Hollywood

     A trip to California would not be complete without a stop in Hollywood.  We took a tour of Paramount Studios.  We chose Paramount over Universal because we weren't interested in the theme park that Universal offers.  Our tour lasted four hours and included lunch.  Our guide was a young lady who has aspirations of writing for television.

 Our badges proclaimed that we were VIP guests!

This bench is from the movie Forrest Gump.

This "New York City street" was used in the TV show "Castle."

Dr. Phil is produced at Paramount. 

We went into one film vault.  These days movies are stored on hard drives.  Besides the film vault, we toured the carpentry shop where we saw how they make film sets.  We also went to the print shop where they make posters, street signs - anything required to make you believe the setting is real.

Do you recognize this from the movie "The Ten Commandments?"  California skies rarely have clouds.  They use the clouds painted on the side of this building for a more realistic looking sky.  The parking lot you see is sunken four feet.  In order to film "TheTen Commandments," they set the Isrealites up in the parking lot, marched them out backwards, and started pumping in water.  When they had the footage the needed, they ran it backwards for the movie.  That's how they parted the Red Sea.  Low tech, but effective.

     My favorite part of the tour was visiting the set of the TV show "Community."  They were on a filming break during our visit.  We saw a bunch of extras hanging around waiting for filming to continue.  Our guide told us they earn minimum wage - not much of a living.  We'll be watching "Community" this fall to see if we recognize anyone.
     It was a whole new perspective on acting and the movie business.  Everyone knows movies aren't real.  Knowing it's not real is not the same as knowing how completely fake it is.  The sets are shabby and dirty.  Evidently, they don't vacuum the floors because the floors never show.  They can hang fabric screens to make day look like night and night look like day.  If you open the door of a shop on the New York Street set, you won't find a deli counter, just piles of lumber and trash strewn about.  That's entertainment.