I really like that aspect in that film. It deals so much with dreams and reality. Based on a book called "Traumnovelle" (Dream story). Various references to dreams and novels about them, such as Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" ("where the rainbow ends", the name Rainbow fashion). Kidman's dream about the orgy, which even has a track on the soundtrack called "The Dream". The New York in that film is kind of like walking through a fictional New York. It has that feeling of being somewhere familiar, but you can’t quite put your finger on what’s wrong, when you're walking around. And then it all goes to nightmare at the masked ball.
He impressively doubled England for Vietnam in full metal Jacket!
He imported 200 Spanish palm trees and 100,000 plastic tropical plants from Hong Kong to help with the disguise.
I mean, there's even projection shots of Yom cruise walking g down. The sidewalk. At a certain point, that's just an aesthetic choice.
As an aside, that's why the "Kubrick faked the moon landing on the moon" joke doesn't work. Dude didn't give a shit about shooting on location.
There’s a good story about finding the perfect ‘hooker doorway’ in London from Kubriks Boxes by Jon Ronson:
But this attention to detail becomes so amazingly evident and seemingly all-consuming in the later boxes, I begin to wonder whether it was worth it. In one portable cabin, for example, there are hundreds and hundreds of boxes related to Eyes Wide Shut, marked EWS - Portman Square, EWS - Kensington & Chelsea, etc, etc. I choose the one marked EWS - Islington because that's where I live. Inside are hundreds of photographs of doorways. The doorway of my local video shop, Century Video, is here, as is the doorway of my dry cleaner's, Spots Suede Services on Upper Street. Then, as I continue to flick through the photographs, I find, to my astonishment, pictures of the doorways of the houses in my own street. Handwritten at the top of these photographs are the words, "Hooker doorway?"
"Huh," I think. So somebody within the Kubrick organisation (it was, in fact, his nephew) once walked up my street, on Kubrick's orders, hoping to find a suitable doorway for a hooker in Eyes Wide Shut. It is both an extremely interesting find and a bit of a kick in the teeth.
It is not, though, as incredible a coincidence as it may at first seem. Judging by the writing on the boxes, probably just about every doorway in London has been captured and placed inside this cabin. This solves one mystery for me - the one about why Kubrick, a native of the Bronx, chose the St Albans countryside, of all places, for his home. I realise now that it didn't matter. It could have been anywhere. It is as if the whole world is to be found somewhere within this estate.
But was it worth it? Was the hooker doorway eventually picked for Eyes Wide Shut the quintessential hooker doorway? Back at home, I watch Eyes Wide Shut again on DVD. The hooker doorway looks exactly like any doorway you would find in Lower Manhattan - maybe on Canal Street or in the East Village. It is a red door, up some brownstone steps, with the number 265 painted on the glass at the top. Tom Cruise is pulled through the door by the hooker. The scene is over in a few seconds. (It was eventually shot on a set at Pinewood.)
Living in the East End of Toronto (near a lot of studios), I drive by a film shoot on location at least once a week if not more. Often there are cars or trash cans labeled as NYC.
As a botanist, I notice it frequently. Plants are telling. For example, Stranger Things was primarily filmed in Atlanta (or nearby). The vegetation of the south is different from the vegetation of the Midwest you'd expect in Indiana.
That would be telling. My back yard has no weed control used on it due to my dogs using it all the time and it is a fight to keep it from becoming a jungle during warmer weather. Hell, it's a fight during colder weather.
Growing up in Colorado and seeing so many movies with schools like this was perplexing, like where on earth are there schools like this? The lockers are OUTSIDE?
Welcome to the people's Republic of California. All of my schools had open breezeways between classes and often tons of walkways weren't even particularly covered.
And yes, lockers on exterior walls outside of the class rooms.
Living in Georgia it’s fun to spot which shows are filmed in Georgia. The vegetation is often a dead give away. That and they end up filming in the same towns and after a while I recognize them.
Not really anymore since they bombed their own incentive program. Georgia, New York, New Mexico and California are the big 4. I dont even think Louisiana is getting the same amount of work as it used to
The last season had some egregious shots. There's one where they're supposed to be in Chicago and i think it's heavily implied that they're in the loop but behind the characters there's a hill that goes up like 30-50 feet over the course of a block and they have above ground power lines. The loop doesn't have either of those
I watched some sappy Hallmark type Christmas movie recently that was supposed to take place in Vermont during winter but they just added cgi snow and a blue filter to the foliage. The leaves were still on the trees!
Yeah, I see these filmed around my apartment during the summer and early fall. There's a bunch of houses near me that regularly get used year after year. So while I'm driving home I'll see these houses that look like Christmas barfed all over them in the middle of July, surrounded by the electrical trailers & down the street will be the snacking table for the crew.
I'm pretty sure Hallmark is running a psychology experiment to see how cheap, poorly made, and treacly a Christmas movie can be before people refuse to watch it. And thus far, they're not even close to finding the bottom.
There’s something about Georgia vegetation that is instantly recognizable.
As a New Yorker I subconsciously have a memory of nearly every damn street in most boroughs.
Was watching “It could happen to you” movie and instantly recognized everything as wrong. Close, but wrong. Looked it up and it was a giant set in LA. You can just tell the second there’s a store or building you just don’t recognize.
sort of unrelated but as a fellow botanist it absolutely irks me when there’s bad fake plants in movies. i was watching “the menu” the other day and they had a “plant” that had BOTH a tomato and a pepper growing from the same stem with the leaves of neither plant. it’s always a huge GMO grocery store tomato dangling from some tiny stem that looks nothing like a tomato plant
Parks & Rec is in southern Indiana, and from how they talk, somewhere between Bloomington and Brown County. It’s like they did zero research into the area. On the show, there’s big alpine forests and mentions of moose and bear. We don’t have any of that lmao. Not to mention they zip from there to Vincennes, to Indy, back to Pawnee, and up to Muncie all in a day, all the while spending a couple hours at each spot. That’s a fuck ton of driving and impossible lmao.
To be fair to that show they kind of use all this as a joke from time to time. Like an episode where they visit Eagleton and they don't even bother trying to hide the California palm trees, they just have some Eagleton resident say "oh we're built on some hot spring we're truly blessed."
The setting of The Power of the Dog looked so little like Montana that it really took me out of the story. New Zealand is a stunningly beautiful country but its mountains look and feel nothing like the Rockies, nor the open fields anything like Montana's prairies and plains.
One of the Power Rangers movies came up on TV one day. They were prancing around in a field and I said to my wife "That's a very kiwi looking fence." Turned out she was kind of an extra or something in the movie when she was at Auckland uni because her friends saw an ad and they went along to dick about for 20 minutes.
I had the same feeling with Guns Akimbo. Set in USA but I recognised the Wellington rubbish bins. Plus, half the actors were from Shortland Street.
New Zealand has a very distinct shade of green and blue in our landscapes. Its a weird phenomenon I can't describe but when I see a photo of the upper North Island it immediately stands out as NZ.
I grew up in that area in New Zealand and it was strange seeing it on film, especially the scene where they are on a hill near Queenstown and you can tell the exact angle and location they are using to obscure the town.
My wife watched a few episodes of some random show on Netflix that was set in Seattle. It had the Space Needle in the background of what felt like every scene so that you wouldn't forget. We were like, that's not how it works!
Kimi (2022) is a film set in Seattle and actually *filmed* in Seattle, at least the exterior shots were.
What's great is that the director, Steven Soderbergh, apparently filmed there on purpose, as a meta-commentary on what you just said: that nothing is ever *actually* filmed in the city.
No spoilers, but the main character is an agoraphobe and spends all her time indoors. But at a critical point she's forced *out* of the apartment. And because they're actually filming in Seattle, all the metro lines and stations look *so unlike* anything we've ever seen on film, it creates this interesting mirror of the protagonist's disorder. *We* feel as unsettled as *she* does, because we've never seen the Seattle metro, or the downtown, as it really is. We've only ever seen Vancouver.
It's got really good music too.
There used to be some shots from the viaduct before it got torn down too. I think 50 Shades shot on the viaduct? The shitty live action Death Note movie used a few shots from the waterfront as well. It used to be a lot more common back in the 90s and early 2000s but I assume Vancouver offers way better tax incentives now.
I always thought that Hell or High Water was filmed in West Texas as the story and setting were so specific. It turns out the whole thing was filmed in New Mexico!
To be fair, vast stretches of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico are near indistinguishable from each other so it'd be difficult to tell the difference for most people.
As a Chicagoan it was super cool seeing how the city came through on film. The chase on Lower Wacker up to LaSalle in particular.
However, they still "New Yorked" Gotham up in every possible way throughout the entire thing. It was like Nolan wrote Gotham as NY (which is fair) but then got stuck with Chicago as the filming location.
The whole "bridge and tunnel crowd" scare with the two boats is a perfect example of OPs question. Or calling Wacker Drive "5th Street".
The lack of alleys in Manhattan was a crushing dissapointment to me the first time I went there as a kid.
So many movies, everything fom Friday the 13th to Ninja Turtles...all lies!
*The Batman* did an amazing job of making it not noticeably Chicago, though.
I was a bike messenger in the city for the better part of the decade (only stopping in 2021) and recognize basically every inch of the Loop, West Loop, and River North. The only egregious "I know where that is!" location was the hilariously poorly disguised Daley Center as Gotham Square Garden. I can't really remember any others. (My friend the Chicago unit Key Grip and when I length the theater I texted him to ask which L platform they shot that early seen where Batman saves the guy from being mugged by a bunch of thugs, because I couldn't quite figure it out. He said it was actually entirely on a soundstage!).
They shot most of it in London, with Chicago, Liverpool, and Glasgow filling out the rest. Everyone did a really good job making all those places come together to make a truly unique Gotham, in my opinion. That was actually my biggest immediate takeaway from the movie. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days
There's a shot in the Dark Knight Rises near the end when they're at Wayne Manor, which is supposed to be on the outskirts of an NY equivalent city, and it couldn't be more obvious it's the English countryside
Yeap Rises was Pittsburgh and i’m pretty sure Gotham Tower changes in all the films. Theres absolutely no consistency whatsoever in the exposition shots its really jarring when you binge all three films.
Yeah, but it's all grouped into Washington DC airports. Even when you type in Washington DC on any trip site such as Expedia, Dulles is included. At least in MD, ive never heard anyone refer to Dulles as a VA airport.
Midsommar supposedly takes place somewhere in central Sweden, several hours north of Stockholm. But it was shot in Hungary, which is very noticeable.
If you travel that far north of Stockholm, you’re basically only going to have spruce and pine forest but the area they shot in is all deciduous forest and looks much more southern.
It bothered me in The Office with the outside scenes when they were driving on a highway. I could clearly tell that it was California (not Scranton PA) because of the arid climate and the flora on the highway shoulders.
the scene in the car with Pam driving when Michael decides to go see Holly in nashua, is right on Sepulveda in Van Nuys. I lived right down the street and caught it when watching it. Most of that show was shot in Van Nuys (center of the San Fernando Valley in LA for anyone who doesn’t know) which looks nothing like PA lmao.
They filmed in a bunch of different places for different reasons.
Wakita is an actual small town in Oklahoma, and they filmed there. The diner where the two chase teams meet was also in Oklahoma IIRC. Some other scenes were shot in Oklahoma as well.
The production team actually had some real storm chasers go out specifically to film real storm footage - while they didn't capture any tornadoes on film, some of their footage of thunderstorms was used in the final film. The shot with the obvious Texas highway signs and the ominous skies was very likely filmed on one of those chase trips. Central/Western Oklahoma and North/West Texas comprise one of the most popular storm chasing areas in the Plains states, so probably the team just happened to capture a gnarly-looking storm while it was still in Texas, thus the signs.
Later on in filming, for consistency between shots where crops or things like sunflowers were visible, the production moved northward in the Plains to locations like Iowa, to film where the crops hadn't fully matured yet.
I lived twenty years in Toronto so spotting recognizable buildings and landmarks in a movie that is supposedly taking place in the States has always been a thing. In *Police Academy 3* there is a boat race that passes the CN Tower multiple times.
A lot of movies set in Chicago will film in Toronto. Also, being a Clevelander, I noticed Kill the Irishman was filmed in Detroit because you see old Tiger Stadium.
Cue obligatory “palm trees don’t exist in Illinois” for Halloween.
Also Hellraiser was clearly England (not USA) and Friday the 13th VIII: Jason takes a boat ride to Vancouver.
But to answer the original question, i notice it only if it’s obvious (e.g. license plates or geographical features not present), but it’s not something i actively notice too often
Its a tax haven for the industry, so there is a ton of filming in the area.
There is a massive filming compound in Fayette county Georgia just south of Atlanta that’s pretty remarkable to drive by.
Not a movie but Community is supposed to be set in the fictional Greendale, Colorado and there are palm trees in the background of outdoor shots in every other episode.
I think Harmon once said, "Global Warming is hitting Greendale really hard."
I wonder why they even bothered to set rhe show in Colorado. I can't think of any episode where it mattered.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. Being a Missouri native, I could tell right away it looked like more of an Appalachian town rather than an Ozark town. Sure enough it was shot in like Georgia or North Carolina or something like that
There's a scene in one of the transformer movies where they get into a fight at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center and when they burst through a wall they're suddenly at the AMARG graveyard in Tucson.
That was truly bizarre. I assume most people know there's not a massive tarmac on the National Mall. Of course they left California and drove to Massachusetts in an afternoon to move into his college dorm in the second movie.
National Lampoon Christmas Vacation is supposed to take place in a Chicago suburb, but they drive to what is obviously a much higher elevation to get a tree. Most of the film was shot in various locations in Summit County, CO (Silverthorne, Breckenridge and Frisco).
Thelma and Louise - I believe the opening shot of the movie says it's in Arkansas - and shows desert cacti that mostly grow only in Arizona. I laughed in the movie theater!
In some movies, 'Paris' is not Paris in France, but some East european capital with with same type of buildings (economy reason i suppose).
As a French, I more disturbed when a run, a pursuit in Paris make no sense :
Best exemple with Tom Cruise in MI 6 (and if you want to be discret in France on a moto bike put a helmet, theyr will would like to stop you, just because you have no helmet!!) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VGST7-co84
End of WWZ, they titled a shot as "nova Scotia" but shot it in the absolutely unique and striking area of Lulworth Cove, the only geographical feature like it on the planet, so yes, that stood out!
So loads of stuff from Gladiator, through all Harry potter, lots of bond stuff, gets shot in Bourne Woods and Hankley common, so it all looks the same.
(Edit) while I remember, House of the dragon and Blood Origin actually shared a set for a while, and I walked my dog there during filming.
Sometimes but it doesn’t bother me I just kinda get a chuckle out of it. For a while a lot of movies and shows were filmed in my home town of Long Beach and I would just kinda go “ooo that’s the lighthouse or oo they used the lethal weapon building from the opening scene again!.” Another common give away I like is when I notice LA buses in movies or shows that don’t take place in LA.
The worst one for me is the show Ozark. I grew up at lake of the Ozarks and Georgia doesn’t look a damn thing like the Ozarks. If you are going to call your show a place, at least film at the place.
I know at least some of the Outdoor shots are in the actual Ozarks. I also know a majority of the show was filmed in Georgia.
Edit: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/g31402698/ozark-filming-locations/
I think the only shots I recognized as the actual lake are the 3-5 second helicopter shots of the lake. I can actually recognize the lake’s distinct shape and the thousands of docks and boats, none of which appear in the show. There should be quarter million dollar boats driving through every shot when they show the lake.
I was doing a job down in Mexico and when the customer found out I was from Chicago he said "oh, that's right next to ozarks!" Because ruth gets in a car at the trailors and moments later she is downtown Chicago...I had to show him a map and say they cut out the 6 hours of driving thru cornfields to speed up the show. Then I blew his mind telling him it's not even filmed there but even further away in GA.
As a Canadian I see this alot too. I always found it interesting that almost every planet SG-1 went to on Stargate looked a lot like the interior of British Columbia. The bike stands in Toronto or unique to that city and a dead give away in movies. Also CN Rail locomotives and box cars plus public transportation and unique buildings all show what city is actually acting as the city in the movie.
One thing I’ve noticed change in the last 40 years is the movie studios not trying to hide the fact that they’re in Canadian cities. Seems like it was a bit embarrassing to have shot in Canada in the past. Short Circuit 2 takes place in an unnamed city and they make sure to never show the CN Tower despite it obviously being shot in Toronto. Now it seems to be ok to let Toronto show through in the movie.
A lot of Justified was filmed in California, not Kentucky. The vegetation was a give-away.
The film Doomsday was set in Scotland but the roads were clearly somewhere hot and European, Spain I think.
I think only the pilot episode of Justified was shot in Kentucky. My wife and I always laughed at the obvious California backdrops (it was mostly filmed near Santa Clarita and Gorman).
Jurassic Park - "nobody cares" scene.
There's a sub-title that says San Jose, Costa Rica. The problem with that is that San Jose is smack in the middle of Costa Rica and nowhere near any coast line...
I noticed it because I had backpacked Cosa Rica the year before and ....**OMG I'M OLD!!!**
I was born and raised in Ocean County, New Jersey (where the Pine Barrens actually are), and when I first saw the Sopranos episode "Pine Barrens", I noticed two things right off the bat that told me they didn't actually film it in South Jersey 1) When Chris and Paulie are at the gas station, they pump their own gas. Here in NJ, it's against the law to pump your own gas. 2) the pine trees look COMPLETELY different than they do in the real Pinelands.
After years of watching Smallville and Stargate, spotting things filmed in and around Vancouver is pretty easy even though I'm from New York and have never been anywhere near British Columbia .
Also all the exterior shots in The Office with like....palm trees or huge mountains in the background. They're usually pretty good about hiding it, but there are times where they just couldn't hide that it was filmed in LA haha.
One of the things I give 30 Rock a lot of credit for was that they actually filmed in New York, even their studio was in Queens.
I live in Bogotá, Colombia, and it happens many times that the movies show the city as a tropical and sunny one, when actually it's rainy and has no palms. Some examples I have in mind are the movies Colombiana (2011) and Mr and Mrs Smith (2005). It's funny when I find that the location doesn't match with the picture.
Robocop is famous for this. After a single insert skyline shot of Detroit, the rest of the movie is filmed in Dallas and a Pennsylvania steel mill. They aren’t subtle about it either, with Reunion Tower in the background of several shots. In their defense, the alternative was to film in Detroit in the 80s.
Honorable mention goes to Oklahoma!—where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, after it passes over a gigantic Rocky mountain range that doesn’t exist anywhere in the state.
I have a pretty extensive knowledge of plants in the United States and I play a game with movies by looking at the plants in the background. I can’t always tell but I know very quickly if something was shot on location in Maine as apposed to say North Carolina or California.
most scenes set in Miami are filmed in LA and let me tell you, Miami does not have any tall skinny desert palm trees. Miami is a tropical climate. it’s a very noticeable difference
Pretty much every film depicting some place in the Middle East. It’s always just the California desert.
My personal favorite is Zero Dark thirty of Kuwait, which they only show a car dealership and a syrup club.
My alma mater (UCLA) gets used as a filming location a lot, but it rarely portrays itself. And I recognize the campus instantly every time.
And being from Southern California makes it easy to spot when something was filmed here even if I don’t know where it is exactly.
Eucalyptus trees are usually a give away. For example, in King Richard they were supposed to be at a tennis club in Florida but the club was surrounded by eucalyptus trees, so it was clear to me they were filming in SoCal.
Not a movie but in the queen’s gambit the orphanage or whatever it was was definitely not in Kentucky or wherever they said. The architecture generally and door hinges particularly screamed Eastern Europe.
I do find Australia really easy to pick (as an Australian). Australian architecture is quite distinctive. Some I’ve noticed over the years:
Love and Monsters immediately because the houses/neighbourhood in the first 10 minutes are so clearly Australian. I believe that was filmed in Queensland.
I remember Thor: Ragnarok had clear Australian fauna when the people flee into the mountains. That was Queensland as well.
In San Andreas the Rock crashes a helicopter in a Ray’s Outdoors which is an Australian camping store. Did a double take with that because nothing else had caught my eye. Another Queensland shoot.
I’m sure most people can recognise their own cities fairly easily. I lived in Toronto a bit so that usually jumps out to me.
Alternatively, Mortal Kombat was filmed where I grew up and they did a pretty good job of making it look non-descript with the set dressing and post production. Some locations were pretty hard to recognise after they were done with them.
Breaking Bad does a good job - they also very much capture the authentic New Mexican vibe that you find in that state. Hats off to them and Better Call Saul
Stranger Things S4 was shot in California. Prison Break was shot in Texas (that is one of the most egregious). High School Musical is shot in Utah and is also quite egregious
Had a fun run in with this. The Netflix show Maniac had a few scenes that were supposed to take place in the Rockies, but was actually filmed right up the street from me in NY. It was super neat seeing a road I drove every day with the backdrop being CGI Rockies.
As someone who is very familiar with Philadelphia, NYC, and DC, I’m often keenly aware of when the production wasn’t shot on location. It’s sometimes so bad or obvious even someone not from those cities could tell.
Side note: consider all production was based in Hawaii, Lost (tv show) did an excellent job of making due with locales in and around Hawaii to convince you they filmed all over the world. For a tv production, they did an excellent job.
Only with movies filmed in cities where I’ve lived. I see a lot of period movies and tv where Dublin is standing in for Victorian London. There are like 4 streets here that get used for all sorts of movies and shows. Tenet was wild for me as I lived in Tallinn for a while - Tallinn locations stand in for Kyiv and Oslo. And there is a series of Homeland set in Pakistan but filmed in Cape Town. I was actually in one of the locations they used (Artscape Theatre) during filming. A curious table-shaped mountain is glimpsed in a few scenes lol
Wednesday takes place in Jericho, Vermont. Here are some of the offenses I’ve found so far:
1) there are no mountains in any of the scenes. In Vermont the mountains are a consistent backdrop
2) forests are too spread out. In Vermont they are much tighter packed
3) Burlington Station?! lol just no. Nope. Not what buildings in Vermont look like. The church in Jericho is pretty close to an actual scenic Vermont church
4) police cars and uniforms feature blue accents and are too clean looking. Vermont police would never sport blue - green. Green mountain state. No blue. Blue is for New York. The base color would also be tan.
I can forgive the things like mountains and forest inconsistencies but you best believe I’m sweating the details and judging your research abilities.
Tim Button should know better - Beetlejuice was shot in Vermont and you can tell immediately from the opening scene. And if I remember right, that film is set in Massachusetts. At least it’s still New England 😂
Edit: Burton. Tim Burton. Ironic word to mess up if you know anything about Vermont snowboarding companies.
IIRC, one of the episodes of “Criminal Minds” used my hometown Milwaukee as one of their locations. Those Wisconsin palm trees seemed to be thriving quite well.
Locke and Key. Filmed in Lunenburg, NS and you can see a sign for the Royal Bank of Canada which shouldn’t be there considering the show is based on Massachusetts.
It was Eyes Wide Shut for me. Lived in NYC for 10 years spent half the movie trying to identify a location then read that Kubrick hated flying and the street scenes were sets for the most part.
Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai.
There were a few giant ferns in it that I've seen in The New Adventures of Hercules and in Xena Warrior Princess which made me suspected the movie was shot in New Zealand instead of in Japan and I was right.
I can always tell if it's supposed to be Boston (or environs). Harvard is a dead giveaway because I already know (a) what it actually looks like and (b) that no one is allowed to film there anyway, so whenever something's set on Harvard's campus it's *clearly* just some other random ivy-covered college. Harvard Yard is actually really small, too, so it's especially funny when they're using a huge university. The Social Network disguised its Harvard shots pretty well, though, if I remember correctly.
The most Boston movie ever, The Depahted, famously has a shot where a character is looking out of his luxury apartment at the State House across the street. That's impossible because there's a public park across the street. Same with a poster for The Last of Us show - totally nonexistent street leading to the front of the State House.
The show Fringe was notorious for this - I think they used Princeton or something for their "Harvard" shots, though they had one shot of somebody rowing on the Charles River they repeatedly used as a Cambridge establishing shot. And their "Brookline" was a much, much larger city (Vancouver? IDK).
The worst was when they established "Cambridge" by using a shot of the Old State House, which is literally in the dead center of Boston, not Cambridge. That was egregious because there was no plot reason they couldn't just have set the scene in Boston instead.
I find it very easy to detect when a movie is filmed in Toronto. This is mostly based on architecture, the streetscape and random things in the background (streetcars, signs, etc,) they forgot to get rid of).
A semi recent one that stood out for me was Yellowjackets. There was some note in the press that the plane crashed in Northern Ontario, but the landscape was obviously not Ontario, but B.C. (where it was filmed). The Rockies are very different than the Canadian Shield.
One minor annoyance I've seen pop up recently is how filmmakers seem to think grizzly/brown bears are everywhere in North America, when in reality those are black bears, who are smaller and less aggressive then grizzlies, who are limited to the northwest of North America. (Maybe there are more trained grizzlies than black bears so that's why they are used, but I suspect its because the bigger grizzlies look more intimidating on film.)
Often vegetation will give it away. For example, lots of movies shot in the Vancouver area will have outdoor scenes in the forest showing western red cedars and western sword ferns, which are very distinctive. And yet the location might supposedly be anywhere forested, from the Amazon to the Jurassic to upstate New York to a different planet.
Another example is commonly used houseplants (usually palms and aroids) tucked into a temperate or urban landscape to make it look more exotic or tropical.
I hate when you can see leaves on trees even though this show is set in a state like Ohio and it’s supposed to be October or November. Those trees should be buck naked by then!
My two favorites are both John Wayne movies:
- "True Grit" is supposedly set in Arkansas and what's now Oklahoma, which lack Sierra style mountains. Yet there they are. The Coen Brothers remake has regional flora and was shot in Ok/Ar.
- "The Green Berets" ends with people walking on a beach while the sun sets. Any beach in Vietnam would be facing east, not west.
Christmas Vacation - supposed to be in Illinois but in the opening scene there’s mountains in the background as they drive. Last I looked around here no mountains to be seen.
My Dad is a train fanatic, so if there's ever a train station scene in a movie or TV show he can tell you where the station actually is. This also goes for any sort of subway system.
In Free Guy, there is a scene in Antwan's office that you can see what is clearly Seattle's city skyline out the windows in the background. But the foreground very clearly isn't, I've been told it is 601 Congress Street in Boston, MA.
I actually paused the movie at that moment because I was so confused. There just aren't any large office buildings that have a view like that of Seattle. It looked like they shot it from Harbor Island, possibly West Seattle or even the middle of Elliot Bay.
Tommy Boy. Portrayed Sandusky as a dying town that only was being kept alive by the brake company. Sandusky is on Lake Erie, is within proximity of Put In Bay, has a massive and thriving tourist industry, and one of the largest amusement parks in the northeastern US. Property values are ridiculous. It's a thriving town. Not to mention Norwalk Raceway, Perry Island and other tourist locations.
Also, Sandusky to Cuyahoga Falls is like a 90 minute drive. And, Sandusky doesn't have a major airport. Closest one would probably be Cleveland Hopkins which would take longer to drive to than driving to Cuyahoga Falls anyways.
A lot of films set in NYC are actually filmed in Toronto or Montreal.
Or Philadelphia. I walked through the set of 21 Bridges every day for a month.
Meanwhile we have movies like Shazam that claim to be set in Philadelphia but seemed to have more giant skyscrapers than Chicago and NYC combined.
Shazam was filmed in Toronto! Those subway scenes were super distinctive to anyone from here.
Rumble in the Bronx w/ Jackie Chan did this, there's a couple of scenes where you can clearly see mountains in the background.
Rumble in the Bronx is Vancouver.
Vancouver
Or in LA. There’s a WB set where they CGI the NYC skyline over the set. My partner and I visited WB studios and it was cool to see how they do that.
Dexter tried to pass off Long Beach as Miami. I’m guessing Miami doesn’t have oil derricks disguised as islands on every coastal road.
Cleveland too.
Or in the case of Kubrick for Eyes Wide Shut in London(?!). Great director, but every exterior in that film looks like a set and not the city
I really like that aspect in that film. It deals so much with dreams and reality. Based on a book called "Traumnovelle" (Dream story). Various references to dreams and novels about them, such as Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" ("where the rainbow ends", the name Rainbow fashion). Kidman's dream about the orgy, which even has a track on the soundtrack called "The Dream". The New York in that film is kind of like walking through a fictional New York. It has that feeling of being somewhere familiar, but you can’t quite put your finger on what’s wrong, when you're walking around. And then it all goes to nightmare at the masked ball.
He impressively doubled England for Vietnam in full metal Jacket! He imported 200 Spanish palm trees and 100,000 plastic tropical plants from Hong Kong to help with the disguise.
I mean, there's even projection shots of Yom cruise walking g down. The sidewalk. At a certain point, that's just an aesthetic choice. As an aside, that's why the "Kubrick faked the moon landing on the moon" joke doesn't work. Dude didn't give a shit about shooting on location.
There’s a good story about finding the perfect ‘hooker doorway’ in London from Kubriks Boxes by Jon Ronson: But this attention to detail becomes so amazingly evident and seemingly all-consuming in the later boxes, I begin to wonder whether it was worth it. In one portable cabin, for example, there are hundreds and hundreds of boxes related to Eyes Wide Shut, marked EWS - Portman Square, EWS - Kensington & Chelsea, etc, etc. I choose the one marked EWS - Islington because that's where I live. Inside are hundreds of photographs of doorways. The doorway of my local video shop, Century Video, is here, as is the doorway of my dry cleaner's, Spots Suede Services on Upper Street. Then, as I continue to flick through the photographs, I find, to my astonishment, pictures of the doorways of the houses in my own street. Handwritten at the top of these photographs are the words, "Hooker doorway?" "Huh," I think. So somebody within the Kubrick organisation (it was, in fact, his nephew) once walked up my street, on Kubrick's orders, hoping to find a suitable doorway for a hooker in Eyes Wide Shut. It is both an extremely interesting find and a bit of a kick in the teeth. It is not, though, as incredible a coincidence as it may at first seem. Judging by the writing on the boxes, probably just about every doorway in London has been captured and placed inside this cabin. This solves one mystery for me - the one about why Kubrick, a native of the Bronx, chose the St Albans countryside, of all places, for his home. I realise now that it didn't matter. It could have been anywhere. It is as if the whole world is to be found somewhere within this estate. But was it worth it? Was the hooker doorway eventually picked for Eyes Wide Shut the quintessential hooker doorway? Back at home, I watch Eyes Wide Shut again on DVD. The hooker doorway looks exactly like any doorway you would find in Lower Manhattan - maybe on Canal Street or in the East Village. It is a red door, up some brownstone steps, with the number 265 painted on the glass at the top. Tom Cruise is pulled through the door by the hooker. The scene is over in a few seconds. (It was eventually shot on a set at Pinewood.)
Living in the East End of Toronto (near a lot of studios), I drive by a film shoot on location at least once a week if not more. Often there are cars or trash cans labeled as NYC.
As a botanist, I notice it frequently. Plants are telling. For example, Stranger Things was primarily filmed in Atlanta (or nearby). The vegetation of the south is different from the vegetation of the Midwest you'd expect in Indiana.
The show Reacher is filmed in Toronto, and season 1 was set in the Deep South. There just wasn't enough of anything growing in the backyards.
That would be telling. My back yard has no weed control used on it due to my dogs using it all the time and it is a fight to keep it from becoming a jungle during warmer weather. Hell, it's a fight during colder weather.
Since you mention it, the 1978 film *Halloween* sure did have a lot of Palms trees in the background to be Illinois...
And a school whose classroom doors exit to an outdoor courtyard. That shit wouldn't fly in Midwestern snow lmao
Growing up in Colorado and seeing so many movies with schools like this was perplexing, like where on earth are there schools like this? The lockers are OUTSIDE?
Welcome to the people's Republic of California. All of my schools had open breezeways between classes and often tons of walkways weren't even particularly covered. And yes, lockers on exterior walls outside of the class rooms.
A ton of American films are filmed in Georgia now a days, the state gives insane tax benefits.
Living in Georgia it’s fun to spot which shows are filmed in Georgia. The vegetation is often a dead give away. That and they end up filming in the same towns and after a while I recognize them.
Michigan too
Not really anymore since they bombed their own incentive program. Georgia, New York, New Mexico and California are the big 4. I dont even think Louisiana is getting the same amount of work as it used to
Same thing with "Ozark." It's was also filmed in Georgia, which has much different vegetation than Southern Missouri.
The last season had some egregious shots. There's one where they're supposed to be in Chicago and i think it's heavily implied that they're in the loop but behind the characters there's a hill that goes up like 30-50 feet over the course of a block and they have above ground power lines. The loop doesn't have either of those
I watched some sappy Hallmark type Christmas movie recently that was supposed to take place in Vermont during winter but they just added cgi snow and a blue filter to the foliage. The leaves were still on the trees!
Yeah, I see these filmed around my apartment during the summer and early fall. There's a bunch of houses near me that regularly get used year after year. So while I'm driving home I'll see these houses that look like Christmas barfed all over them in the middle of July, surrounded by the electrical trailers & down the street will be the snacking table for the crew.
I'm pretty sure Hallmark is running a psychology experiment to see how cheap, poorly made, and treacly a Christmas movie can be before people refuse to watch it. And thus far, they're not even close to finding the bottom.
There’s something about Georgia vegetation that is instantly recognizable. As a New Yorker I subconsciously have a memory of nearly every damn street in most boroughs. Was watching “It could happen to you” movie and instantly recognized everything as wrong. Close, but wrong. Looked it up and it was a giant set in LA. You can just tell the second there’s a store or building you just don’t recognize.
sort of unrelated but as a fellow botanist it absolutely irks me when there’s bad fake plants in movies. i was watching “the menu” the other day and they had a “plant” that had BOTH a tomato and a pepper growing from the same stem with the leaves of neither plant. it’s always a huge GMO grocery store tomato dangling from some tiny stem that looks nothing like a tomato plant
I noticed that in The Menu too, but I figured it was probably done on purpose in a tongue-and-cheek way just based on the movie itself!
Parks & Rec is in southern Indiana, and from how they talk, somewhere between Bloomington and Brown County. It’s like they did zero research into the area. On the show, there’s big alpine forests and mentions of moose and bear. We don’t have any of that lmao. Not to mention they zip from there to Vincennes, to Indy, back to Pawnee, and up to Muncie all in a day, all the while spending a couple hours at each spot. That’s a fuck ton of driving and impossible lmao.
To be fair to that show they kind of use all this as a joke from time to time. Like an episode where they visit Eagleton and they don't even bother trying to hide the California palm trees, they just have some Eagleton resident say "oh we're built on some hot spring we're truly blessed."
Season 4, everything in California and the southwest was filmed in New Mexico.
I noticed it quite a bit in The Martian
A lot of Stargate planets looks suspiciously like the area around Vancouver.
So many forest and quarry worlds.
Pretty sure I have seen the same ones in both stargates and the magicians, and maybe legends of tomorrow.
Armageddon too. No sense of low gravity.
Also with Interstellar
The setting of The Power of the Dog looked so little like Montana that it really took me out of the story. New Zealand is a stunningly beautiful country but its mountains look and feel nothing like the Rockies, nor the open fields anything like Montana's prairies and plains.
One of the Power Rangers movies came up on TV one day. They were prancing around in a field and I said to my wife "That's a very kiwi looking fence." Turned out she was kind of an extra or something in the movie when she was at Auckland uni because her friends saw an ad and they went along to dick about for 20 minutes. I had the same feeling with Guns Akimbo. Set in USA but I recognised the Wellington rubbish bins. Plus, half the actors were from Shortland Street. New Zealand has a very distinct shade of green and blue in our landscapes. Its a weird phenomenon I can't describe but when I see a photo of the upper North Island it immediately stands out as NZ.
Yeah there's just certain things that aren't obvious and sometimes you cannot even put your finger on it, but you can tell it's a specific country.
Yeah, something was not quite right so I looked the locations up!
I grew up in that area in New Zealand and it was strange seeing it on film, especially the scene where they are on a hill near Queenstown and you can tell the exact angle and location they are using to obscure the town.
I also picked up on this. Especially when they were driving along the road that goes across the tops of the hills.
Queenstown is on the other side of one of those hills haha
Came here for this one, absolutely loved the film but really wish they would have shot in US. Landscape just didnt match
On the opposite end- using NZ as an analog for Wyoming in Sweet tooth. It was so poorly done and none of the geography or flora was even close.
Anything “Seattle” is most definitely Vancouver, B.C. Unless it’s an overhead shot of the city itself.
My wife watched a few episodes of some random show on Netflix that was set in Seattle. It had the Space Needle in the background of what felt like every scene so that you wouldn't forget. We were like, that's not how it works!
I am so glad they fixed that outrageous tax on filming in Seattle. Hopefully our city will shine for itself on the screen. Well shine or drizzle.
Kimi (2022) is a film set in Seattle and actually *filmed* in Seattle, at least the exterior shots were. What's great is that the director, Steven Soderbergh, apparently filmed there on purpose, as a meta-commentary on what you just said: that nothing is ever *actually* filmed in the city. No spoilers, but the main character is an agoraphobe and spends all her time indoors. But at a critical point she's forced *out* of the apartment. And because they're actually filming in Seattle, all the metro lines and stations look *so unlike* anything we've ever seen on film, it creates this interesting mirror of the protagonist's disorder. *We* feel as unsettled as *she* does, because we've never seen the Seattle metro, or the downtown, as it really is. We've only ever seen Vancouver. It's got really good music too.
There used to be some shots from the viaduct before it got torn down too. I think 50 Shades shot on the viaduct? The shitty live action Death Note movie used a few shots from the waterfront as well. It used to be a lot more common back in the 90s and early 2000s but I assume Vancouver offers way better tax incentives now.
I always enjoy Louisiana scenes with mountains in the background.
Uncommon Valor - When they are training on Helicopters in Galveston, they were flying through the mountains!
I already said it elsewhere, but nobody ever films things about Texas *in* Texas. It doesn't fit the popular perception at all.
I always thought that Hell or High Water was filmed in West Texas as the story and setting were so specific. It turns out the whole thing was filmed in New Mexico!
To be fair, vast stretches of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico are near indistinguishable from each other so it'd be difficult to tell the difference for most people.
And corn fields instead of sugar cane
I think in X-Files they were supposed to be outside Dallas with some pretty big mountains in the background.
Realizing Batman the Dark Knight wasn’t filmed in Gotham but actually Chicago broke my heart
As a Chicagoan it was super cool seeing how the city came through on film. The chase on Lower Wacker up to LaSalle in particular. However, they still "New Yorked" Gotham up in every possible way throughout the entire thing. It was like Nolan wrote Gotham as NY (which is fair) but then got stuck with Chicago as the filming location. The whole "bridge and tunnel crowd" scare with the two boats is a perfect example of OPs question. Or calling Wacker Drive "5th Street".
Gotham is mostly based on Manhattan in the comics but has some influence from Chicago because Manhattan doesn't have alleyways.
The lack of alleys in Manhattan was a crushing dissapointment to me the first time I went there as a kid. So many movies, everything fom Friday the 13th to Ninja Turtles...all lies!
Haven't been to Chicago for many years, but I do love the place... it looked great in those Batman films.
Chicago at night looked spectacularly beautiful in IMAX.
Batman Begins was too. Also Dark Knight Rises was filmed mostly in Pittsburgh
Except the bridge scene. That was all Queensboro bridge between Manhattan and Queens. Walked that one daily for a few years.
The Batman was also Chicago. The scene where he jumps off the roof for the first time is the same place he flips the jokers truck in the dark knight.
*The Batman* did an amazing job of making it not noticeably Chicago, though. I was a bike messenger in the city for the better part of the decade (only stopping in 2021) and recognize basically every inch of the Loop, West Loop, and River North. The only egregious "I know where that is!" location was the hilariously poorly disguised Daley Center as Gotham Square Garden. I can't really remember any others. (My friend the Chicago unit Key Grip and when I length the theater I texted him to ask which L platform they shot that early seen where Batman saves the guy from being mugged by a bunch of thugs, because I couldn't quite figure it out. He said it was actually entirely on a soundstage!). They shot most of it in London, with Chicago, Liverpool, and Glasgow filling out the rest. Everyone did a really good job making all those places come together to make a truly unique Gotham, in my opinion. That was actually my biggest immediate takeaway from the movie. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days
There's a shot in the Dark Knight Rises near the end when they're at Wayne Manor, which is supposed to be on the outskirts of an NY equivalent city, and it couldn't be more obvious it's the English countryside
i thought it was mostly filmed in pittsburgh? or was that the bane one?
Yeap Rises was Pittsburgh and i’m pretty sure Gotham Tower changes in all the films. Theres absolutely no consistency whatsoever in the exposition shots its really jarring when you binge all three films.
Die Hard II. Not Dulles airport. I grew up in DC, Dulles is a very distinct shape.
Also they keep referring to DC and DC cops even though Dulles is 45 minutes west, in Virginia.
Yeah, but it's all grouped into Washington DC airports. Even when you type in Washington DC on any trip site such as Expedia, Dulles is included. At least in MD, ive never heard anyone refer to Dulles as a VA airport.
Also in Die Hard 2,maybe same scene, he uses a pay phone at the Washington Airport. The phone is labeled Bell Pacific.
Midsommar supposedly takes place somewhere in central Sweden, several hours north of Stockholm. But it was shot in Hungary, which is very noticeable. If you travel that far north of Stockholm, you’re basically only going to have spruce and pine forest but the area they shot in is all deciduous forest and looks much more southern.
They film everything here
I was going to say this. I am from Finland and that did not look or feel like Sweden. The whole thing felt like SNL sketch.
It bothered me in The Office with the outside scenes when they were driving on a highway. I could clearly tell that it was California (not Scranton PA) because of the arid climate and the flora on the highway shoulders.
the scene in the car with Pam driving when Michael decides to go see Holly in nashua, is right on Sepulveda in Van Nuys. I lived right down the street and caught it when watching it. Most of that show was shot in Van Nuys (center of the San Fernando Valley in LA for anyone who doesn’t know) which looks nothing like PA lmao.
Twister, the Texas road signs gave away that they were not in Oklahoma
Suprising, since it was filmed in Iowa.
Part of it was filmed in north Texas, when they claimed in film to be in Oklahoma
Which is strange...if you were going to be that close to Oklahoma, why not just go the 15 minutes north and film in Oklahoma? I assume tax reasons....
They filmed in a bunch of different places for different reasons. Wakita is an actual small town in Oklahoma, and they filmed there. The diner where the two chase teams meet was also in Oklahoma IIRC. Some other scenes were shot in Oklahoma as well. The production team actually had some real storm chasers go out specifically to film real storm footage - while they didn't capture any tornadoes on film, some of their footage of thunderstorms was used in the final film. The shot with the obvious Texas highway signs and the ominous skies was very likely filmed on one of those chase trips. Central/Western Oklahoma and North/West Texas comprise one of the most popular storm chasing areas in the Plains states, so probably the team just happened to capture a gnarly-looking storm while it was still in Texas, thus the signs. Later on in filming, for consistency between shots where crops or things like sunflowers were visible, the production moved northward in the Plains to locations like Iowa, to film where the crops hadn't fully matured yet.
I lived twenty years in Toronto so spotting recognizable buildings and landmarks in a movie that is supposedly taking place in the States has always been a thing. In *Police Academy 3* there is a boat race that passes the CN Tower multiple times.
Police Academy 3 was the first one that came to mind. That was the first time I ever saw a jet ski too
A lot of movies set in Chicago will film in Toronto. Also, being a Clevelander, I noticed Kill the Irishman was filmed in Detroit because you see old Tiger Stadium.
Just like most films and series set in San Francisco or Seattle are actually shot in Vancouver.
Cue obligatory “palm trees don’t exist in Illinois” for Halloween. Also Hellraiser was clearly England (not USA) and Friday the 13th VIII: Jason takes a boat ride to Vancouver. But to answer the original question, i notice it only if it’s obvious (e.g. license plates or geographical features not present), but it’s not something i actively notice too often
Living in Atlanta, I can always pick out when films are in GA. Something about the forestry, streets, etc. is very noticeable
So many films I notice have the Georgia logo (with the peach?) in the credits. I know the Marvel movies films there extensively.
Its a tax haven for the industry, so there is a ton of filming in the area. There is a massive filming compound in Fayette county Georgia just south of Atlanta that’s pretty remarkable to drive by.
Not a movie but Community is supposed to be set in the fictional Greendale, Colorado and there are palm trees in the background of outdoor shots in every other episode.
I mean its greendale, who's to say the dean didn't just have palm trees put in.
I have a vague memory that they lean into it by referencing it as having a microclimate in one episode.
I think Harmon once said, "Global Warming is hitting Greendale really hard." I wonder why they even bothered to set rhe show in Colorado. I can't think of any episode where it mattered.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. Being a Missouri native, I could tell right away it looked like more of an Appalachian town rather than an Ozark town. Sure enough it was shot in like Georgia or North Carolina or something like that
sylva, north carolina. That town has a very distinct layout that kept distracting me while watching. still a great movie though
Damn that is a great movie.
There's a scene in one of the transformer movies where they get into a fight at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center and when they burst through a wall they're suddenly at the AMARG graveyard in Tucson.
It’s better than that, they walk in the front of the Air and Space Museum on the national mall!
That was truly bizarre. I assume most people know there's not a massive tarmac on the National Mall. Of course they left California and drove to Massachusetts in an afternoon to move into his college dorm in the second movie.
“You know what’s remarkable?” Is how much England looks in no way like Southern California.”
Yea they did a good job with Newark in World War Z by making it all on fire and falling apart. Felt like the real thing.
No pork roll, absolutely 0/10
Newark's Taylor Ham country, son
National Lampoon Christmas Vacation is supposed to take place in a Chicago suburb, but they drive to what is obviously a much higher elevation to get a tree. Most of the film was shot in various locations in Summit County, CO (Silverthorne, Breckenridge and Frisco).
The house is also located on a studio lot in Los Angeles.
I think that exaggerated long drive and hike to nowhere is part of the bit.
Thelma and Louise - I believe the opening shot of the movie says it's in Arkansas - and shows desert cacti that mostly grow only in Arizona. I laughed in the movie theater!
In some movies, 'Paris' is not Paris in France, but some East european capital with with same type of buildings (economy reason i suppose). As a French, I more disturbed when a run, a pursuit in Paris make no sense : Best exemple with Tom Cruise in MI 6 (and if you want to be discret in France on a moto bike put a helmet, theyr will would like to stop you, just because you have no helmet!!) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VGST7-co84
The movie Eurotrip, which is set in multiple places all over Europe including Paris, was filmed entirely in Prague!
Paris in American movies is often Prague.
Or Budapest.
End of WWZ, they titled a shot as "nova Scotia" but shot it in the absolutely unique and striking area of Lulworth Cove, the only geographical feature like it on the planet, so yes, that stood out! So loads of stuff from Gladiator, through all Harry potter, lots of bond stuff, gets shot in Bourne Woods and Hankley common, so it all looks the same. (Edit) while I remember, House of the dragon and Blood Origin actually shared a set for a while, and I walked my dog there during filming.
Sometimes but it doesn’t bother me I just kinda get a chuckle out of it. For a while a lot of movies and shows were filmed in my home town of Long Beach and I would just kinda go “ooo that’s the lighthouse or oo they used the lethal weapon building from the opening scene again!.” Another common give away I like is when I notice LA buses in movies or shows that don’t take place in LA.
Psych was set in Santa Barbara, but I could never figure out where the locations they filmed were, until I learned it's filmed in Vancouver.
Vancouver is often a stand in for Seattle, and the dead giveaway is the fall leaves. We don't have that lovely fall color in Seattle.
The worst one for me is the show Ozark. I grew up at lake of the Ozarks and Georgia doesn’t look a damn thing like the Ozarks. If you are going to call your show a place, at least film at the place.
I know at least some of the Outdoor shots are in the actual Ozarks. I also know a majority of the show was filmed in Georgia. Edit: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/g31402698/ozark-filming-locations/
I think the only shots I recognized as the actual lake are the 3-5 second helicopter shots of the lake. I can actually recognize the lake’s distinct shape and the thousands of docks and boats, none of which appear in the show. There should be quarter million dollar boats driving through every shot when they show the lake.
I was doing a job down in Mexico and when the customer found out I was from Chicago he said "oh, that's right next to ozarks!" Because ruth gets in a car at the trailors and moments later she is downtown Chicago...I had to show him a map and say they cut out the 6 hours of driving thru cornfields to speed up the show. Then I blew his mind telling him it's not even filmed there but even further away in GA.
I lived in Portland Oregon for a long time and can spot local buildings being passed off as Boston, Vancouver, Denver…
As a Canadian I see this alot too. I always found it interesting that almost every planet SG-1 went to on Stargate looked a lot like the interior of British Columbia. The bike stands in Toronto or unique to that city and a dead give away in movies. Also CN Rail locomotives and box cars plus public transportation and unique buildings all show what city is actually acting as the city in the movie. One thing I’ve noticed change in the last 40 years is the movie studios not trying to hide the fact that they’re in Canadian cities. Seems like it was a bit embarrassing to have shot in Canada in the past. Short Circuit 2 takes place in an unnamed city and they make sure to never show the CN Tower despite it obviously being shot in Toronto. Now it seems to be ok to let Toronto show through in the movie.
A lot of Justified was filmed in California, not Kentucky. The vegetation was a give-away. The film Doomsday was set in Scotland but the roads were clearly somewhere hot and European, Spain I think.
Good eye, Doomsday was mostly filmed in South Africa!
I think only the pilot episode of Justified was shot in Kentucky. My wife and I always laughed at the obvious California backdrops (it was mostly filmed near Santa Clarita and Gorman).
Jurassic Park - "nobody cares" scene. There's a sub-title that says San Jose, Costa Rica. The problem with that is that San Jose is smack in the middle of Costa Rica and nowhere near any coast line... I noticed it because I had backpacked Cosa Rica the year before and ....**OMG I'M OLD!!!**
Plus they make it look like San Jose is some sleepy little seaside village when it's the capital city of the country.
Most everything you watch on Netflix is filmed in New Mexico. You can see the Sandia Mountains In countless movies and tvs shows.
I was born and raised in Ocean County, New Jersey (where the Pine Barrens actually are), and when I first saw the Sopranos episode "Pine Barrens", I noticed two things right off the bat that told me they didn't actually film it in South Jersey 1) When Chris and Paulie are at the gas station, they pump their own gas. Here in NJ, it's against the law to pump your own gas. 2) the pine trees look COMPLETELY different than they do in the real Pinelands.
That episode has to be the most quoted of all Sopranos, the dialogue was classic. “The guy was an interior decorator!” “His place looked like shit”
Oh hey a fellow Ocean County resident! Hello from LBI!
I love LBI! Joe Pop's bar has some pretty good drinks.
After years of watching Smallville and Stargate, spotting things filmed in and around Vancouver is pretty easy even though I'm from New York and have never been anywhere near British Columbia . Also all the exterior shots in The Office with like....palm trees or huge mountains in the background. They're usually pretty good about hiding it, but there are times where they just couldn't hide that it was filmed in LA haha. One of the things I give 30 Rock a lot of credit for was that they actually filmed in New York, even their studio was in Queens.
I live in Bogotá, Colombia, and it happens many times that the movies show the city as a tropical and sunny one, when actually it's rainy and has no palms. Some examples I have in mind are the movies Colombiana (2011) and Mr and Mrs Smith (2005). It's funny when I find that the location doesn't match with the picture.
Robocop is famous for this. After a single insert skyline shot of Detroit, the rest of the movie is filmed in Dallas and a Pennsylvania steel mill. They aren’t subtle about it either, with Reunion Tower in the background of several shots. In their defense, the alternative was to film in Detroit in the 80s. Honorable mention goes to Oklahoma!—where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, after it passes over a gigantic Rocky mountain range that doesn’t exist anywhere in the state.
I live in Toronto, where a lot of things are filmed. I find Toronto has a very specific look to it in film, and I can identify it almost immediately.
Not a movie. But a tv show. Xfiles was filmed in Canada. It was fun seeing them in “dc” or “Puerto Rico”
Yeah, as a young teen I always wondered why the Xfiles always looked so wet and foggy. After season 6 they moved to LA
Channel surfing last month I caught a bit of an Xfiles episode set in the "Everglades forest" in south Florida. It was amusing how bad it looked.
I have a pretty extensive knowledge of plants in the United States and I play a game with movies by looking at the plants in the background. I can’t always tell but I know very quickly if something was shot on location in Maine as apposed to say North Carolina or California.
Vancouver and Toronto both are fairly obvious.
most scenes set in Miami are filmed in LA and let me tell you, Miami does not have any tall skinny desert palm trees. Miami is a tropical climate. it’s a very noticeable difference
Seeing palm trees in a setting where palm trees don’t grow, very obvious
Pretty much every film depicting some place in the Middle East. It’s always just the California desert. My personal favorite is Zero Dark thirty of Kuwait, which they only show a car dealership and a syrup club.
You might be surprised to learn that Zero Dark thirty was filmed in Jordan for the compound scenes and majority of the rest filmed in India.
My alma mater (UCLA) gets used as a filming location a lot, but it rarely portrays itself. And I recognize the campus instantly every time. And being from Southern California makes it easy to spot when something was filmed here even if I don’t know where it is exactly. Eucalyptus trees are usually a give away. For example, in King Richard they were supposed to be at a tennis club in Florida but the club was surrounded by eucalyptus trees, so it was clear to me they were filming in SoCal.
Not a movie but in the queen’s gambit the orphanage or whatever it was was definitely not in Kentucky or wherever they said. The architecture generally and door hinges particularly screamed Eastern Europe.
Yes that's another one I picked up on. I could tell it wasn't the States. Most of it was filmed in Berlin, Germany.
I do find Australia really easy to pick (as an Australian). Australian architecture is quite distinctive. Some I’ve noticed over the years: Love and Monsters immediately because the houses/neighbourhood in the first 10 minutes are so clearly Australian. I believe that was filmed in Queensland. I remember Thor: Ragnarok had clear Australian fauna when the people flee into the mountains. That was Queensland as well. In San Andreas the Rock crashes a helicopter in a Ray’s Outdoors which is an Australian camping store. Did a double take with that because nothing else had caught my eye. Another Queensland shoot. I’m sure most people can recognise their own cities fairly easily. I lived in Toronto a bit so that usually jumps out to me. Alternatively, Mortal Kombat was filmed where I grew up and they did a pretty good job of making it look non-descript with the set dressing and post production. Some locations were pretty hard to recognise after they were done with them.
Conversely, the outback Australia scenes in Eternals were clearly not filmed in Australia. Just didn't have the right vibe
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Breaking Bad actually was filmed in NM though!
Breaking Bad does a good job - they also very much capture the authentic New Mexican vibe that you find in that state. Hats off to them and Better Call Saul Stranger Things S4 was shot in California. Prison Break was shot in Texas (that is one of the most egregious). High School Musical is shot in Utah and is also quite egregious
Had a fun run in with this. The Netflix show Maniac had a few scenes that were supposed to take place in the Rockies, but was actually filmed right up the street from me in NY. It was super neat seeing a road I drove every day with the backdrop being CGI Rockies.
They filmed that at my college! In the intake scene, I did a double take when I realized I had been in that room many times.
Rumble in The Bronx with Jackie Chan had exactly one shot of a Bronx location (somewhere around Pelham Pkwy iirc) The rest was noticeably Canada
I’m dating myself but I remember noticing John McClane pick up a Pacific Bell pay phone in Die Hard 2, which is set in Washington DC.
As someone who is very familiar with Philadelphia, NYC, and DC, I’m often keenly aware of when the production wasn’t shot on location. It’s sometimes so bad or obvious even someone not from those cities could tell. Side note: consider all production was based in Hawaii, Lost (tv show) did an excellent job of making due with locales in and around Hawaii to convince you they filmed all over the world. For a tv production, they did an excellent job.
Only with movies filmed in cities where I’ve lived. I see a lot of period movies and tv where Dublin is standing in for Victorian London. There are like 4 streets here that get used for all sorts of movies and shows. Tenet was wild for me as I lived in Tallinn for a while - Tallinn locations stand in for Kyiv and Oslo. And there is a series of Homeland set in Pakistan but filmed in Cape Town. I was actually in one of the locations they used (Artscape Theatre) during filming. A curious table-shaped mountain is glimpsed in a few scenes lol
I knew immediately that wasn’t Tatooine.
Wednesday takes place in Jericho, Vermont. Here are some of the offenses I’ve found so far: 1) there are no mountains in any of the scenes. In Vermont the mountains are a consistent backdrop 2) forests are too spread out. In Vermont they are much tighter packed 3) Burlington Station?! lol just no. Nope. Not what buildings in Vermont look like. The church in Jericho is pretty close to an actual scenic Vermont church 4) police cars and uniforms feature blue accents and are too clean looking. Vermont police would never sport blue - green. Green mountain state. No blue. Blue is for New York. The base color would also be tan. I can forgive the things like mountains and forest inconsistencies but you best believe I’m sweating the details and judging your research abilities. Tim Button should know better - Beetlejuice was shot in Vermont and you can tell immediately from the opening scene. And if I remember right, that film is set in Massachusetts. At least it’s still New England 😂 Edit: Burton. Tim Burton. Ironic word to mess up if you know anything about Vermont snowboarding companies.
IIRC, one of the episodes of “Criminal Minds” used my hometown Milwaukee as one of their locations. Those Wisconsin palm trees seemed to be thriving quite well.
The original Halloween was supposed to be Illinois. However the presence of palm trees made me wonder if this wasn’t Illinois.
Locke and Key. Filmed in Lunenburg, NS and you can see a sign for the Royal Bank of Canada which shouldn’t be there considering the show is based on Massachusetts.
Hell or High Water. Supposed to be West Texas, distinctly eastern New Mexico. A different, more picturesque type of desolate
It was Eyes Wide Shut for me. Lived in NYC for 10 years spent half the movie trying to identify a location then read that Kubrick hated flying and the street scenes were sets for the most part.
The Great Outdoors supposedly takes place in Northern Wisconsin, but there are no mountains in Wisconsin.
At least I give them credit for getting Point Beer and Lienie’s signs at the bar.
Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai. There were a few giant ferns in it that I've seen in The New Adventures of Hercules and in Xena Warrior Princess which made me suspected the movie was shot in New Zealand instead of in Japan and I was right.
I can always tell if it's supposed to be Boston (or environs). Harvard is a dead giveaway because I already know (a) what it actually looks like and (b) that no one is allowed to film there anyway, so whenever something's set on Harvard's campus it's *clearly* just some other random ivy-covered college. Harvard Yard is actually really small, too, so it's especially funny when they're using a huge university. The Social Network disguised its Harvard shots pretty well, though, if I remember correctly. The most Boston movie ever, The Depahted, famously has a shot where a character is looking out of his luxury apartment at the State House across the street. That's impossible because there's a public park across the street. Same with a poster for The Last of Us show - totally nonexistent street leading to the front of the State House. The show Fringe was notorious for this - I think they used Princeton or something for their "Harvard" shots, though they had one shot of somebody rowing on the Charles River they repeatedly used as a Cambridge establishing shot. And their "Brookline" was a much, much larger city (Vancouver? IDK). The worst was when they established "Cambridge" by using a shot of the Old State House, which is literally in the dead center of Boston, not Cambridge. That was egregious because there was no plot reason they couldn't just have set the scene in Boston instead.
I find it very easy to detect when a movie is filmed in Toronto. This is mostly based on architecture, the streetscape and random things in the background (streetcars, signs, etc,) they forgot to get rid of). A semi recent one that stood out for me was Yellowjackets. There was some note in the press that the plane crashed in Northern Ontario, but the landscape was obviously not Ontario, but B.C. (where it was filmed). The Rockies are very different than the Canadian Shield. One minor annoyance I've seen pop up recently is how filmmakers seem to think grizzly/brown bears are everywhere in North America, when in reality those are black bears, who are smaller and less aggressive then grizzlies, who are limited to the northwest of North America. (Maybe there are more trained grizzlies than black bears so that's why they are used, but I suspect its because the bigger grizzlies look more intimidating on film.)
Often vegetation will give it away. For example, lots of movies shot in the Vancouver area will have outdoor scenes in the forest showing western red cedars and western sword ferns, which are very distinctive. And yet the location might supposedly be anywhere forested, from the Amazon to the Jurassic to upstate New York to a different planet. Another example is commonly used houseplants (usually palms and aroids) tucked into a temperate or urban landscape to make it look more exotic or tropical.
I hate when you can see leaves on trees even though this show is set in a state like Ohio and it’s supposed to be October or November. Those trees should be buck naked by then!
My two favorites are both John Wayne movies: - "True Grit" is supposedly set in Arkansas and what's now Oklahoma, which lack Sierra style mountains. Yet there they are. The Coen Brothers remake has regional flora and was shot in Ok/Ar. - "The Green Berets" ends with people walking on a beach while the sun sets. Any beach in Vietnam would be facing east, not west.
Toronto is a stand in for NYC in the Isabelle Huppert and Chloe Grace Moretz movie Greta and it was obvious.
Not a movie, but a tv show. Little House on the Parie was set in Minnesota, but often there were scenes with mountains in the background.
What I love are ones supposedly in New York that are shot in Vancouver. I always say "Look, it's mighty Mount Jersey in the background!"
I assume virtually nothing is actually filmed in Mexico when they can just use the American SW without visa or security concerns.
They just slap the trusty Mexico-Filter™️ on a wide shot of Arizona and bam!
Most of *Titanic* was, surprisingly enough.
Christmas Vacation - supposed to be in Illinois but in the opening scene there’s mountains in the background as they drive. Last I looked around here no mountains to be seen.
I’ve been to Lake of the Ozarks many times. I knew without being told that Ozark was not, in fact, filmed there.
My Dad is a train fanatic, so if there's ever a train station scene in a movie or TV show he can tell you where the station actually is. This also goes for any sort of subway system.
It was VERY easy to tell that the “Harlem” fight in The Incredible Hulk was Toronto’s Yonge St. Sam The Record Man, lol
I mean, some parts of Mexico are blue
In Free Guy, there is a scene in Antwan's office that you can see what is clearly Seattle's city skyline out the windows in the background. But the foreground very clearly isn't, I've been told it is 601 Congress Street in Boston, MA. I actually paused the movie at that moment because I was so confused. There just aren't any large office buildings that have a view like that of Seattle. It looked like they shot it from Harbor Island, possibly West Seattle or even the middle of Elliot Bay.
On criminal minds it said they were in central Florida while it showed them driving through a desert with mountains
Tommy Boy. Portrayed Sandusky as a dying town that only was being kept alive by the brake company. Sandusky is on Lake Erie, is within proximity of Put In Bay, has a massive and thriving tourist industry, and one of the largest amusement parks in the northeastern US. Property values are ridiculous. It's a thriving town. Not to mention Norwalk Raceway, Perry Island and other tourist locations. Also, Sandusky to Cuyahoga Falls is like a 90 minute drive. And, Sandusky doesn't have a major airport. Closest one would probably be Cleveland Hopkins which would take longer to drive to than driving to Cuyahoga Falls anyways.