I see so many movies, old and new, that I think I’m seeing an actual house, or a street, or some place. Then when I see the behind the scenes footage, it’s often not a real house, or street scene. It always just seems like such a huge waste of money. Could they not have found or used a real house or street or town?
In: 5
It’s going to vary from movie to movie, but there are a few things to think about.
1. You want room for all the camera equipment and lighting to fit. This might not work in many conventional homes. For outdoor scenes, you also want the weather to cooperate.
2. You can have all these sets on a single sound stage. This means you don’t have to travel to a location for shoots. Especially in Hollywood, there’s something called the Thirty Mile Zone (where TMZ got its name). If you’re shooting outside of a 30-mile radius of a certain spot, you need to pay extra to the crew for on-location shooting.
3. You have complete control over the set and can do things like reshoots as needed. If you’re renting a property for some footage, it might be difficult or impossible to go back there at a later time to do a reshoot.
*edit*: One other thing is that a home has to be built to code. A movie set doesn’t have to be as strictly kept up to code (usually just fire code). You can cut a lot of corners when you’re building a temporary set.
Latest Answers