filming – Page 24 – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 31, 2009December 30, 2009

The Blair House Inn from “Murder, She Wrote”

Way back in August, I received an email from a fellow stalker named Jenny who wanted to know if I had ever stalked Mendocino’s Blair House Inn – a quaint little Victorian bed and breakfast better known as Jessica Fletcher’s (aka Angela Lansbury’s) residence on the long-running television series Murder, She Wrote. And, amazingly enough, I actually had! As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I grew up in Northern California – San Francisco to be exact – and when I was about 18 years old, my mom, my dad, and I started spending our Easters in Mendocino, a small coastal town located just about two hours north of the Bay Area. Well, as you can imagine, I was absolutely floored during that first Easter when I discovered – thanks to the now out-of-print book Mendocino & The Movies – that countless productions had been filmed in the area. So, I, of course, immediately dragged my parents right out to do some stalking! And the first location I stalked just happened to be the Murder, She Wrote house. I had yet to blog about the residence, though, because that particular stalking adventure took place long before the digital age of film and I had absolutely no idea whatsoever where I had stored my Blair House photographs. It wasn’t until just a couple of weeks ago that I was finally able to sift through the numerous picture boxes I keep in my parents’ garage and, thankfully, I found my Mendocino stalking photos pretty much immediately. So, without further ado . . . I give you my post on the Murder, She Wrote house, aka the Blair House Inn. 🙂

The Blair House Inn was originally built in 1888 as a private residence for a successful banker named Elisha Blair, who had migrated to the area from Maine with his family in 1857. It’s quite ironic to me that the original owner of the Blair House hailed from Maine, being that on Murder, She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher’s residence was also supposedly located in the Pine Tree State. I guess you can say that the property came full circle! 🙂 The Blair House was built by Mendocino architect Oliver Johnson and was constructed entirely out of Douglas Fir and Redwood trees and, amazingly enough, still looks almost exactly the same today as it did back in 1888!

The Blair House Inn is extremely proud of its cinematic history and even had a replica of Jessica Fletcher’s beloved bike built to put on display in the property’s front yard, which I think is just about the coolest thing ever! They also named their largest room “Angela’s Suite”, in honor of Murder, She Wrote’s lead actress Angela Lansbury. You can see photograph’s of Angela’s Suite here. And while my family never actually stayed at the Blair House Inn, it looks like a fabulous place to spend a weekend.

Being that Mendocino doubled for the fictitious town of Cabot Cove on Murder, She Wrote, the Blair House Inn was hardly the only area locale to be featured on the series. In fact, once a year, the entire cast and crew of the highly popular mystery show would venture out to Mendocino and spend at least one week on location shooting exterior scenes and establishing shots to be used throughout each season. Out of the 264 Murder, She Wrote episodes that aired during the series’ twelve year run, only nine were actually filmed on location in Mendocino, but establishing shots of the town were featured almost weekly. Some Mendocino citizens were even cast in the various episodes shot on location. Oh, if only I had lived there while the show was being filmed!!! 😉

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Blair House Inn from Murder, She Wrote is located at 45110 Little Lake Street in Mendocino. You can visit their website here. The Heritage House, which was the hotel used in the movie Same Time, Next Year, is located just a few miles south at 5200 North Highway 1 in Little River.

December 15, 2009December 15, 2009

Chelsea Lately’s “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor”

Those of you who are regular visitors to my site will remember that, back in May, my good friend Blaze Foster was hired to be part of a “Detective Lately” skit on the Chelsea Lately show. His scene was originally scheduled to be filmed on May 8th and I, of course, tagged along with him to the set, where I got to meet Chelsea’s assistant Chuy Bravo and “Staff Homosexual” Guy Branum. YAY! As fate would have it, though, Chelsea and crew ended up running out of time that day and Blaze’s segment was shelved. And while Blaze was devastated over not being able to shoot his scene, I actually considered the whole thing to be a blessing in disguise – as they so often are! – as I had a feeling he would be invited back to do it all over again – with me tagging along! Which is pretty much exactly what happened! 🙂 Blaze ended up filming his Detective Lately segment just a few weeks later on May 27th, and I, again, accompanied him to the studio. I have yet to blog about my experiences that day, though, as I wanted to wait until the segment aired on TV, which FINALLY happened this past Thursday night – a full SIX MONTHS after it was actually taped! So, without further ado, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Blaze’s segment, aka “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor”!

On our first visit to the Chelsea Lately set, Blaze and I spent most of our time in the show’s main green room. On our second visit, though, we were seated in the studio’s alternate green room, which I could NOT have been more excited about, as that meant that I actually got to see BOTH of the Chelsea Lately green rooms in person!!!! I mean, just how lucky can one girl get? 🙂

Chelsea’s second green room looks very much like her first and I, of course, had to take photographs of EVERYTHING, including the door, which had Twilight actor Peter Facinelli’s name written on it as he was the last actor to hang out there pre-show,

the modern-style couches and coffee tables, which hold several entertainment magazines for actors to peruse while they wait to go on camera,

the ubiquitous make-up chair,

and a large television set. I was actually most excited about the TV because an episode of Chelsea was being taped when we arrived at the studio and, thanks to a live feed, we were able to watch it as it was being filmed. LOVE IT! The guest that day was former Blossom star Mayim Bialik, but unfortunately we didn’t spot her at all while we were on the set. 🙁

Pretty much immediately after that day’s episode was finished being taped, Blaze was called into the studio. I, unfortunately, was not allowed to watch the filming and had to stay behind in the green room. Thankfully, though, the green room was situated just a few feet away from the Detective Lately set and I could hear almost everything as it happened. 🙂 Blaze was informed prior to the taping that the original mystery idea he had pitched – “Why Isn’t My Agent Getting Me Any Auditions?” – had been changed to “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor” LOL LOL LOL, in which Blaze would be hiring Chelsea to investigate his acting teacher to see if she was defrauding him. No script had been written for the segment and, although I am fairly certain that Chelsea and the writers had created a brief outline of what they wanted to occur during the scene, for the most part the whole thing was improvised. Blaze’s only instruction prior to filming was to play things straight and not to try to be funny. Because Chelsea is the star of the show, they didn’t want Blaze pulling focus away from her. Which strikes me as absolutely HILARIOUS because if anyone is going to steal the spotlight in a scene, it’s Blaze! I’ve been in acting class with the guy for over a year now and, let me tell you, pulling focus is just something he does. Blaze is very flamboyant, very hyper, very funny, and attention is just drawn to him naturally. So, they really couldn’t have picked a worse man for the job in this particular case!!!! I can’t tell you the number of times I heard the producer tell him to “Stop being funny!” during the filming. 🙂 I also heard the direction “Blaze, stop laughing!” on quite a few occasions. 🙂 Blaze said that Chelsea was absolutely HILARIOUS during the scene and that he had a very hard time keeping a straight face while filming with her.

The entire segment only took about 90 minutes to shoot. Because I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t be able to meet Chelsea while there, I was really hoping that Blaze would be able to pose for a photo with her after the taping had been completed. Amazingly enough, though, outside of the actual filming of the scene, Blaze had absolutely no interaction with Chelsea whatsoever! When he was initially brought onto the set, Chelsea was not yet there. The first time Blaze actually saw her was when she walked into the detective office at the top of the scene, after the cameras had already started rolling. She also left the set before filming had been completed. As soon as producers thought they had gotten enough footage of Chelsea, she was rushed off the stage and Blaze didn’t even get a chance to say thank you or shake her hand. After she left, Blaze had to stay behind to shoot some brief close-ups of him saying “Yes” and “No” to Chelsea’s empty chair. LOL Such a bummer, as I had so wanted a photograph of the two of them. 🙁 Randomly enough, though, Chelsea did poke her head into the green room to say “Hi” to me as she walked by on her way off the set. 🙂 It was a very quick exchange, but I was SUPER excited nonetheless.

Blaze’s skit, which you can watch above, was absolutely hilarious. I was really impressed with the amount of screen time he got, too. The only thing I was really disappointed about was the fact that my favorite line ended up on the cutting room floor. 🙁 At one point during the scene Chelsea asks Blaze, “What do you think, you’re some sort of Tony Danza?” to which Blaze says nothing. In reality, though, when Chelsea asked Blaze that question during the filming, he responded with, “Who’s Tony Danza?”, to which she said, “You know GOD DAMN WELL who Tony Danza is!” LOL LOL LOL I literally could not stop laughing when I heard her say that during the filming and was extremely impressed at how well she and Blaze played off of each other while improvising. I am not a person who thinks well on her feet, so I am always in awe of people who have the ability to be funny off the cuff like that. That’s why I was completely shocked when I saw the finished product and realized it was lacking Blaze and Chelsea’s little Tony Danza exchange. 🙁 I am guessing the reasoning behind the cut had to do with the fact that producers wanted Chelsea to be the one delivering the funny lines, so even though her line trumped Blaze’s, they just decided to cut out the entire segment. Such a bummer. Otherwise though, “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor” skit was great! And, for those who are wondering, everything Blaze said in the scene was true – he is 24 years old, he really did play a bad guy in The Brave One, and he also played a drug dealer in a commercial starring Carmen Electra.

On a side note – When my fiancé I watched “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor” this past Thursday night, one of the first things out of his mouth was, “How did Chelsea come up with the idea of making Blaze’s hair stick straight up like that?” Well, I just about fell off my chair laughing at his question because, in actuality, the There’s Something About Mary style ‘do just happened to be how Blaze was wearing his hair at that time. The guy is nothing if not flamboyant! 🙂 I can only imagine what Chelsea was thinking when she walked onto the set and saw Blaze – and his hair – for the first time. I’m surprised she didn’t bow down right then and there and start thanking God for bringing in an actor who had so much, er, material for her to work with. 🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Chelsea Lately is filmed at the Digital Media Center, which is located at 12312 West Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. You can get tickets to watch a live taping here. If you don’t live in the area, you can still catch Chelsea weeknights at 11 p.m. on E! And you can watch Blaze’s skit, “The Case of the Douche Bag Actor”, here.

November 9, 2009November 8, 2009

The “30 Rock” Building

One of the locales at the very top of this year’s New York vacation’s must-stalk list was the main building featured on my new favorite television show 30 Rock. For some reason, until we rented the series earlier this past summer, neither my fiancé nor I had ever seen even a single episode of the NBC comedy. For years we had both heard how great the show was, but, for some odd reason, had never tuned in. So, when we finally sat down to watch Seasons 1, 2, and 3 in early June, I must say I had some pretty high hopes. And, to be honest, I really didn’t get what all the hoopla was about . . . until we watched the fifth episode of the series which was entitled “Jack-Tor”.! In the episode, GE Microwave Division executive Jack Donaghy (aka Alec Baldwin) tries to film an informational video about product placement for his staff to watch and, I swear, I don’t think I stopped laughing once during the show’s entire 22 minute duration! It was ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS. From that moment on not only did I completely love the show, but also one of its main actors – Alec Baldwin – which is something I NEVER before would have thought possible. Who knew Alec Baldwin was so funny?? Anyway, for those of you out there who have yet to see an episode of the series, I offer this piece of advice – you simply must tune in!!!! 🙂 Every episode is laugh-out-loud HILARIOUS – and, let me tell you, there is nothing I like to do more than laugh out loud! 🙂 So, while in New York last month, I, of course, just HAD to stalk the GE Building where Jack Donaghy, Liz Lemon, and the rest of the 30 Rock gang work on the series.

Because the GE Building (pictured above) is located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza it has been dubbed “30 Rock”, which is, of course, how the show got its name. And while the GE Building is, of course, famous in and of itself and has appeared in countless movie and television productions over the years, for today’s post I thought I would focus solely on its role in 30 Rock. The series, which was conceived and created by comedienne Tina Fey, centers around a group of writers and actors and their weekly struggles in putting together the fictional television show TGS with Tracy Jordan. TGS is based on the real life sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, on which Tina Fey worked as an actor and head writer for over seven years. Because SNL is filmed each week on a soundstage inside of the GE Building, Tina decided to set her fictional series in the exact same location. In reality, though, while the GE Building is used for all exterior set-up shots on the show, 30 Rock is actually filmed inside of a soundstage on the Silvercup Studios lot in Queens.

Several different areas of the GE Building are featured prominently in the opening credits of 30 Rock (which you can watch here) each week and it was those areas that I set out to stalk while in New York last month. Ironically enough, though, because Rockefeller Center is so darn huge, I actually had a hard time finding the particular locations I wanted to stalk and had to ask a nearby policeman for help! LOL Thankfully, though, he was also a big fan of the show and was able to point me in the right direction. The first locale I wanted to stalk was the ornate gold-plated 30 Rockefeller Plaza sign that is shown towards the beginning of the opening credits. I wasn’t even sure where to begin looking for that particular placard, though, and had incorrectly assumed it would be located somewhere on one of the building’s exterior walls. In actuality, the sign is located on the ground just outside of the GE Building’s main entrance – and it’s absolutely HUGE in person!!! I had no idea it would that big! LOL It was so large, in fact, that we couldn’t take a very good picture of it as we couldn’t get the whole thing to fit in our camera lens. LOL

The next spot I wanted to stalk was the gold lettered “30 Rockefeller Plaza” sign with the grey marble background that quickly runs from right to left across the screen at the very end of the 30 Rock opening credits. It turns out that the sign is located just to the left of the GE Building’s main entrance and is extremely hard to see in person. The policemen actually pointed out the sign to me no less than four times before I could actually see it! LOL He actually had to walk up and physically touch it before I realized what he was talking about. LOL The sign is actually much smaller than I expected it to be and is very hard to see from far away, thanks to the reflection of the sun off its marble background.

And because we didn’t get very good photographs of it the first time around, we had to actually head back there the very next day to take some additional pictures, which is why I am wearing a different outfit in the above pic. 🙂 But you can tell how hard it is to see the sign from far away in the above photograph.

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And where is the GE Building’s side entrance which is also sometimes featured on the series? It’s actually just around the corner from the building’s main entrance and the two “30 Rockefeller Plaza” signs I talked about above. The side entrance is actually the main entrance of New York’s NBC Studios and is featured quite frequently on 30 Rock. Besides being shown regularly in establishing shots, the side entrance has also been used in the actual filming of certain episodes, as was the case in the Season Four opener entitled “Season Four” – LOL- in which Kenneth the Page leads his fellow pages along with a group of mall santas, horse whisperers, bucket drummers, and TGS’ two lead actors – again LOL – in a mass picket outside of NBC studios (pictured above). The demands of that picket, you ask? That GE exec Jack Donaghy sign a piece of paper stating “I am a big, old liar.” LOL LOL LOL

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I cannot tell you how cool it was to finally be able to stalk the various locations featured each week in the opening credits of 30 Rock! I could NOT have been more excited! 🙂 And for those of you out there who have never seen the show, you really need to start tuning in! However, I’d really recommend renting Season 1 and watching the series from the very beginning.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: As its name implies, the 30 Rock building, aka the GE building, is located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York. Both of the gold-lettered “30 Rockefeller Plaza” signs can be found at the front entrance of the building. The first one is located on the ground directly outside of the building’s front doors and the second is located on the wall just to the right of the main entrance. The NBC Studios entrance can be found on 50th Street between Rockefeller Plaza and 6th Avenue. Liz Lemon’s apartment building – which I unfortunately did not stalk while in New York – is located at 160 Riverside Drive in New York’s Upper West Side.

October 22, 2009October 22, 2009

Blair Waldorf’s Gossip Girl Apartment Building

Well, it must be Gossip Girl week here at Iamnotastalker.com because here I am once again blogging about yet another location from the ubiquitous CW series. While in New York two weeks ago, one of the locales at the very top of my stalking list was the Upper East Side building where Queen Bee Blair Waldorf lives on my new favorite show. I found this location, once again, thanks to FanPop’s awesome Gossip Girl page and, because I love me some BW, I just simply wasn’t leaving New York until I had stalked her place. So, after dropping my best friend, his girlfriend, and his mother off at the Guggenheim Museum – because as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t do museums 🙂 – I dragged my fiancé just a few blocks North to do some stalking of Blair’s pad. On a side note: While doing research on Blair’s apartment building for today’s post, I came across this ABSOLUTELY AMAZING website, which lists pretty much EVERY SINGLE location ever featured on Gossip Girl! And, let me tell you, I almost fell off my chair while looking at it! HOW IN THE HECK DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS SITE BEFORE I LEFT FOR NEW YORK! UGH! 🙁 I could have spent my entire trip stalking Gossip Girl!!!!! LOL Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to set that as my goal for next year’s trip! 🙂

On Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf lives in the Penthouse apartment of the ultra-exclusive Fifth Avenue building pictured above. The 15-story building, which houses 43 different apartments, was built in 1925 by architect George F. Pelham, Jr., who also designed the Castle Village apartment complex in Hudson Heights and the residential building located at 1120 Park Avenue. A two-bedroom unit in Blair’s building, which you can take a look at here, is currently for sale for the bargain price of $2,695,000! Besides views of Central Park, the building also boasts a full-time, white-gloved doorman AND a full-time, white-gloved elevator operator. That’s just so Blair Waldorf, isn’t it? 🙂 So love it!

Blair’s building has been featured regularly in establishing shots throughout the series’ two and a half year run. Filming also took place there for the Season One episode entitled “Victor, Victrola”, in which Nate Archibald and his father get into a fistfight on the sidewalk out in front of the building (pictured above).

In the Season Two episode entitled “In the Realm of the Basses”, Blair receives an invitation from the elite Colony Club in which the actual address of the real apartment building used for the filming is displayed. Love it!

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According to fave book Manhattan On Film: Walking Tours of Hollywood’s Fabled Front Lot, Blair’s building was also used in the 2001 Chris Rock movie Down to Earth, as the residence of Charles Wellington, whose body the spirit of Chris Rock inhabits after his untimely demise. The building also has a bit of celebrity history, as well. During their marriage, Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid owned a seven-room unit on the building’s 12th-floor, which they sold in March 2002, almost a year after their divorced was finalized, for a cool $6.5 million.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Blair Waldorf’s apartment from Gossip Girl is located at 1136 Fifth Avenue, on the corner of 5th Avenue and 95th Street, on New York’s Upper East Side.

August 28, 2009December 6, 2013

Marilyn Monroe’s Catalina House

The most important item on my Catalina Island stalking list was the home where a very young Marilyn Monroe lived with her first husband James Dougherty during the years 1943 to 1944. This was long before Miss Monroe became a Hollywood icon and household name, back when she was just a girl who was known simply as Norma Jeane Baker. Norma married James in 1942 at the tender ago of 16. Yes, you read that right – 16!!! The family who was taking care of her at the time was moving out of state and rather than take Norma with them, opted to basically marry her off to one of the neighbor boys. After only one short year of marriage, James was shipped off to Catalina Island to begin his basic training with the Merchant Marines. Marilyn moved to Catalina with him and remained on the island for about a year and a half. So, as you can probably imagine, I was absolutely busting at the seams to find her former home – a task that proved to be much easier than I had anticipated.

While waiting at the Catalina Island taxi station yesterday, I happened to notice a flyer for a movie called Hollywood’s Magical Island: Catalina with a picture of Marilyn on it posted on a wall. So, of course, I just had to ask the taxi operator if he knew anything about the movie, which he, sadly, didn’t. So, I said, “Shoot! I was hoping it might have information about where Marilyn’s Catalina house was located.” Well, lo and behold, the cab operator got this funny look on his face and said “I know where her house is – it’s at 310 Metropole Avenue!” I totally thought the guy was pulling my leg, as what would be the odds that the very first person I ask about her house would know its exact location??? Well, I must have some seriously good stalking karma because the guy really did know the correct address. He told me that just about a year ago a Japanese film crew had descended on the island to make a documentary about the starlet and they actually filmed part of it at her house! Turns out the taxi guy knew the location, because it’s located just three blocks up the street from his little taxi stand and he saw the filming! Honestly, what are the odds????? 🙂

So, of course, I immediately dragged my parents and my fiance right up the street to stalk Marilyn’s former residence. 🙂 Marilyn’s house is an adorable little beach bungalow that looks pretty much exactly like I pictured it would! So darn cute!!!! The home is actually a duplex, I believe, rather than a single family residence, as there seem to be two separate front doors, as you can see in the above photograph.

But, being the overly-anal person that I am, I just had to ask around town for further verification that the house I had just stalked was definitely Marilyn’s former home. I hate putting information on my blog unless I know with absolutely certainty that that information is correct. And all I had to go on for this one was the word of a random cab operator. So, I wanted further verification. Well, as it turns out there are COUNTLESS stories floating around out there as to where the starlet’s former house is located. While most locals I talked to had no idea that Marilyn had even lived on the island LOL LOL LOL, those few that did had differing stories. I heard everything from “She lived somewhere on Whitley Avenue” to “No, no, no, her house is on Descanso Avenue between Beacon and Third Streets” to “Marilyn Monroe lived here? Are you sure?” And that last one came from a guy who WORKS AT THE CATALINA ISLAND MUSEUM! LOL LOL LOL Needless to say I was just a tad bit frustrated over all of the differing theories. I mean, come on people! This is Catalina history! Someone should know where MM lived!!!! Finally, I ended up locating two different books about the history of the island, both of which said Marilyn’s former home was located on Metropole Avenue – just like the cab guy had said! 🙂 So, while I can’t say with absolute certainty that Marilyn Monroe did at one time live at 310 Metropole Avenue on Catalina Island, I am going to go out on a limb here and trust the word of two history books, a local taxi operator, and a Japanese film crew. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Marilyn Monroe’s Catalina house is (most likely) located at 310 Metropole Avenue in Avalon.

August 24, 2009August 23, 2009

The Independence Day House

One of the locations at the very top of fellow stalker Owen’s “To Find” list was the house belonging to Captain Steven Hiller, aka Will Smith, and his girlfriend Jasmine Dubrow, aka Vivica A. Fox, in the 1996 blockbuster movie Independence Day. So, a few weeks ago, Owen enlisted the help of master stalker Chas and, amazingly enough, the two of them found the house in just a few short hours!!!! So, of course, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I immediately ran right out to stalk it! Mike had actually been looking for this house for quite some time, but had become convinced that it was a fake house that had been built solely for the production on a studio backlot somewhere. Well, thanks to Owen and Chas, we can now say for certain that the Independence Day house was, in fact, very real! 🙂

Both Mike and I were absolutely SHOCKED to discover that the Independence Day house looks EXACTLY the same today as it did thirteen years ago when the movie was filmed!!! The paint color, the shutters, and the foliage are all still pretty much identical to how they appeared in the movie. SO LOVE IT! Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good screen capture from the movie which showed the entire house. 🙁

The thing I was most shocked about seeing in person was the little “6033” address plaque hanging from the front porch which was also featured in the movie (pictured above). I could NOT believe that little plaque was there in real life, too! I thought for sure it had been a movie prop. SO DARN COOL!

The Independence Day house only pops up in a few brief scenes at the very beginning of the movie. It is first shown in the scene when Will Smith walks outside to get his morning paper only to discover a large flying saucer hovering above his neighborhood. We next see it when Will says goodbye to his girlfriend and her son before driving off to go save the world from alien invaders. And, from how it appears in the movie, I am pretty convinced that the real life interior of the home was used for the filming, as well.

There actually was one major part of the house that was changed for the filming of the movie – the view. Producers actually cheated quite a bit regarding the home’s location in the movie. In the scene when Will Smith first notices the flying saucer while standing in his front yard, he looks to his left and sees the above pictured valley and freeway system.

In reality, though, while the home is located on a bit of a hill, it doesn’t really overlook anything. What Will really would have been looking at in that scene is pictured above. 🙂

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I highly recommend stalking the ID4 house to all fans of the movie! Especially since it still looks so similar to how it appeared onscreen! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Captain Steve Hillard’s Independence Day house is located at 6033 74th Street in the Westchester area of Los Angeles.

April 24, 2009April 23, 2009

On Location With “Peep World”!

Yesterday, while heading to fave bookstore Vroman’s to pick up a stalking book I had special ordered, I happened upon a small crew filming on the sidewalk at the store’s entrance. One of the policemen on duty was extremely nice and told me that the movie being filmed was a low-budget indie entitled Peep World. The flick actually has a great cast including Sarah Silverman, Michael C. Hall (who plays Dexter on the Showtime series of the same name), and The Office’s Rainn Wilson, but unfortunately none of them were on hand while I was there. I was actually really hoping Michael C. Hall would show up as I love me some Dexter, but, alas, that was not to be.

The only actors on set that I saw were Ben Schwartz (from I Hate Valentine’s Day);

and Kate Mara (who starred in the movies Shooter and We Are Marshall). I didn’t recognize either of them, though, which is surprising being that I usually recognize anyone and everyone. 🙂 At first, I actually thought that Kate Mara was Joanna Garcia from TV’s Privileged, as the two look strikingly alike!

I only stuck around to watch the filming for about ten minutes because, sadly, the crew was NOT at all nice or friendly. One of the production guys actually tried to feed me some nonsense about it being illegal for me to take pictures of the production. But being that I was standing on a public sidewalk, talking to the policeman on duty while taking those pictures, the guy pretty much didn’t have a leg to stand on. LOL Oddly enough, some paparazzi were also on the scene taking pics and one of the crew members had a policeman ask them to leave. HUH???? Wouldn’t you think that a low budget movie would want all the publicity it could get???? I am actually shocked that the paparazzi were even there to begin with, as no one even remotely famous was on the set. It’s always such a bummer to me when film crews aren’t friendly. I find it quite ironic that the crew of a fairly low-budget indie film would be so rude, when one would expect the opposite to be true. In my experience, though, it is the big budget, A-List crews that are the nicest. Oh well, I just have to resign myself to the fact that not all film crews are as friendly as the crew of CSI: Miami.

Surprisingly enough, I also got bored quite quickly while watching the filming. And for me to get bored on a film set is almost unheard of! But nothing much was really going on. The crew was also so disorganized that it was almost comical. They scene they were filming involved a taxi carrying Ben Schwartz pulling up to Vroman’s front entrance. But because no one from the crew was stationed on the sidewalk to stop cars from entering the filming area, quite a few people were driving up and parking in the exact spot where the taxi cab was supposed to go. LOL They actually had to repeatedly stop filming to ask the drivers to move. During one take, when an older gentleman tried to walk past the camera, a crew member put his hand out and whispered “Can you hold on a minute?” The man, who was obviously hard of hearing due to his age, said really loudly “WHAT?” LOL LOL LOL So, at least I got a few laughs out of watching the filming. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Vroman’s Bookstore is located at 695 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit their website here.