Filming in Downtown LA

Filming in Downtown Los Angeles

16 BLOCKS

A

Virtually all the photos on this page were taken on Sunday's, as that's the only day I had off. In addition, Saturday's and Sunday's are the only days you will find shooting taking place in Downtown LA (with a few exceptions). I knew this was big, as there were shoots going on all over the central core of Downtown. There were a large number of movie people, and a lot of hardware and movie vans. In this shot, the stuntman on the motorcycle in the center of the photo was doing high speed runs through the center of the smoke in the distance. I recognized this scene when I saw "Transformers" later that year. In the last 10 minutes of the movie, you see Sam (Shia LeBeouf) riding down the street on a motorcycle. He dumps the bike, sliding on his back with a weapon pointed into the air. As he slides under a Decepticon he fires upwards, hitting him and bringing him down. The entire sequence lasts about 5 seconds on the screen.

A

This street scene for "16 Blocks" was filmed outside Casey's Bar on Grand Avenue. In the film, Bruce Willis has to transport a prisoner to court, 16 blocks away from where he's being held. Most of the rest of the film was shot in New York and Ontario Canada. The cars and other vehicles in the photo are part of the scene. There are no drivers - they're all parked.

B

This was shot in the same location as the photo above. As I turned left onto Broadway (note that I'm shooting through the front window of my car, same as most of the other photos on this page) I took this shot. This scene is part of the one above. I remember it in the film, though it passed by in a flash. The black car on the right (in the distance) has just been thrown (or blown in an explosion) and has landed with it's front end pointed towards the brown building in the center of the photo. It's after this that Sam rides the motorcycle and kills the Decepticon.

B

Extras sitting on the steps of the City Hall, waiting for filming to take place. I shot this at the same time that "16 Blocks" filming was taking place, but I'm not absolutely sure this was for "16 Blocks".

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS -- TOKYO DRIFT

C

Signs like this one were positioned in strategic locations around town warning of gunfire and explosions. Driving around, you could hear dull thuds as munitions went off, and the air was filled with light amounts of smoke. Just to point out, blocks and blocks of Broadway turn into an outdoor swap meet on the weekends, and thousands come to walk the streets looking for bargains. Broadway is packed with people on Saturdays and Sundays. Filming and crowds sometimes exist right next to one another, but it doesn't ever seem to be much of a problem. The presence of a handful of rent-a-cops seems to do the trick.

A large number of scenes for Tokyo Drift were filmed in LA. I only saw the film once, but I remember this scene. Several cars are racing and at one point a yellow car crashes into whatever it crashes into (I don't remember exactly). The car flies into the air headed straight for the camera, which is positioned above the crash scene. This all takes place on screen in the blink of an eye. In this photo you can see a yellow car jacked up into the air in the distance. Each time I drove around the block the car was higher and higher. What they were doing was jacking the car up, shooting a frame, jacking it some more, shooting a frame, and so on. Do this 12 times and play it back at 24 frames per second and you have a 1/2 second shot of a car exploding upwards towards the camera. If you look closely at the photo (enlarged), you can see the car has no wheels.

THE ISLAND

A

The island was shot in numerous locations, including Downtown LA. Much of what was shot in LA was CGI'd later (a good portion of it at or near ground level, except for an elevated tram if I remember correctly) to make Los Angeles look futuristic. To do this required shooting ground level scenes against a green screen, with higher elevation scenery remaining as is. During this shooting, green screens were visible in use all around Downtown. This is one of them.

D

Same shot as above, except closer in.

B

This photo shows equipment trucks for "The Island" shoot parked outside the ultra-modern Caltrans Building at 100 S Main, where several scenes were filmed.

E

Swinging back around about an hour later, they've finished with the motorcycle scene and are on to something else. Onlookers seem to have increased in number. The boom camera is mounted to the top of a truck and is remotely operated. They were moving it around, presumably setting up for the next shot. There was definitely some activity taking place in front of the crowd, but I couldn't tell at that time what it was.

F

Closer in, several people were huddled on the ground in front of the crowd and appeared to be planning out the movements for a scene. Or they were just having lunch. Couldn't tell.

C

Scenes from "The Island" were also filmed at the Ambassador Hotel. The streets around the Ambassador were blocked off. Actors, and I suspect even patrons of the hotel itself, had to be escorted to and from that location. This photo shows a limosine arriving with expensive cargo.

G

There was activity all over the core of Downtown. Cars and trucks were strewn on side streets and handlers were busy moving them around. Camera tracks were being set up and dismantled in various locations. In this photo, filming activity was taking place underneath the head of the red and white crane in the distance (above the black car). The cop on the right looked really bored.

D

Blocks away, other shooting was going on. Here they are filming at a local business. Empty driverless cars emulating traffic fill the streets. You don't see it here, but sometimes they'll turn on headlights and put bricks on the brake pedals to make the tail lights illuminate.

500 DAYS OF SUMMER

H

At another location blocks away I came to a stoplight and saw activity in the distance, some 2 blocks ahead. While sitting at the light I took this shot, and then the telephoto shot below. The two cops on the left side kept throwing me glances.

Trucks lined up around the Bradbury Building for filming that's taking place inside. The Bradbury was built in 1893 and is one of the most unique buildings (inside) that you will find anywhere. It's located at Broadway and 3rd, and has been used in numerous films and TV Shows. It's most noted for it's prominence in the film "Blade Runner", with Harrison Ford. Rutger Hower delivered a famous line in the movie (crafted by himself) as the replicant he's playing passes away on the roof. The line was "time ... to die". This building has been in such movies as "The Jury", "Good Neighbor Sam", "Wolf", "Murphy's Law", "Chinatown", "Lethal Weapon 4", "Marlowe", "Avenging Angel", "The Indestructible Man", "The Night Strangler" and "Disclosure". It's been used in TV Series such as "The Outer Limits", "77 Sunset Strip", "Mission Impossible", "Pushing Daisies", "FlashForward", and "Fame". The Bradbury Building sits across the street from The Million Dollar Theater. Look up The Bradbury Building on Google.

UNITED PARCEL SERVICE ADVERTISEMENT (?)

I

This image didn't turn out too bad, considering I'm shooting hand-held through the car's windshield. There's a pile of debris in the road. This would be street damage caused by an explosion, or during a Transformer fight. At the top of the crane is a light, needed to make the smoke show up properly on film. Note that it's getting late and the side streets are getting darker as the sun goes down.

FUN WITH DICK AND JANE

A

I thought this was for a film at first, then realized later it was for a United Parcel Service television commercial. They played with this bus all weekend, but didn't use any of the footage. The final ad showed the UPS Truck (seen in the distance here) following after the bus on which a man was standing. I didn't see the commercial, but several friends did.

A

The names of films seen on temporary film signs are usually the working titles, not the titles that are eventually used. In this case, the title was very similar to the final screen title ("Fun with Dick and Jane"). This film was a big shoot as well. Camera crews were all over town on this particular day. Trucks and equipment were everywhere.

B

Here's a close up of the bus. They've driven it onto a ramp to make it lean to one side. I have no idea what they were aiming for in the ad, but they didn't use this footage in the final cut.

CAR AD ?

B

Jim Carrey drove a small yellow car in the film. On this particular day they were filming the scene were he spins out in an intersection. Here are two spares sitting on a side street just in case they need more. I don't remember a Lincoln Town Car in the film. This one may have been his ride to and from the set (?)

A

I also thought this might be for a movie until I saw the cars had no license plates.

C

Quite a bit of filming took place on 7th Street that day. In this shot they were green screening the outside of a business (note the green signs so CGI artists could later replace the name of the shop). Trucks and equipment were strewn up and down the street.

B

For film shots to look as good as possible, wet downs are employed. The contrast and final look of what's filmed is greatly improved if everything's wet. Water trucks are on-sight for most shoots to take care of this prior to filming. Shots don't look nearly as good when the pavement is dry.

CAR INSURANCE AD (USING 2ND STREET TUNNEL) ?

D

I clearly remember this scene in the film. Carrey is acting his nutty self in a coffee shop. Here, three people sit outside in front of a white screen that not only blocks the inside view, but also filters sunlight entering the shop. They are looking at a monitor, either watching live action inside, or reviewing the scene that's just been shot.

A

I also thought this filming was for a movie, but then decided it was for an ad. One clue was that I was able to get so close to the action, actually being able to drive right through the middle of everything. As I drove by I heard someone telling the guy with the smoke canister to take it easy on the smoke.

E

I took this shot and the one below several weeks after the ones above. I realized later they were part of "Fun with Dick and Jane" when I saw Jim Carrey on a talk show after the film's release. He talked about how after editing they realized the movie wasn't long enough and that they needed extra material. He said they had to man up and go shoot more footage. One of the additional scenes they shot was one in a bank where executives line the stairwells leading up to the employment and interview offices, and Jim has to find a way to get in ahead of all of them.

B

This is a composite shot (a panorama) that I was able to put together from all the shots I snapped as I drove by.

F

On the talk show mentioned above, Jim Carrey told how it took an army of film people and cost millions to shoot additional scenes for the film. These photos show trucks stretched all around the block in front of the US Bank building (the tallest one, circular in shape). It was pretty clear to me this was the shoot Carrey was talking about.

C

The two photos above (A and B) were shot on the street above the 2nd Street Tunnel, which was also closed. I believe the tunnel closure and the filming above were all part of the same shoot. I didn't see the final ad (if it was an ad), so I don't know how the tunnel figured in to all of this. This tunnel has been used in more movies than I can name. It was used in "Blade Runner" and "The Terminator". It's also the tunnel Jasmine (Vivica Fox) jumped into when aliens blew up LA in "Independence Day". The door that she, her kid and the dog used to escape through inside the tunnel entrance is right there in the same location, just inside the tunnel to the left. Note the stainless steel Disney Concert Hall in the upper right-hand corner of this photo.

G

Additional shooting for "Fun with Dick and Jane" took place in other parts of Downtown. This one involved an exceptional amount of hardware and lighting equipment.

D

This is a photo of the 2nd Street Tunnel from the far end of what you see in photo C, above. The tunnel is extensively used in movies and television ads because it's lined with white ceramic tiles that reflect light and make for some cool futuristic-looking shots. It also has some interesting sound properties. On this (west) side, it also has an ultra-modern looking entrance, which has been dressed up (with props and gates) for use in sci-fi films and TV shows, usually as a high tech entrance to whatever they need it for.

H

Here's a close-up of the scene above. The guy doing the filming was up in that crane for some time.

CRANK

E

This photo shows how light reflects on the tunnel walls. The red is from tail lights. The dark patches on the wall are where tiles have fallen off.

LA CENTER STUDIOS

A

I took this photo just a few months before "CRANK" (starring Jason Stratham) was released. "STUN" would have been a good working title for the film. At the time I shot this, there was also filming activity going on in and around the area where the final scenes of the movie took place, including the intersection where Jason Stratham finally lands after his long fall.

A

LA Center Studios sits on the west side of (and just next to) the 110 Freeway, on Bixel, between 3rd and 4th Streets. This used to be Union Oil of California (UNOCAL) Corporate Headquarters, but moved a number of years ago. LA Center Studios now has 6 sound stages on the property, and is basically a movie studio for hire. Other studios outsource work to them because of their sound stage facilities, and because of their close proximity to Downtown LA. Over the past few years, all or parts of various hit movies have been filmed at or by LA Center Studios. These include "Charlie's Angels", several "Terminator" and "Mission Impossible" films, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", and numerous television pilots.

B

I don't know for sure if the filming at this 110 freeway overpass was for "CRANK", but I shot this around the same time as the movie was being shot. This overpass was also used in "Collateral". In that film, Jamie Fox is telling his passenger, Tom Cruise, that he is seriously messed up as he drives across it. He increases his speed as Tom tells him to slow down. Jamie makes a few turns, then crashes the car. The actual crash was filmed about a mile away at Figueroa and 9th Street.

DISNEY CONCERT HALL AD ?

B

On the north side of the LA Center Studios property sit 6 sound stages. In "Terminator 3", three of these were used. One for the scenes of the government facilities where advanced robots were being developed (the automated flying machines and machine gun tanks), and two for 'Crystal Peak' (the main entrance where the Terminator crashes the helicopter and goes after John Conner and campanion, and the other for the command center inside of 'Crystal Peak' itself).

Crews spent all day moving these rather large silver cubes (see center of photo, to the right of the car) around the area in front of the stainless steel Disney Concert Hall. I never saw the ad, if that's what his activity was for.

KIDS ON BIKES ?

C

On the south side of the property is a large parking lot where hundreds of cars and other vehicles used in films used to be parked. There's an effort going on to beautify the area now, with new apartments and condos and a new high school going up in the area, so these vehicles have been moved off-site and the lot is now empty.

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A

I was driving on Los Angeles Street when I saw filming along the sidewalk area. I made several passes throughout the day. A crew was slowly moving all the equipment you see in the photo along the sidewalk, filming these kids on bikes as they rode up the street. It took all day to go about 200 feet. If you look closely under the lamp in the middle of the shot, at street level, you'll see what appears to be a story board. Story boards give Directors and crews an outline of what they are to be filming, and roughly how it should look on film. This was probably a television program, possibly something on cable (?)

B

Turning the corner and shooting back at the group, you can get a better look at camera and the rails it rode on. Rails are used (instead of filming hand-held) to get smooth fluid movement without jitter. It's also a lot easier on the cameraman.

CAR AD (ON 6TH STREET BRIDGE) ?

A

I turned the corner to cross the 6th Street Bridge heading back into Downtown LA and came face to face with this. Traffic was stopped for the shot. I grabbed my camera and took half a dozen photos. This looks like a shoot for a car ad.

B

Compare the movement of the car being filmed to photo A above. The car was weaving back and forth so the camera could catch it at various angles. After they passed us, they pulled over to the curb and we were allowed to cross the bridge.

• All Photos shot using hand-held Sony Cameras

• Photos edited using Adobe Photoshop

• Panoramas assembled using Panorama Studio

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