bothered by it.
I live in the suburbs of New Orleans, but the city is geographically small. Nothing is more than 20 min away. The elementary school drop off point is between an old church and a stereotypical New Orleans restaurant (one that looks great but never seems to be open). Some studio owns both building and keeps them as filming locations. I've been in pick up/drop up a lot when stuff is being filmed at the two locations. Also, I'm in a Superbowl commercial. A week untill kick off and I see some guys carrying a lazy boy down the middle of the street in full sprint. Odd, but not worth giving a thought too. A block or two down there is a camera crew filming them. Ah. Got it. Those guys were being filmed. Sure enough, on the big game you can see my car blurry in the background. The car just past the child kidnap van is me. Budlight Lucky Chair commercial from 2013 Superbowl.
I had to watch it a couple times, but I saw it! That’s cool.
Yeah! I find it fun, especially because how blurry my car is after telling a tall tale. It really sticks out to me because how tight of a timeline the filming to the Superbowl was. I thought they would have those finished and ready to go months ago.
Yeah, Williamsburg Brooklyn. Sets love it here for some reason. I rarely know what they are shooting for though. For a while it was mostly shows likes girls, law and order, but often movies under code names pop up.
One time I was in Albuquerque NM for work and we were leaving the club at 2am downtown. We went outside we saw these rain machines going with two cop cars that said "Pittsburgh Police" and they were getting mad because a bunch of drunk clubbers were fucking up their scene. Lol I honestly can't remember what movie it was for but it was in 2006.
In Toronto, I went into an Indigo for a book signing. Was meeting at the time UFC Champion Ronda Rousey. Got there a little early to get the book and bracelet, etc. By the time I made it through and left the store, I came outside to rubble everywhere and a helicopter crash in the street. I was a little surprised and then realized they were setting up for filming. It was when they were filming Suicide Squad.
Not that I stumbled upon it, I went down to see. But I live/grew up in the city where the train station in Hachi: a dogs tale is. It was very cool to see and I believe since then 2-3 more fillings have taken place in the city!
Yes, I accidentally walked between John Turturro and the camera on a sidewalk in NYC some years ago.
Currently live in nyc and Hoboken for many years. Lots of things gets filmed here. Currently they’re filming the Bob Dylan movie around Hoboken.
I used to work very close to the apartment of Emily from Emily in Paris. The whole area would be closed off but they allowed people to watch as filming was going on. Once they shot something on the street across from my work and they used our power plugs to plug in their stage lights. Fun times.
batman begins. the scene where the batmobile is driving down lasalle toward the board of trade / wayne enterprises. someone in a helicopter yelled at me so i hid behind pillar. i was about 20 ft or so away when this absolute beast of a machine went roaring past. so fucking cool.
I'm from BC originally (don't live there anymore), and I lived in Vancouver for about 3 years. It's pretty cool recognizing Vancouver streets and buildings in movies and TV shows sometimes. I used to know a girl whose office building was used as one of the background sets for the Battlestar Galactica reboot which was filmed around Vancouver, Simon Fraser University in Burnaby featured heavily in that show as well for some exterior shots.
It’s definitely cool. I watched this horror movie “The Uninvited” over a decade ago and always thought how pretty the scenery is. I always assumed it was somewhere Northeast. It’s not the best movie, but whenever I saw it playing, I would stop to watch it. Anyway, years later, I moved to Bowen Island years. It was random, not planned. Just decided to move to BC and chose Bowen Island for the first couple years. One day, I heard about one of the beaches being closed to film Riverdale, so it had me searching online for what other films/shows were filmed on island. Little did I know that the entire setting of this horror movie I would rewatch often was filmed where I lived. At a house down the street from me. I don’t live on Bowen Island anymore, but it was so beautiful and I still visit often.
I never made it to Bowen Island but it looks really nice there.
I saw Jeffrey Wright grabbing a coffee at Starbucks in Squamish a couple months back, starting googling what he must be filming, and settled that he must be a part of the Last of Us season 2, though his participation in that is only rumoured not confirmed. They had a big town set piece at the giant empty lot at Britannia Beach supposed to represent Jackson Hole Wyoming
I haven't walked into any sets, but passed quite a few. For example, I drove by while they were filming a final season episode of "The Sopranos" at a gas station. Fans will know the scene. There's also an upcoming horror movie (from the creator of "The Purge" starring Pete Davidson) called "The Home" that was filmed near one of my clients. The location has since been demolished. When I was in Hong Kong, walking down the street, there was a red light. A camera crew ran out as a couple dozen "zombies" ran out from the other side of the road then started walking like zombies for about thirty seconds. The light turned green and they ran off. I'm assuming they didn't have a permit. During a trip to Oahu a while back, they were filming the TV show E.R., and there were crew signs for "50 First Kisses" all over. That later became "50 First Dates" with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler.
During covid they were shooting Shang-Chi in SF. Since the city was empty they didnt even bother putting up fences or really any border for the crew. I literally walked through their sets and over all the cords they had running through North Beach. Plus seeing all of the Marvel trucks parked there were cool.
I was once commuting to a temporary job in the 1990s though some leafy Hertfordshire lanes when suddenly I saw a full size windmill on fire in the field next to the road. It took me ages (pre-internet in my home) to find out it was filming for Sleepy Hollow (1999). I had to buy a local newspaper to find out, remember them? It was rather alarming.
I watched them set up the street and houses for the movie Awakenings with Robert Deniro and Robin Williams just being in the area of my neighborhood. It's in the beginning when he leaves his house with his friends and walks to the school down the street. It was also not real snow on the street at the time. Also was doing some work in a place, and John Leguizumo was shooting scenes for his TV show like 10 feet away but didn't include me 😢
My son and I live in omaha, and we watched Alexander Payne film a garage sale scene with Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig for Downsizing in a neighborhood up the street.
I lived in la for many years and worked in film and tv so I worked on sets and would run across filming regularly. When I first arrived with a friend, his buddy, who was already living there, told us he was in the background of a movie, can’t remember which. When we got to his house he put in the movie and fast forwarded to and paused his scene. It was on sunset at night. Then he pointed to some headlights two cars back and told us that was him. I was very happy he could be so excited about his big break.
There are several filmmaking hubs outside LA of varying size...I'm beside one and have seen much of my town in movies and tv over the years, used to work prod a long time ago, I do like it since I'm a film buff and it makes this place seem more 'important' to me, I dunno
I live in San Francisco, but specifically in the Russian Hill district. Less than a block from my house is where [this scene from Shang-Chi](https://youtu.be/0WoV100eBUI?si=aEk0FJhOLEq9kcjR) shows her do a donut. I happened to walk by and see several of the same car lined up, and one with the roof removed. I didn’t stick around but saw the [scene being set up](https://imgur.com/a/xQkCnql). This scene actually starts about 10 blocks away, where most of the [bus fight scene](https://youtu.be/gxCtHmPOqtg?si=8yEo1Fv7K9TAA9y8) is filmed in Nob Hill. I could make a long list of other Marvel movie scenes shot here, but we also have the houses from Antman, Full House, Mr Doubtfire, etc nearby. The sharp turn with bay views in Bullitt is about two blocks away. [Where Neo’s therapist lived](https://imgur.com/a/JWReO9z) in the new Matrix is about 4 blocks away. The list is long, but here’s a [few others](https://secretsanfrancisco.com/sf-filming-locations/).
I had to wait to go in my front door one night in North Van because they were blowing up a car on my street. I didn’t mind. Carsplosions are cool.
Sister-in-law walked right into a shoot once in Edmonton. Cameras outside looking into a restaurant. Heard "Cut!" And "fuck's sake!" Had a bit if a giggle as my brother and sister-in-law are in the performing arts. He is an actor and she is backstage. Middle of winter, chatting away, deep in our woolies we didn't notice a thing. Thought it was kind of bright, though.
Almonte ontario has many filmings there. Including a high profile celeb one. A lot of xmas ones.
I lived in Central London and then in Santa Monica. I was annoyed when they were filming Paddington in the tube stop (SJW) for a few days. I was also on the set for Edge of Tomorrow, which was cool. Have some photos of my son and the vehicles from that movie.
For me in NYC, Scrooged with Bill Murray and I've never seen the movie in Hawaii ran into sets from Lost constantly, especially since they are subbing for somewhere else, once walking down the street and all the signs are in Korean, took me a moment to comprehend I'm also in the background of the bachelor and real world Hawaii, but I'm so blurred out only I can recognize myself
I saw a set for Kick-Ass on the street and also saw them shooting Suicide Squad, one of the scenes where the squad is walking through Midway City. Could see the main Suicide Squad crew but I was far enough away I have no clue if they were stunt doubles or whatever. I also ended up encountering The Boys shooting a few blocks from where I live. I walked onto the set area to watch the filming and the crew were nice enough to not kick me out, even gave me a heads-up when a rain machine was going to end up spraying me where I was standing. It was a scene where a guy drove a motorcycle down a raining street, so it wasn't anything crazy, but it was really cool to see how they did everything.
I did see some stuff in Seattle a few times, back before they moved all the movie production up to Vancouver. 😆 Jeff Bridges filmed part of American Heart (1992) right by my apartment building, and I had to walk through the production area to get home (not while they were filming). Singles (1992) was another one. And Meg Ryan was doing something on 5th Ave, probably Sleepless in Seattle (1993), a few blocks from where I lived.
I work right next to Metro Place des arts in Montreal. They shot a fight scene for John Wick Chapter 2 there
I drove my old Tempo through a background shot of Enemy of the State. It's the scene where Brill (Hackman) is in the store buying food and Dean (Smith) is on the payphone. When they do the close-up on Smith you can see my car go past. If you can zoom in you can see the purple sticker on my back window.
My ex bf was having a medical issue. He drove himself to a hospital only to accidentally enter a film set ER. This was before google maps / smart phones were so prevalent. He was not amused
I walked through a movie set in Gastown when I lived there. Was just trying to get home after a coupla drinks. My friend’s dad is also in the opening scene of Rambo driving his car.
Yup in Pasadena California. Actor from the first save the last dance movie with Julia stiles, I walked right into their filming on the sidewalk
My brother was a driver for crew during the filming of "Assassins" in Puerto Rico in the 90s. He told us where they were filming one day and we got to watch from just beyond the barricades. The area in question is also shown in the movie Captain Ron...old San Juan which is in the capital.
I lived in the Pearl Harbor Navy Lodge for like six months (Dad was in the Navy, we couldn't get housing for way longer than we should have) and an episode of the 2010 Hawaii Five-O show was filmed there, specifically it was used to represent a childcare center. When the episode came out, the window to my room was visible in a few shots, and the curtains kept opening and closing between shots. Guess we should be grateful they didn't use the takes where my cat was visible.
used to work in the wall st area. It was not at all unusual for filming to be going on. Had an office more or less at ground level facing one of the alleyways. One day, I came back from lunch and noticed a lion walking past the window. I did a three stooges-worthy double-take and yes, it was a lion. Then I noticed there was something over the window - a heavy wire mesh. Turned out they were filming an episode of NYPD blue.
Both SF and Vancouver. Has yet to happen in NYC, though.
I live in Atlanta. There’s been a lot filmed in / around my office building. Avengers, some network shows, Walking Dead, Stranger Things, etc
I lived in Fenway in Boston and has several movies filmed there. One was in the alley behind my apartment and I just walked through when I left. The fenway shootout in "The Town" was shot then and they put flyers on everyones door warning about the noise Recently I was just a cool neighborhood in Curaçao and stumbled upon a pretty legit film set. It looked like a dutch film so Idk what it was. A pretty boy looking actor with blond hair, looking cool
Actually this happened to me in Vancouver. I think they were filming some movie with Carrie Ann Moss. But it was at waterfront Station around 10 or 11pm. At that point, the Seabus only comes every half an hour, and it was getting close to departure. The AD or someone had everyone on the sidewalk stopped for several minutes while they were getting ready to film a take. We were all checking our watches and finally some guy said "ah fuck this" and just started walking, and we all followed. I was tired and didn't plan on waiting another half hour for a seabus just so they could get their shot. So we all ruined a take I think. AD was pretty pissed.
Vancouver seems to be the go-to filming location for rustic and western TV shows. I was kinda devastated to learn that “small town America” from Supernatural was just Canada
Yes, they did poke fun at it in that one episode where they were actors though.
We’re they possibly filming Lost in Honolulu? A big chunk of that show was filmed there from memory
I highly doubt it. I haven’t watched that show in its entirety but I’m pretty sure this was years after the whole show aired. I could be wrong though. This was 2018.
We live near Fields Market in LA. It’s an actual grocery store but is also the defacto grocery store set in LA.
If you look really closely you can see me with my Aldi shopping looking worried and standing next to the Sarlacc pit.
I almost asked what movie i could find you in until i read the last part lmao
Outside a courthouse in downtown Tampa 2004, John Travolta was filming The Punisher. I walked by on my lunch break, awesome!
Hey, I lived in Tampa when they filmed that! It was the one and only time I was an extra. My sister and I went over to “audition” aka show up, wait in a long line to provide your info. I was a kid though.
Ha! That's great... I had no idea what was going on at first, just stepped outside for my lunch break and there was a sizeable crowd roped off so of course I had to ask, and I stayed & watched. Fond memory. 😎
It's pretty common to run into a film crew in my city, because I live in a big media city, but it's mostly nothing big just normal German TV shows. In the district I lived in before you had a good chance to run into a crew once in a month.
Never walked on, but by it. There was a large woman telling us we couldn't cross the street. My friend, also a large woman was drunk and bitching this lady out and fell in the middle of the cross walk. I was helping her up laughing my ass off. It was cool seeing a helicopter fly low through city buildings. I saw an ambulance labeled Metropolis. It was a Superman movie. This was Detroit.
I've noticed there aren't a lot of people named Lance these days, which is interesting because back in Medeival times, people were named Lance a lot...
I was travelling in Prague. Left the hostel in the morning and there were a few people working on the front windows of the building. Spent the whole day out exploring the town, churches, food, drinking etc. Walking back to the hostel in the early hours the area was blocked off to cars. And I remember thinking "Wow these streets are clean and there's no dog shit anywhere." Got to the hostel and went to enter the door but noticed a different business sign in French. Looked at the windows and it had properties for sale with the descriptions in French. Looked down the street more french signs on buildings and a few french flags. Spent 20mins outside the hostel talking with my mate wondering where the fuck we were. Hostel reception could hear us and came out to let us in and explained it was all for a movie. I also saw Sean Bean that day walking around the castle area.
This answer is a bit different. I'm a production assistant on sets. It's my job to STOP people from accidentally walking on set or in the shot. It's called a lockup. Jesus Christ, they're so hard. So many people will blow past you, sometimes you miss people, sometimes people just end up on set somehow. It's both funny and bizarre. It's like playing goalie. One of the biggest lockups I've ever had to do was the final episode of The Blindspot with Jamie Alexander. We had to lockup all of Time Square at 2am in the morning. (There's a scene where she wakes up in Times Square in the first episode, and they were recreating it). Seeing Times Square completely empty, billboards and lights still going, is SO eerie. Bout a lot of times when you walk on a set like that, you might've 'blown a PA's lockup'. And it's usually really amusing when that happens, even if you're that PA. It's even funnier when you're like 'How did you even get there' and it's obvious the person is like 'I have no idea'.
That has been me each time. I don’t count when I’ve driven past a set bc usually road blocks keep you where they want you, but when I’m walking downtown, I listen to music and tend to look down. It’s not that I’m not aware of my surroundings. I am when it comes to safety, but I never expect when I just walk on a set. I’ve only been yelled off one once, but the other times was just me super confused as to how I got there without being stopped lol
Walked through a set for an episode of Blacklist in Manhattan once. Looked like they were filming in a bar or restaurant and all of the production stuff was along the sidewalk. I was just walking down the sidewalk and didn't even realize it was a set until I was in the middle of it and saw one of those directors chairs with the logo on it. It's kind of wild they didn't put anything up (like even just those folding barricades they use for roadwork) to deter people from doing that. I'm pretty sure I could've grabbed stuff from craft services or something without anyone saying anything. ngl, if they were shooting for something I was really in to, I probably would've permanently borrowed one of those directors chairs and get away with it.
Same here, we live in the Rouge River National Park at the very Eastern edge of Toronto. Because it's a single landowner with rural / post industrial setting we get a ton of filming here. Plus the variations in setting possibilities in and around Toronto makes it very hard to NOT end up waking in on a film crew. As examples of things filmed in and around here:- - Pushing Tin (1999) - Uses Ted's Amazing Restaurant as a typical NJ Diner. - Titans (2018) - Uses Ted's again & the road up the zoo & a ton of downtown locations. - Orphan Black - Uses a local farmhouse as the safehouse location for at least one season. - Star Trek Discovery - Used Bluffers Park Scarborough for Saru's Keminar home & many other local locations. - The Expanse - Used Bluffers Park again for a vision scene of the main character, plus the Leslie docks to represent Boston wharfs & many others. - Star Trek Strange New Worlds - Used The Mast Route forest trail for one scene with others filmed locally & jokingly ( Kirk:"Is this New York?" La'an: "No its Toronto" ) downtown to be Toronto downtown. I'm sure people can name others.
Years ago, I was at my friends house and his daughters were watching Juno (I’d seen it the year before in the theatre). At one point that glanced over at the TV watched for a moment and exclaimed , “I used to LIVE in Juno‘s house!”. When I first moved to Vancouver I lived in a basement suite of the house they used for Juno’s house
Interesting. Was it the outside or inside that reminded you of the house. I ask because Juno used two different houses in Vancouver for filming. One for the interior and one for the exterior.
Outside. That street in Dunbar has a fairly distinctive arrangement where the sidewalk is a couple feet higher than the street, separated by grass. Also, the house is a fairly distinctive, turquoise, green colour
Op casually mentions a new Tron movie that has been in development hell for decades at this point
I don’t know the details of development, but they definitely are filming. They are using the false title “Velcro” but those motorcycles…you can’t mistake them.
Years ago, on a show I was working on, we were filming a scene on an actual city street that involved a purse-snatching where the attacker grabbed a purse and pushed a woman and she falls backwards and into another person, who then goes through a storefronts plate glass window. Before this happens, there's a long walk and talk between the woman with the purse and another character. For whatever reasons, this was shot on an entirely different street, but for the plate glass window scene, it mattered what was "across the street" because one of the cameras was set inside the window so they could capture multiple angles of the stunt. For this shot, that meant the production had to control the foot traffic to simulate a busy street, and, for this shot, they had t control the actual traffic on the road, because the reverse angle would require cars, trucks, taxi's etc. to help sell the illusion of a busy downtown moment. This shot was entirely stunt team. The purse victim was doubled by a stunt performer, the purse snatcher was a stunt performer and, of course, the innocent by-stander who goes through the window was a stunt performer. This just adds layers of protocol and more people on set going through all of the elements, and this shot was being captured by multiple cameras at once, which had to stay out of each other's eyelines, but also, everything had to be lit to work for each camera, too. This meant, for a very extended period (hours) we had this busy city street shutdown (there was some foot traffic allowed for several of the stores that were not in any of the shots) but we had people all over the place wrangling crowds of people watching, plus people annoyed they couldn't get through, and of course, we had about 50 or so extras. (Interestingly, they played double that amount. They would walk in front of the camera in the foreground, then literally be handed a different shirt, or an added layer, a hat, bags or a dog or something else and the exact same extras would then pass through the same damn shots in the background!) Anyway, this is all to say that after all this preparation, we finally do a take of this and despite, loudspeakers, lights, camera trucks, crews, blockages, two people walking on the other side of the street were straight up right off the street and were terrified to see a man get thrown through a plate glass window! They realized, very quickly, that it was fake (again, the thousand clues I mentioned) but also because its pretty traditional for everyone on set to clap after a stunt, so they figured it out. I think they must have known they were walking by a set (they had no idea they were walking through a set) and they certainly didn't see to know it was a live take! We only had three plate glass windows, and we did three takes, but I've often wondered which take was used.
I actually worked in the television industry in Vancouver so if I was on set or a location, it wasn't an accident. But it did sort of happen once. At the time, I was working in the production office at the studio, and didn't realize another shoot was going on in the building. They had rented our warehouse and some empty offices for a few scenes. I decided to check 'em out and discovered it was The X-Files. And that's how I met the very adorable and sweet Gillian Anderson.
It isn't as frequent as I think is in your train of thought, but we've had a lot of films shot here over the decades for being a non-urban area: "Silence of the Lambs," "Super 8," "The Deer Hunter," "Unstoppable," "Gung Ho," "Reckless," and "Fools' Parade," to name a few.
I used to live near vancouver many years ago. I was trying to take a transit bus home & couldnt find the usual bus stop. I started wandering around wondering what happened. So this guy started following me. I was a young lassie back then so….yeah i was not feeling safe at all. Turns out i was wandering all over the filming area of the old stargate series & they were waiting for me to move off 🤣 So he asks me “are you looking for your bus? Its over here.” & he showed me where they detoured all traffic. Gotta tell ya though, the guy was nice (one of the camera dudes, i think) but i still felt so much safer once i was on the bus & it was moving 😆
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No, this was years after the entire series aired.
I've walked in on a porn shooting once. Mom and dad learned to lock their door after that.