California / Arizona trip - day 07

The adventure continues ...

Wow, day 7 and we still have so much planned! Can we get it all in? It was decided last night that we should take a break from Disney and see Hollywood. After all, how often do we get to this side of the country? Answer, not too often..... So we met for breakfast at Steakhouse 55. This restaurant is part of Disneyland Hotel. Tom and David took with them brochures and the AAA book to look at and decide which studio tour and other activities for the day. The write ups in the AAA book about the studio tours all sound basically the same. The only difference is cost. Hmmm, not able to decide, we decide to ask a few Disney cast members for their opinion. Some were reluctant to give their views. They mentioned Universal Studios but we didn't really want a theme park, after all we have Disneyland. We were then directed to Guest Relations. There is where we met Kevin. When asked, without any hestitations, he immediately responded, Oh, you have to do Warner Brothers. http://www2.warnerbros.com/vipstudiotour/ When the group got together, we discussed this possibility and decided that's the one we should see. Kevin was very helpful and knowledgeable in not only booking the VIP tour, gave us tips on timing, the appropriate route, information on where to park, costs, etc. He even gave us information on Hollywood and the area for after the tour. As suspected, we received great service from a Disney Cast member.

With maps. brochures and of course cameras, we load into the car and head to Burbank. We continue along and finally make it to Warner Brothers Studios. The VIP tour was booked for 1:00 p.m., we rolled in at 12:30. Plenty of time! :)

We park the car across the street and head over to the studio. After going through security, we enter and pay for our 2 1/2 hour tour.

As we wait for our tour to begin, I start to take pictures. (what a surpise). :)

Here are a few shots of the interior of the visitor section. . .
The appointed time comes ... our guide shows up and takes our little group of ten or so to the golf cart that will be our ride into the magic of movies. But, first we need to lock up nearly all of our belongings in the seat! (can't afford to have too many of their secrets or our extra stuff stolen!). Then, we learn in the first few minutes that nearly all of the production on this lot is now television. At first, that seems a let-down, only because we thought we were touring a movie studio lot, but then she says the shows include Cold Case, Without a Trace, Big Bang Theory (Tom's personal favorite), ER, The Ellen Degeneris Show, The Mentalist, and lots more. In addition, this WAS the home of Friends for all 10 years that it was made.

Off to the "back lot", the outdoor permanent city and town sets. Workmen were changing store front signs to prepare the one street for a "shoot" in a few days. Lysia, our tour guide, drew our attention to the doors on this set. None of them have door knobs (just a lot of holes where they should be) because door knobs are an important part of period setting. So, knobs are attached for each shoot and then removed again. We learn that they hang large green screen tarps over the openings in the set that belie the Warner Bros buildings and water tower nearby. Those green screens then allow the post-production operations to enter city scenes or other logical backgrounds via Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) to complete the picture.

Our guide invites us to walk into one of the oldest buildings to see how beyond the immediate front room, sometimes a "practical" set that can be used for small indoor scenes shot from outside, there's really nothing but 2x4s, rafters, and lights within. (funny, we do the same thing back home for theatre.) Above the rooftops, there are metal railings from which lights are hung depending on the "shoot". The bricks of the buildings are fiberglas sheets, manufactured in their own shops and anything that looks like masonry is just pressed wood with special painting techniques to make a building look older and weathered (Again the same technique is used for theatre work but on a smaller scale). Tom notes many, many lead anchors in the pavements of this area, denoting the many types of street signs, parking meters, and who knows what else that have been mounted on the street since it was built. These are covered during a shoot with perhaps a garbage can, a planter, a car in front of it, whatever to make the scene become believeable. Here is where Lysia also points out the real fire escapes. The story goes that one of the Warner Brothers (there were three) heard that there was a building in New York City that was being demolished. This building had working fire escapes and the Warner Brother bought and them shipped them to CA for their studio.
As the back lot tour continues, we're driven through scenes and our guide points out buildings that were used (and how) for everything from the Spider Man movies to the Dukes of Hazzard TV series ... a very wide array of shows have been produced here over the years. What's weird is the fact that the front may look elegant in a brick facade while the back can look rustic, built with wooden slats. Each side of the house can be used for whatever scene is needed. Nothing goes to waste here.

Yes, we saw the Warner Bros water tower where the Animaniacs were (are?) locked up.

Next on the agenda ... the support shops. We had a brief drive-through of the scenery and set shops where everything from simple signs to fake sculptures to entire rooms and houses are built before moving to a sound stage or back lot. It was also mentioned that this studio works with all of the unions representing various areas of the television / film making industry.

Next came the Sound Stages, 28 in all, and one more on the way. Each has a plaque outside the main door that lists information like when it was build, some statistics, and the major productions that had made use of it over it's lifespan ... interesting stuff. Ellen D takes up 3 of the 28 all by herself: one for the show set, one for her personal use, one for the "green room" and guest hospitality. (wow)

We were escorted into one of the sound stages to find the actual set of The Mentalist, currently in production. Since no one was there, we could walk around on the set, exploring how it really looks and is used to create the two dimensional view we see on television. That was the up side of going to a current show in production. The down side was that because it was a current show, we had to lock up our cameras even before we entered the building. No accidental picture taking from this group. ;)

After we got back to the tram, we were allowed to get our cameras out for two reasons, one, were were allowed to take pictures of the outdoor set from the show of ER What a treat! After you look at these pictures, tell me that you can't imagine of the actors coming out to an ambulance to save a patient.

The second reason were were allowed to have our camera was that after seeing the outdoor porton of the ER set, we went to a musuem of sorts where some of the bigger props, such as cars, were stored from various movies such as Harry Potter, Batman, Scooby Doo and more. We were also able to partake in the magic of CGI. We imagined there was a train (from Harry Potter) and we were on the platform. Of course you didn't see it, it was on the computer. The four of us participated but you couldn't really see Tom or I. We were just about out of view. That's okay because we always said we were the 'behind the scenes' type. You'll have to ask David or Linda to see the picture. They were great!

Here are some pictures from that building...

Afterwards we headed to a Prop Warehouse where we could actually go in and see what's there. We were allowed to take our cameras because in this building, we were taken into a room where they preserved the entire set of Central Perk,the coffee house from Friends. It had been left 'as is' so tours could have a look at an actual set AND take pictures. :0)

One of the last stops made was another musuem filled with costumes from past movies such as Harry Potter, The Last Samurai, the Matrix, Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, etc. Sadley, no photography was permitted.

As we came to the end of the tour, we gathering our cameras, purchased some items and then we loaded back into the car and to head for Hollywood.

Click HERE to view the entire photo album of pictures from this tour.

stay tuned for the tales from Hollywood! :)