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Old Movie sets - What is their status now?
Found an article that talks about the status of 16 "on location" movie sets and what their status is today. http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/af … -film-sets While most of them would make for great photo backdrops, many are not open to the public. And those that are would probably require costly permits or rental fees. Apr 23 14 04:13 am Link It's my understanding that old movie/tv sets belong to whoever paid for them, and that's usually the executive producer or the production company that put together the financing for the movie (at least in the US.) There is (or at least was) an old movie set called Rawhide about 40 minutes from San Francisco. Basically it's a dirt street with several Old West buildings (well, most of them are just facades) on either side. There are (or were) about 20 facades and only three full buildings. One was the restaurant, which is fully functional. Their signature dishes are (or were) rattlesnake meat and "mountain oysters," which are actually bull testicles. I attended the National Conference of Editorial Writers conference in San Francisco (long story) back in the late 1980's. (Of all the organizations whose functions I've attended or participated in, NCEW knows how to eat! Although they have name-brand speakers (presidents, other heads of state, cabinet secretaries, top Congressional leadership, foreign dignitaries, etc.) the main attraction is always the food. The restaurant was packed. There were several "events" including hourly gunfights in the street, How to get there? I have no idea. I got on the bus at the hotel and got off at Rawhide. I googled Rawhide. There's a Rawhide Ranch in California that's basically a campground. That's not it. There's a Rawhide (which also looks like it could have been a movie set in Arizona, but that's not either. I don't know whether the place is still there or not. There's also a street in Tiburon, CA, that looks like it could have been a movie set, but it wasn't. The buildings are all fully functional modern buildings, built in full compliance with modern building codes. The street just has an Old West motif. Apr 23 14 04:36 am Link I've stumbled on old sets before and they can be fun. Some of the original sets from MASH still exist in Topanga Canyon. Apr 23 14 04:49 am Link Mentmore Towers The Mansion Bruce Wayne burned down in Batman Begins 2005.  Appledore Mansion The last Episode of Sherlock season 3 Costing £30 Million to build. (US $50 Million)   . Apr 23 14 05:00 am Link Biltmore House. Used in such movies as my favorite "Being There" and others such as The Swan, Hannibal, Richie Rich, and others. Still the largest privately owned house in the US and still owned by the grandson of it's original owner George Washington Vanderbilt. I'm sure you could rent it. Shouldn't cost much.   Apr 23 14 06:44 am Link In the movie Star Trek: Generations, the scenes at the end where Kirk and Picard have the big fight scene which left Kirk dead, was filmed 1 hour outside of Las Vegas in the Valley of Fire State Park. To film the scene Paramount built a set made out of scaffolding for the actors to run around on and so forth. It was built just a few hundred yards off the main road that drives through the park and in some scenes in the movie you can actually see the road. After the movie was filmed, Paramount "forgot" to go back and collect the set they created and for months, all the nerdy Trekies from around the world made a pilgrimage to the area to witness "the place where Kirk died". People placed wreaths on the area and started to create a shrine to the fallen Captain Kirk on the retired movie set. Yes, it got that crazy. After a while, the state of Nevada started getting mad at this big metal pile of junk that Paramount abandoned and demanded it be hauled away. There was nothing funnier though than watching people drive out there in their Star Trek shirts and pointed ears crying as they got out of their car as they witnessed the place where Kirk died.  Apr 23 14 08:11 am Link The old Gunsmoke movie set in UT. Shot at what remains of the "Longbranch Saloon" in 2011. Most of the buildings have imploded from the effects of snow, wind and neglect.  Apr 23 14 08:28 am Link Ohh I like this thread Apr 23 14 08:42 am Link Apr 23 14 09:41 am Link This place has been on so many TV commercials (Viagra), car commercials (Recent one with guys coming out of restaurant like some Route 66 road trip.), and so many music videos lately: http://avlocations.com/index.html East of Lancaster, CA near 150th Street East and Avenue K. Was built for a movie "Eye of the Storm" in 1992 and left it standing - and guarded. Sort of expensive to rent by the day at $2K though plus insurance bond. Seems every time I go out there to try and photograph it under bad or rainy weather, the CHP has the road blocked off at each end of 150th Street and the parking lot north of it is full of video, lighting, and staging trucks out of Hollywood with maybe 100 cars in the lot. Temporary signage on K St. out of Lancaster will alert you to the road closures and filming there too. Even Google Earth shows some sort of filming going on there in their current aerial shot taken on 5/24/2013 (Co-ordinates: 34.662478 -117.862807 ) You can see a lighting/camera semi and the actor's RV trailer in the north side of the lot, and some crew wagon on the south side near the pool. Across the street is their rain water truck to wet the area down or make it look like it's raining there - for a small extra fee. Place is always busy. Location's live-on-the-set guardian is sort of an unfriendly chap and will run you off too! Been there. Something about the mountain behind it owned by Indians too and they want a cut of the action to if it is in a shot (Location usage copyright fee for "their dirt hill."). There is an Indian museum on the south side of the hill too, but it's been closed every time I went there to learn more. Apr 23 14 01:56 pm Link GRMACK wrote: If you can get a large enough number of photogs together, it would be a cool place for a group shoot! Apr 23 14 03:44 pm Link The easiest way is to check with the local film commissions. There are a lot movie locations that are available for minimal costs. Apr 23 14 04:16 pm Link Photographers on an old western movie set in Arizona.  Apr 24 14 01:35 pm Link Not quite the same thing as a whole movie set, but just the other day I came across the original wood stove used in Bonanza.  It was restored by Ricks Restoration and seen on his show "American Restoratiion" https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/ … 9436_n.jpg It's located at Neilsons Frozen Custard in Las Vegas. Apr 24 14 02:30 pm Link Oatman Arizona was used in one of the final scenes of "How the West was Won"  It still looks pretty much the same now as it did when the movie was filmed. As a side note, the hotel in the photo is where Clark Gable and Carol Lombard spent their actual honeymoon night. Apr 24 14 02:36 pm Link Puente Hills Mall in Industry, California (I once worked across the street from it):  Way back when (or maybe it should be 'coming soon"?): http://411posters.com/wp-content/upload … future.jpg It doesn't look like JC Penny made it to the future. Apr 24 14 02:48 pm Link The casino scenes used in the movie "Casino" were actually the Riviera Hotel  The explosion that's in the opening scene of the movie: Is based on a real incident when Lefty Rosenthal got in his car here: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.144007, … Geb0rQ!2e0 a parking lot in between Marie Calenders and what was a Tony Roma's restaurant. added: There's a whole bunch more locations listed here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/locations Apr 24 14 03:14 pm Link This stretch of road was used in Canonball Run, but has also been used in many other TV shows, movies, and commercials. Not much has changed since then. A solar power plant was built on the other side of the dry lake, but that's really about it. https://www.google.com/maps/@35.965541, … une3XA!2e0 Apr 24 14 03:22 pm Link Not exactly what this thread is about, but extremely cool nonetheless. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ( FILMING LOCATION VIDEO ) Shots of the movie scenes then as the location is today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2tKfBOv9Xs Apr 24 14 03:24 pm Link Someone always owns them. Different scenarios... person owned them, movie rented the land, put up the sets and when done left them there and the property owner didn't want to pay to tear them down or thought another movie company would use them. Or, movie company owns the land and is waiting for a movie that needs that look to shoot but empty land with fake buildings doesn't really cost that much to keep on the books. Worse comes to worse, property not being used, person/owner doesn't pay the taxes, county takes the land for non-payment of property taxes.... county owns the land. Same issue with abandoned places... someone owns them but they don't care since they aren't making money with it, let it run down, don't live any where close... great place for photographers... but still owned. Apr 24 14 03:40 pm Link In Jamestown, California, there is "Railtown 1897 State Historic Park" You can see locomotives and other rail road equipment used in hundreds of movies, tv show and commercials.  Locomotive #3 was used in "High Noon" and "Back to the Future III" and many more. It's all open to the public, and they offer train rides too. http://www.railtown1897.org/ Apr 25 14 09:05 am Link has anybody seen crewdson's sanctuary series? it's not my cup of tea but others may like it. http://artdaily.com/news/41438/Gregory- … 1qXzx1jjuw Apr 25 14 10:14 am Link There used to be some indoor studio in LA for rent that had four street scenes of European sidewalks and false building fronts for sets. One cobblestone street was capable of being watered down to look like rainy Paris along with free standing streetlights. Another was the Amsterdam red light district I think. I think there was a Portugal or Spain styled street in there too. I had it bookmarked on an older computer, but I can't find it now. Maybe someone knows of it? Around Burbank or Van Nuys area I thought? Wasn't that expensive either ($75-$100/hr. incl. lights and some phoney buildings had internal ambient lighting too.) as they got the money off the movies made there and construction left them behind. The building's owner didn't want to tear them down as they were nicely made. Apr 25 14 10:32 am Link Living in the Long beach " Bixby " area , just a few blocks from my home many films were shot - http://longbeachlouie.com/places/ferris-buellers-house/ Just a 2 minute drive is the restaurant that is often used for filming : http://www.iamnotastalker.com/2010/01/1 … 50s-diner/ Corrina Corrina was also shot here. Hundreds of scenes for the show " Dexter " were done 2 blocks away ... what a royal pain in the ass ! No parking , have to show id to walk home ... thank the TV gods for canceling this show :-) F A Apr 25 14 11:17 am Link I typed this place into my browser and the internet exploded. Apr 25 14 11:59 am Link The old Paramount Ranch North west of Calabasas off of the 101 is a great old western town (movie set) now owned by the park service. We walked all over the place shooting on a Tuesday morning and never saw a soul. Rangers were at the visitors center, but none that I saw in the town. Who knows though they could have been watching us from their desk in the office. Apr 25 14 02:22 pm Link GPS Studio Services wrote: The original series was shot in what is now Malibu Creek State park. None of the sets remain, just some ropes to show where the tents were and a picnic area where the mess tent stood. There are a couple of rusted out vehicles including a jeep and ambulance Apr 25 14 02:39 pm Link The old Ponderosa Ranch where part of the show Bonanza was filmed it still there. It's closed to the public though.  http://www.alamedainfo.com/ponderosa_ranch.htm https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=39.2335 … n&t=h&z=16 Apr 25 14 08:54 pm Link Dream-foto wrote: That would be a nice location to use. I'm surprised it was big as it was when it operated as a theme park too. Apr 26 14 06:28 pm Link Here's an amateur video showing the Nelson Ghost Town in Nevada. Many movies and TV shows were shot there. Looks like a great place to do photo shoots. http://youtu.be/N_aLzyK8BnI Apr 26 14 06:54 pm Link Steinberg Photo wrote: Not often I can sit through a 26 minute amateur video, but I did on this one! Thanks! Apr 27 14 07:18 am Link GRMACK wrote: I did a blog about it four years ago which still gets a ton of traffic. Lots of people look for this place and at least 2-3 times a month I get phone calls from people who think I'm a reservation agent for the place. Apr 27 14 07:48 am Link |
