@bettygracem#filminglocation #quentintarantino #onceuponatimeinhollywood #filminglocations #losangeles #vintagevibes #1970s #1970saesthetic #highlandpark

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On the other side of town, Christopher Nolan was in the midst of filming a big set piece for The Odyssey, whose production just wrapped after spanning a whopping 6 months and several countries. Nolan took over Falls Lake in Universal Studios, which is essentially a large, artificial body of water “with a dedicated scenic backdrop perfect for lake or ocean scenes” (part of Jaws was filmed here, as well as the swamp sequence in Psycho). Now you may think this isn’t newsworthy, a motion picture being filmed in a studio, but Universal is exceptionally open to the public compared to other major lots. The studio tour tram goes straight through the area where the filming takes place, so much so that my sources (Reddit) told me the tour had to skip the Psycho, War of the Worlds and Nope sections for a few weeks to avoid crashing The Odyssey set. But even more amazingly, you can get a full view of Falls Lake from the top floor of the parking garage, so anyone and their cousin who went to AMC Universal could take a peek at Matt Damon fighting for his life on Odysseus’ ship on their way to get Cinnabon after a movie.

@13degrees.studiosThis is so cool 😭 Credit: @luca_pizzoleo #theodyssey #christophernolan #filmmaking #universalstudios #director #movie #behindthescenes

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If you’re still unimpressed you must remember that nothing was being filmed in LA for the longest time. After COVID, then the writers’ strike, then the increasing cost of filming here with not enough tax incentives (thankfully slightly improved this past June) left entire studio lots empty save for episodes of The Voice for years. Burbank, a city once labeled the “media capital of the world” with its huge soundstages and entire neighborhoods supplementing the movie business has essentially been a ghost town. That huge directors like David Fincher and Christopher Nolan (and TV shows like The Pitt and The Studio) are back filming in Los Angeles signals a big shift in the city’s economics. It means countless jobs restored for people who moved here precisely to do these jobs, from set PAs to carpenters to prop artists. But thats not what I’m here to talk about today.

@lalalalaliquid#spiderman #filming #glasgow #spidermanfilming #viral #superhero #marvel #joke #meme #fyp

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I love that movies are filming in public again. I had no interest in the new Spiderman movie until I saw the bystander footage of Tom Holland swinging on a tank gliding through Glasgow, with people reacting as if theres a real-life superhero in their midst. I love that he was in full costume shaking people’s hands and hugging babies. It feels like such a palate cleanser after years of blockbusters being completely contained to soundstages wherever the cost of filming is the lowest, with world-building being reduced to green screens. Spiderman itself was one of the biggest offenders in this regard with No Way Home sets relying almost exclusively on CGI, and trust me we could tell. That they’re putting our friendly neighborhood Spiderman back outside tells me they finally understand what a difference a real, tangible set makes.

I understand the worry of overexposure due to films being made in broad daylight. I’ve read the articles critical of the influx of paparazzi shots from the set of The Devil Wears Prada sequel - that seeing the outfits ahead of time ruins the movie. I disagree. I do not think this is a real problem. Good costuming is never about the clothes themselves but the part they play in storytelling. If we saw Andy’s cerulean sweater out in the wild through paparazzi pictures, we still wouldn’t have been spoiled on the critical role it had in the first movie. That we already know Anne Hathaway traded in the Chanel boots for Gabriela Hearst mules and Toteme tank tops doesn’t ruin the movie for me in any way - it gives me a hint of a hint about the character that only makes me more excited to see it. In any case, if we need to see actors in costume prematurely in order to have them film in actual New York City locations, I say that’s a trade-off worth making.

Movies are meant to be a part of our world. It means something to the people of Glasgow that they can go to lunch and watch Peter Parker do a backflip on an elaborate crane setup. It’s the highlight of a Highland Park resident’s day if they can say hi to David Fincher on their way to work as he’s discussing the next shot with his DP. I’m not uninformed or naive enough to think this means the rest of these movies will be made on real sets, or that they even need to. But having four huge productions choose to be so intertwined in our day-to-day in the same summer has to count for something.

Maybe I’m moved enough to write about this trend because it feels like the antithesis to emerging AI software attempting to create images out of thin air, locking us completely out of the filmmaking process save for pressing a few buttons. That we’re responding with sets we can touch and movie stars we can mingle with means something. Movies literally exist to tell us stories about the world we live in, so that we can reflect on how we interact with it. It only makes sense that the productions interact with it too.

But I’m here to tell you there’s a bigger enemy we need to be uniting against. Yes, something worse than the guy browsing SSENSE during your screening of Decision To Leave. While that’s a huge and annoying problem, there are at least some ways around it ruining your entire experience (switching seats, holding leg at a specific angle to block the bright phone screen, etc.). What I’m talking about today though has no workaround and is spreading like a virus: Audiences laughing not with but at the movie.

There are different ways to interpret that so let me expand. There are exactly 3.5 reasons to laugh during a movie and 2.5 of them are fine. The other one should be punishable in court. I’ll illustrate:

1. You laugh when something funny is happening on screen

As America’s sweetheart (and Love Island S7 winner come Sunday) Amaya Papaya said, you are allowed to laugh when you think things are funny. This is obviously fine and normal behavior and not the issue at hand.

2. You laugh when a shocking twist or jump cut happens

Laughter is a natural response to shock or fear. I laughed through the majority of the new Final Destination through sheer panic and shock. This is also fine and a fun time at the movies for everyone involved.

2.5 You laugh when a dialogue is absolutely, absurdly terrible

Now this is only half a category because a lot of people confuse bad dialogue with an earnest moment. So here’s a helpful example. In Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker when Poe says: “Somehow, Palpatine returned”, it is okay to laugh (and I bet J.J. Abrams laughed, too). Because that is a line that signals to the audience that the film has given up and laughter is the only appropriate response. So, that should be the baseline for how bad a line has to be to make it appropriate to laugh at.

3. You laugh when there’s an earnest, intimate or uncomfortable moment happening

This is who we’re at war against. I’m immune to a lot of nuisances that may arise in a movie theater solely through exposure therapy, but this will ruin my day in an instant. This is essentially the grown person equivalent to kids laughing when they see two people kiss, but worse. It extends to any moment of intimacy, earnestness or uncomfortable emotion expressed on screen.

The last time I encountered this behavior was at the Pride & Prejudice re-release at an AMC. The laughter started almost immediately from a group to my right, though I first gave them the benefit of the doubt thinking they were just excited the film’s back in theaters. Quickly though it became clear that the only way these people could deal with watching earnest human emotions play out was by giggling through them. Tell me why there was so much snickering when Lizzie was reading Darcy’s letter?

A few months prior to that I saw Trap. Now this is a movie that gets sillier by the minute and surely has a lot of chuckle-worthy moments. But when we start to make fun of every line out of every character’s mouth, what are we even doing here? I’ve heard from so many friends that the beauty of Trap is that it’s smart enough to know it’s silly, yet it was impossible for me to reach that understanding when even the most straightforward scenes played out to a score of mocking laughter.

If you thought this behavior is exclusive to multiplex audiences you’d be wrong, which brings me to my final piece of evidence. If you were at the Mulholland Drive screening at the Egyptian Theater sometime last year, you should be eligible for financial compensation. Now this is in no way an easy movie to “get”, but that’s precisely why you need the silence to slip into the dream-like state required for it. Not according to 1 out of every 5 “cinephile” at this American Cinematheque screening who had a lot to chortle about, apparently.

Meeting uncomfortable moments on screen with ironic laughter to distance yourself from that discomfort is, frankly, loser behavior. You’re deliberately taking yourself out of the moment you paid $18 to sit in, and I find that so performative. What’s worse is that laughter is contagious, so now there’s a bunch of people laughing instead of trying to digest what’s happening on screen, and the whole room’s experience is ruined.

My biggest issue with this entire phenomenon is that it requires effort on the offender’s part. When we laugh at something genuinely funny it’s a reflex, our body reacting before we can even intellectualize it. When we laugh because we decide that something on screen is too sincere, earnest or “pretentious”'; it’s a deliberate decision that says “I think I’m better than this movie”. And isn’t that more pretentious than anything?

What it all comes down to is this: Going to the movies is only meaningful when you commit to being fully present in the theater. The minute you decide to put that cynical distance between you and the film - whether it’s by checking your phone or mocking the film - you’ve already wasted your time and money. Every distraction should be put on hold when you’re in the theater. That’s literally the best part of going to the movies: It’s an escape from the world. It should also be an escape from our tendency to mock anything we can’t consume effortlessly - whether that’s a surrealist piece of dialogue or two people being intimate.

I’ll end on a constructive note - this is another reason why we need theaters to build spaces people can convene in after the movie. Save literally everything for after and laugh all you want over themed cocktails, or spare us all and go back to watching movies at home.