Movies Are Touching Grass Again

It’s the summer of ‘25 and the directors are outside

I left Los Angeles and went home for a month in July for a much needed break, taking advantage of the summer movie slump (I did see Superman with my parents which was awesome). The only thing that gave me LA FOMO the entire month was finding out that David Fincher started shooting part of his new project The Adventures of Cliff Booth (the spin-off to Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood) in my neighborhood. He transformed the historic Highland Theater into the New Beverly (which is a real theater that resides in West Hollywood) and the neighboring shops into 70s haunts; boutiques, barbershops and electronic stores. North Figueroa Street was lined with old cars and directors chairs, parking meters dismantled to make room for the gigantic lighting equipment. It’s not a stretch for this production to shoot in an actual neighborhood given Once Upon A Time also took advantage of real Los Angeles venues, but it did give Highland Park residents a pep in our step. TikTok was flooded with videos reveling in the neighborhood going back in time overnight as people camped out to catch a glimpse of Brad Pitt dressed as Cliff Booth.

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

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

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

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

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

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

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.

i did unfortunately fall for this briefly x

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.

x

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.