New entry at Storytellersunplugged -

[anghara]

- you can read it here.

So tell me, Oh LJ Friends, is there a place that YOU would recognise if you saw it as background on a movie screen?...

Comments

[jodi-davis.livejournal.com]

Every Convention Center that is used as an airport, pretty much. Since I spend a lot of time at convention centers.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Lots of places, like North by Northwest and Mt. Rushmore. But more specific places -- settings for a number of the Stephen King films like Night Shift and Pet Semetery, as they were filmed locally.

[charlieallery.livejournal.com]

Heh, been there done that and, yes, it is somewhat disconcerting. The closest I have to a 'home town' is Wells in Somerset, which featured as the backdrop to Hot Fuzz. Most disconcerting to see quite significant movie stars running around places I've known and frequented for the last 35 years. Especially disconcerting when the magic of the movies connects places that you know are on different sides of the city!

And again, when I was watching The Libertine to have that moment of total knowledge as I recognised Wells Cathedral's Chapter House steps and the pattern of wear on the sandstone, which is so distinctive if you've walked up and down them as many times as I have. (The Cathedral Junior school holds its christmas celebration in the chapter house as well as a number of the rehearsals.)

I hadn't recognised the chapter house in the preceeding scene because the octagonal shape and central pillar had been well disguised/cut around and mostly masked by people. The scene was supposed to be London and I would never have anticipated Wells. But those steps cannot be disguised. There was a moment of How can that be Wells? but I knew that it was. And there was a definite feeling of warmth and pride because that was one of *my* places. :)

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

The Libertine is on TV next week. Must watch it.

Wells Cathedral Chapter House steps appeared in the first Robin of Sherwood (circa 1978) as the inside of Nottingham Castle. The courtyard of Norringham Castle is Alnwick Castel, so in the scene Robin (Michael Praed) is escaping from the dungeons for the very first time and he's being chased by Guisbourne and his guards along the curtain wall of Alnwick. Robin runs through a door in a guard tower and - by magic - he's on the chapter house steps at Wells. He runs up the steps, through a heavy wooden door and into Marian's chamber(their first meeting and probably a studio set).

Alnwick was also been used for the Costner Robin Hood and for Harry Potter and many more things. It seems to crop up regularly - as does Wells.

Various parts of Toronto are also really easy to spot in Blood Ties, the telly series from the Tanya Huff books. Of course the CN tower is a dead giveaway. But apparently a lot of films that are supposed to be New York are filmed in Toronto.

[charlieallery.livejournal.com]

He runs up the steps, through a heavy wooden door

The door at the top of the steps leads into the chain gate which crosses the road beside the cathedral. At the far end is the Vicars Hall which is a beautiful wood-panelled hall where the vicars choral used to eat and gather and it connects to Vicars Close. The chain gate was constructed so that the vicars choral would not have to brave the 'ladies of ill-repute' who would hang out nr the entrance to Vicars Close, on their way from the gated close to the cathedral. We used the hall and the chain gate to form up before the celebration and to cross then to the chapter house while the audience came in from the cathedral.

Yes, thanks, I had a great time at that school. *g*

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

You went to Wells Cathedral School? Oooh. I love that place. I was jaw-droppingly gobsmacked the instant I walked into the nave and saw that honking inverted gothic arch. After that I was putty in its hands. (Do Cathedrals have hands?) I have no affinity with the religion whatsoever but the building is just plain breathtaking.

Once when we were on tour we went into the chapter house and there was no one in there so we sang... I can even remember what we sang... it was 'After the Goldrush' in three part harmony.

Orgasmic I tell you...

[charlieallery.livejournal.com]

I have been fortunate enough to sing and play in both the Chapter House and the Nave (both ends). Best memory is probably playing in Carmina Burana on scaffolding at the west end of the nave. My lips were numb and the scaffolding was vibrating. Yes, orgasmic pretty well describes it ... *g*

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Oooh (Green with envy)
:-)

[anghara.livejournal.com]

I sang at a concert at St Asaph Cathedral - but it doesn't compare to Carmina Burana at Wells...

[charlieallery.livejournal.com]

It's a great privilege to have the chamce to perform in any of these great buildings. The surroundings, let alone the acoustics, are half the experience and I treasure those memories greatly. I was very, very lucky. :)

[guinwhyte.livejournal.com]

I haven't lived very many places, so my locales are not as exotic or interesting as yours, but yes. Embarrassingly, Revenge of the Nerds was filmed on my college campus (just a handful of years before I attended), so I can name pretty much every building that they pass. >.< I'm not sure that's a good thing.

I was watching the first episode of In Plain Sight on USA Network. The show is set in Albuquerque. After just a few scenes, I realized that they really filmed in Albuquerque -- I'm not certain what it was that tipped me off, but I was certain the scenery wasn't the outside-of-LA they use for CSI's "desert" scenes, or even low desert like where I live. Maybe it's because I love the place -- ideally, if I were to live anywhere aside from where I am now, it would be Albuquerque. (I'm a desert girl at heart.) The show's kind of so-so but I keep watching for those glimpses. They have found some really neat Southwestern architecture there, and now I want to go back to look for some more of it myself.

[netcrimes.livejournal.com]

I guess anyplace around New England where I live would be #1. And Okinawa, Japan.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I found that post quite beautiful.

I haven't lived in very many places; just here, and sometimes even this is a country I hardly recognise. And yet, I am very much of Ireland, and when bits of Wicklow or Mayo hills come up as background in a film, it makes me intensely homesick. Even though I'm right here, and they're pretty close by.

There are a couple of places I've been that I imprinted on, too - Valletta and Mdina in Malta, the citadel on Gozo with its quiet and golden stone, Pompeii and Vesuvius - and some places I've never been that, nonetheless having read so much about, seen so many images, I feel as though I know: the acropolis at Athens, Delphi, Olympia.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Places I have recognized: Sycamore Gap along Hadrian's Wall (Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves), Richardson, Texas (Primer), the Cliffs of Moher (The Princess Bride).

And, of course, dozens of famous landmarks -- but I'm talking about places I know personally, that are less recognizable. Petra, for example, does not count.

[wrathchylde.livejournal.com]

I love your post. I know exactly what you mean ... what is weird to me is getting a sense of places you have never been. Like, I walked into a Chinese grocery store in Florida, and just the odd smells -not bad, just new- and labels made the Far East very real to me.

Poor example I'm sure. But I really do know what you mean.

[afraclose.livejournal.com]

Tucson, since the place is just so distinctive. On the flipside, it cracks me up when I see a movie that's supposed to take place in Tucson, and there isn't a saguaro cactus in sight.

[guinwhyte.livejournal.com]

Howdy, neighbor! :)

Yes, the lack of saguaros, and making this place look like a rural village, rather than a place where a million people live. (CSI did this in the last year or so -- somewhere I have the screencapped image where some rural looking expanse is labeled "Tucson." I nearly fell off the sofa laughing.)

(ETA: For your entertainment, the picture is here.)

[afraclose.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, that is absolutely hilarious! Even Mammoth is bigger than the dinky little town in that image.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

The part of Ulster County, NY where I grew up.

Various parts of Manhattan, The Bronx, and Brooklyn. And, in Queens, Broad Channel Island -- a bit of rural landscape surrounded by the Jamaica Bay Bird Sanctuary, with an elevated train station. (Of course, a fair amount of stuff filmed in NYC is in alternate worlds where it's much easier to find parking spaces and a car chase can go much faster.)

Some parts of Los Angeles; Little Tokyo would probably be easier than the parts where I've actually lived.

San Francisco.

In the Twin Cities: Minneapolis. The set of streets in the suburbs named after American states in alphabetical order -- including Brunswick, Hampshire, Jersey, and Quebec. Some other parts of the Twin Cities.

Stockholm's subway. The Paris metro. The road to Sarajevo which goes up (not quite straight up) from the coast.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll bite - what's so special about STOCKHOLM'S subway?

(on the other hand, I WOULD recognise London's Tube, down to individual stations, sometimes - I've been through Bakerloo too many times not to know it...)

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

If I'd been more awake, I would have said:

Stockholm contains various islands. The subway keeps going aboveground and then onto bridges across the water, before burrowing down again.

Oh -- Stockholm is where it took me a while to realize that the men who I thought were wearing naval uniforms were police.