Halloween 2007 filming locations

January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

The VA Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center aka the American Embassy from “Argo”

There are few things this stalker loves more than opening her mailbox to discover a slew of “For Your Consideration” screeners – something that happens each January shortly before the Screen Actors Guild Awards. This year, the DVDs waiting in my mailbox were Silver Linings Playbook (my pick for best movie of the year), Les Miserables (which I have yet to watch) and Argo (which absolutely KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF!). I cannot believe that Ben Affleck was not nominated for a Best Director Academy Award. The mere fact that he was able to shoot 90% of Argo, a movie that supposedly takes place in 1970s Tehran, in 2013 Los Angeles is astounding! He deserves an Oscar for that alone. Anyway, a few weeks back, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, sent me a Los Angeles Times article about the Southern California locations featured in Argo and, believe you me, when I read that the Veterans Affairs Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center in North Hills had masqueraded as the American Embassy in the flick, I immediately started chomping at the bit and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place shortly thereafter.

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The Veterans Affairs Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center (try saying that one three times fast!), which is absolutely ginormous, has quite an interesting history. In 1952, Lester and Mary Gentry donated a 160-acre plot of land to the city so that a veterans hospital could be built. The Sepulveda Care Center was the result of that generous donation and by 1993 the site was treating over 275,000 veterans each year. Sadly though, much of the property was damaged during the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the main hospital building subsequently torn down, and the majority of the premises shuttered. In a controversial move, the site was deemed “unsafe” to operate as a care center soon thereafter, yet it is constantly used by production companies for filming. According to a 2009 Los Angeles Daily News article, the designation “was all a smokescreen, a chance for VA officials to save some money, downsize and gut Sepulveda.” And while the property does currently house a working outpatient center, a pharmacy, a nursing home, an X-ray lab, a therapy pool, and a methadone clinic, the majority of the buildings remain vacant. As you can see below, though, a restoration project is currently underway. In February of last year, the city began gutting the interior of two of the dilapidated structures, with the plan to turn them both into housing for homeless vets. In the meantime, the Center is still being used for filming. And lots of it.

According to the Los Angeles Times article about Argo, two locations were used to stand in for the American Embassy in the film. The scenes that took place outside of the embassy walls (pictured below) were shot at a building in Istanbul, Turkey – one that I have yet to track down.

The scenes that took place inside of the embassy walls were, of course, shot at the VA Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center. The L.A Times article states, “A Veterans Affairs medical building in North Hills, with its institutional, red brick facade, turned out to be remarkably similar to the U.S. embassy in Tehran from which six Americans escaped and sought refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador. ‘It even had the same number of stories as the U.S. embassy in Tehran,’ said Chris Baugh, location manager for ‘Argo.’ ‘It was a huge stroke of luck.’” You can check out some photographs of the actual former American Embassy in Tehran here and here. As you can see, it does look quite a bit like the Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center. Following the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, the embassy site ceased functioning as such and today is used by the Iranian government as a training facility for the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Because the VA site is so incredibly vast (there are over 18 separate, very similar-looking buildings) and so little of the exterior of the American Embassy was actually shown in Argo, the GC and I had quite a time trying to pinpoint the exact spot where filming took place. Thankfully though, we ran into an extremely nice security guard who was all too happy to help. According to him, a façade of the embassy was constructed in a parking lot on the premises during the shoot, and I am fairly certain that that façade is what is pictured in the screen capture below, as it does not match up to any of the actual hospital buildings.

For some of the close-up angles of the embassy, the security guard informed us that Building 4 was used. Because the shots were so tight, though, the structure is not very recognizable from the film. In fact, the only recognizable element, besides the windows, is the brick wall situated at the front of the building.

That brick wall is pictured below.

The interior of one of the VA buildings (according to the security guard, Building 5) also stood in for the interior of the American Embassy in Argo.

Building 4 also appeared in Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween reboot as Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, where a young Michael Meyers (Scout Taylor-Compton) was institutionalized after murdering his family.

The real life interior of the hospital was also used in the filming.

In fact, the very same room that stood in for the Visa Application office in Argo also stood in for the family visiting room in Halloween, as you can see below. So incredibly cool!

Building 4 was also where Brennan Huff (Will Ferrell) and Dale Doback (John C. Reilly) were beat up by kid bullies in the 2008 comedy Step Brothers.

The north side of Building 4 (which I, unfortunately, did not get a picture of) was the main location used in Accepted. In the 2006 comedy, the site stood in for the abandoned Harmon Psychiatric Hospital . . .

. . . which Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) and his friends turned into the fake South Harmon Institute of Technology.

The location was so prominent in the filming that it was even featured in the movie’s poster.

The real life interior of the building was also used in the filming.

And a pool was even built in the courtyard area for the shoot.

The exterior of VA Sepulveda’s Building 200, which is an actual working medical facility, is also used regularly for filming.

As is the interior. The building was closed when we showed up to stalk it, though, so I could only snap photographs through the front windows, unfortunately.

Building 200 is most notably used on Grey’s Anatomy where it stands in each week for Seattle Grace Hospital.

Because I have never actually watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy (I know, I know), like a dork I accidentally took a picture of the wrong side of the building.

The south side of the building is the side used as Seattle Grace.

While the majority of the interior of Seattle Grace is just a set, the lobby of VA Sepulveda also pops up occasionally on the show.

The interior of Building 200 also masqueraded as a Geneva-area hospital in the Season 2 episode of Alias titled “Salvation”.

The 1981 horror flick Halloween II was also filmed at the VA Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center, although I am unsure of which exact structure was used in the production. I am guessing, though, that it was the main hospital building that was demolished after the Northridge earthquake.

The Season 8 episodes of Falcon Crest titled “Ties that Bind” and “The Last Laugh” were also supposedly filmed at VA Sepulveda, but I could not find copies of either with which to verify that information.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Veterans Affairs Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center, aka the American Embassy from Argo, is located at 16111 Plummer Street in North Hills. Building 4 was used as the exterior of the embassy. Building 200 serves as Seattle Grace Hospital on Grey’s Anatomy. You can check out a map of the Ambulatory Care Center here.

January 9, 2012January 8, 2012

Charles W. Eliot Middle School from “The Mentalist”

Located directly across the street from the Larry Crowne apartment building in Altadena, which I blogged about last Friday, is Charles W. Eliot (not Elliot) Middle School – a very unique and arresting structure that looms over the neighborhood thanks to its large fortress-like bell tower. My veterinarian is located just up the street from Eliot and I had driven by the school countless times during my ten-plus years of living in Pasadena, and whenever my mom happened to be with me, she would comment, “That school is just so picturesque! I can guarantee you that it has been in a movie!” Well, as it turns out, she was right! I never did much research on the place, though, or even thought to stalk it, until January of 2010 when it popped up in the Season 2 episode of The Mentalist titled “Rose-Colored Glasses”, at which point I recognized it immediately. So, two weekends ago, after stalking the Larry Crowne apartment building, I dragged the Grim Cheaper across the street (and I say “drag” because even though it was located less than 10 yards away from where we were then standing, he complained about having to walk over to it) so that I could finally stalk the place.

Charles W. Eliot Middle School was originally founded in 1931 and, at the time, was known as Eliot Junior High School. It was named in honor of Charles William Eliot – a professor who, with a term of 40 years, became Harvard University’s longest-running president and transformed the institution into a premiere research college. Surprisingly, even though Eliot Middle School is extremely unique, I could find no information whatsoever about its architecture or its history. Hmph! I was able to dig up the names of a couple of the school’s famous alumni, though. As it turns out, not only did actor Edward Furlong attend Charles W. Eliot Middle School, but, in an unfortunate twist, so did Sirhan Sirhan, the Jordanian nationalist who assassinated presidential hopeful Bobby Kennedy on June 6, 1968.

As you can see above, the most recognizable and striking aspect of Charles W. Elliot Middle School is its tower. It is that tower that has also captured the imagination of the many location scouts who have returned time and time again to film on the school grounds.

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In the “Rose-Colored Glasses” episode of The Mentalist, Charles W. Eliot Middle School stood in for the supposed Northern-California-area Rancho Rosa High School where Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) and the rest of the CBI team investigated the murder of a married couple which took place at a 15-year high school reunion. In the episode, several areas of the school were used, including the rear blacktop;

the gym;

and the boy’s locker room.

Fellow stalker Allyn let me know that Charles W. Eliot Middle School was also featured prominently in the 1998 flick Devil in the Flesh. In the movie, Eliot was the school where Debbie Strand (aka Rose McGowan) was transferred to after her mother and her mother’s boyfriend were killed in a fire.

The real life interior of the school was also used in the production.

In the 1998 film Apt Pupil, Charles W. Eliot Middle School stood in for Santa Donato, the high school attended by Todd Bowden (aka Brad Renfro). And yes, that is none other than Ross Gellar himself – aka Friends’ star David Schwimmer – pictured in the last screen capture above!

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that cutie Joshua Jackson, aka Dawson’s Creek’s Pacey Witter, had a minor role in the flick, as well. Sigh. Love him!

The school’s interior was also featured in Apt Pupil. And, in an odd twist, a lawsuit was actually filed against the filmmakers for a scene that took place on location in the Eliot Middle School locker room. Three teenaged extras hired to act in a shower scene alleged that director Bryan Singer had forced them to strip naked for the shoot against their will. The lawsuit was ultimately dropped due to insufficient evidence, but you can read more about it on the Entertainment Weekly website here.

The interior of Charles W. Eliot Middle School also stood in for the interior of Haddonfield Elementary, the school attended by a young Michael Meyers (aka Daeg Faerch), in the 2007 Rob Zombie-directed Halloween.

The school’s library was also used as the library of the fictional Haddonfield High School, where Michael Meyers spied on his younger sister, Laurie Strode (aka Scout Taylor-Compton).

And, according to a March 1987 Los Angeles Times article, Charles W. Eliot Middle School was also set to be used as a location in a low-budget movie titled Night School. Unfortunately though, I could find no such movie listed on IMDB, so I am guessing that it was not ever completed.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Charles W. Eliot Middle School, from the “Rose-Colored Glasses” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 2184 North Lake Avenue in Altadena. Please remember that this is an active learning institution and you should not trespass or visit the grounds during school hours. The Larry Crowne apartment building is located directly across the street from Eliot at 906 Boston Street in Altadena. And Thalia’s store from Larry Crowne is located at 2104 North Lake Avenue in Altadena.

May 20, 2011May 19, 2011

The “She’s Out of Control” House

Last week I enlisted fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, to help me find locations from the 1989 teen comedy She’s Out of Control. Now I should mention here that while I absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED She’s Out of Control growing up, according to the movie’s IMDB trivia page film critic Gene Siskel detested it so much that he actually considered quitting his job after viewing it! LOL In truth, the flick is one of my very favorite 80s movies of all time, so how Gene could hate it that much is absolutely beyond me!

I mean, how can you go wrong with a movie that features performances by both a very young Dustin Diamond (aka Screech from Saved by the Bell!) . . .

. . . AND Mr. Chandler Bing himself, Matthew Perry?!? Sheesh! I don’t even want to know what choice words Gene would have for that other favorite 80s movie of mine Girls Just Want To Have Fun!

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Anyway, Chas being the great guy that he is immediately added the DVD to his Netflix queue (even though it is unequivocally a chick flick) and it arrived in his mailbox just a few days later. He watched the movie shortly after receiving it and, amazingly enough, somehow managed to track down the house belonging to the Simpson Family – Doug (aka Tony Danza), Katie (aka Ami Dolenz), and Bonnie (aka Laura Mooney) – that very same night! The abode was, of course, the location that I was most interested in stalking, so I could not have been more excited when he gave me the news and I ran right out to stalk the place the very next morning. Yay!

I had fallen in love with the Simpson house the first time I watched She’s Out of Control over two decades ago and I am very happy to report that it is just as cute and charming in person as it appeared to be onscreen.

And while I had originally thought that the real life interior of the residence was used in the movie, that does not actually seem to be the case. I happened to find these interior photographs of the house online and, as you can see in the above screen captures as compared with this interior image as well as this one, the stairwell which appeared onscreen does not match that of the actual house.

The real life kitchen and living room areas also do not seem to match their onscreen counterparts.

While doing some internet research on the property yesterday morning, I was shocked to discover that the very same dwelling also popped up as the residence where Laurie Strode (aka Scout Taylor-Compton) babysat Tommy Doyle (aka Skyler Gisondo) in the 2007 Rob-Zombie-directed remake of the horror film Halloween.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location! Smile You can check out Chas’ detailed She’s Out of Control filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Simpson house from She’s Out of Control is located at 1960 La France Avenue in South Pasadena. Here is a map link to that location.

October 27, 2010September 29, 2017

Mountain View Cemetery from “The Office”

Since my favorite holiday, Halloween, is fast approaching, I thought it would only be appropriate to devote the next few blog posts to some filming locations of a spookier nature. So, this past Sunday morning, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, the Grim Cheaper, and I went on a joint stalking venture up to Altadena to stalk Mountain View Cemetery which appeared in the Season 4 episode of The Office titled “The Chair Model”, among countless other productions. I first found out about this locale from my parents’ neighbor, Julie, who owns The Coffee Gallery in Altadena – a location which was also used in “The Chair Model” episode and which I blogged about this past July. According to Julie, while scouting locations for the “Chair Model” episode, location managers sought out a coffee shop that was in close proximity to Mountain View Cemetery where they were also shooting scenes, which is how they came to use her cafe. Like the old saying goes, it’s all about location, location, location. 😉 Anyway, once Julie told me about the place, I started doing some research on it and discovered that Mountain View Cemetery has been featured in hundreds upon hundreds of productions over the years. Apparently, the 60-acre cemetery is used for filming an average of 150 days out of EACH AND EVERY year, which is absolutely incredible to me! Upon finding out that fact, I promptly informed both Mike and the GC that Mountain View Cemetery was the ONLY place I wanted to be buried. Spending my hereafter at a site that is in use as a filming location almost half of each year sounds like absolute heaven to me (pun intended). Mike jokingly said that if I did end up being buried there, my tombstone should read, “Lindsay Blake, from IAMNOTASTALKER –Still Stalking Filming Sites From Beyond the Grave”. 🙂

Mountain View Cemetery, which is one of the oldest cemeteries in the San Gabriel Valley, was first established in 1882 when a man named Levi W. Giddings designated a plot of his family’s land to be used as a site for burials for the citizens of Pasadena. His descendants still own and operate the cemetery to this day, over 128 years later. Mountain View, which as the name implies does boast picturesque views of the San Gabriel Mountains, is an absolutely enormous and quite beautiful property, with sprawling lawns, stately trees from all over the world, an art collection, two chapels, and two mausoleums. Besides being a filming location, Mountain View is also the final resting place of several notables, including actor George Reeves, who played TV’s original Superman in the 1950s television series of the same name. George is entombed in the cemetery’s Pasadena Mausoleum. Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, one of the original founders of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and builder of the Mount Lowe Railway, is also buried at Mountain View, in the cemetery’s Royal Oak’s section.

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The yet-to-be released show Franklin & Bash was setting up to do some filming while we were stalking the cemetery on Sunday, and as you can see in the above photographs, had fake tombstones, floodlights, a generator, and a mock funeral assembled, which was very cool to see.

There was also a fake crypt set up on the property, which none of us actually realized was a fake . . .

. . . until we got around to the back of it and saw the prop door. So, of course, I just had to get inside of it to snap a quick picture. 🙂 I am not sure if the fake crypt was a prop for Franklin & Bash or for Wicked Literature: A Halloween Theatre Festival – a Halloween-themed live theatre event which is running at the cemetery now through the end of October. But being that Franklin & Bash is a series about a law firm, I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the crypt was set up for the Wicked Literature show.

In “The Chair Model” episode of The Office, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) falls in love with a chair model whom he sees in an office supply catalog. He sends Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson) on a recognizance mission to track down the model and is crushed when he learns that she was recently killed in a car accident. Dwight and Michael later visit the cemetery where she is buried in order to pay their respects. While there, they break into a rousing rendition of the song “American Pie”.

While stalking Mountain View on Sunday, I was absolutely dying to find the exact spot where The Office had been filmed. Unfortunately though, I was unable to figure it out at the time. It wasn’t until after I got home and re-watched “The Chair Model” episode that I was able to discern the correct location. So, bright and early yesterday morning, I dragged my dad out to re-stalk the place so that I could get some photos of the spot where Michael and Dwight had mourned, ahem, sang. That spot can be found in the northeastern section of the cemetery.

In the Season 1 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “There Won’t Be Trumpets”, Mountain View was the site of Mama Solis’ (aka Lupe Ontiveros’) funeral. In the scene filmed at the cemetery, Gaby Solis (aka Eva Longoria Parker) flies into a rage after discovering that her destitute husband Carlos (aka Ricardo Antonio Chavira) has purchased a large crypt for his dead mother. It was during the filming of that scene that Eva Longoria Parker accidentally (and hilariously) got the heel of her stiletto stuck in the cemetery’s grass. Some paparazzi who were on hand managed to snap pictures of the event and those pictures later made their way onto the pages of US Magazine, but unfortunately I cannot find copies of those photographs anywhere online.

While watching the “There Won’t Be Trumpets” episode, I was convinced that Mama Solis’ crypt had been a prop put into place for the filming. As I discovered yesterday morning, though, her burial site is an actual crypt belonging to the Buckley family. So darn cool! I would like to let it be known here and now that, upon my death, filmmakers have my permission to use whatever it is I end up being buried in – whether it be a crypt, a mausoleum, or a simple grave – whenever and in as many productions as they so desire! 😉

The cemetery was also used in the Season 8 episode of Seinfeld titled “The Foundation” as the final resting place of Susan Ross (aka Heidi Swedberg), George Costanza’s (aka Jason Alexander’s) former fiancé, who died after ingesting toxic glue while licking the envelopes of their wedding invitations.

Mountain View also appeared in the Season 11 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Shock Waves” as the site of the funeral of Officer Franklin Clark (aka Reggie Von Watkins), during which a bomb explodes. Fave website Altadenablog was on hand during the filming of that episode and took some great photographs of the crew setting up the extensive rigging for the explosion scene.

The cemetery also popped up in the pilot episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under as the site of the funeral of Nathaniel Fisher (aka Richard Jenkins).

The cemetery was also used in Ozzy Osbourne’s video for his 2010 song “Life Won’t Wait” . . .

. . . which you can watch by clicking above.

Ironically enough, after visiting the cemetery, I had a feeling that it might have been the very cemetery used in fave movie A Lot Like Love, so after I got home I re-watched the flick and noticed the large, open-air grave-marker located in the background behind Oliver Martin (aka Ashton Kutcher) in the scene pictured above.

I could also just make out the last name “Holmes” written on the marker. So, yesterday morning, while re-stalking the cemetery with my dad, I walked around to see if I could spot that open air crypt.

And, amazingly enough, I did! As it turns out, the filming of A Lot Like Love had taken place just due west of where The Office had filmed. The grave where Emily Friehl’s (aka Amanda Peet’s) mother was buried in the movie was a fake that was put into place solely for the filming. In real life, her grave is just empty space. Ironically enough, Ashton Kutcher returned to the cemetery once again this past May to film scenes for the yet-to-be released comedy No Strings, along with co-star Natalie Portman. You can check out some photographs of them filming here. The 2007 remake of the classic horror film Halloween was also filmed at Mountain View Cemetery.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Mountain View Cemetery is located at 2400 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena. The area which appeared in The Office is in the northeastern portion of the cemetery and is denoted with a pink circle and a pink “X” in the above aerial views. A Lot Like Love filmed just due west of where The Office was filmed in the area of the cemetery numbered 4474, which is denoted with a purple circle in the above aerial views. Desperate Housewives was filmed in front of the Buckley crypt, which is located in the section of the cemetery numbered 4386, directly across from the Vista Del Monte mausoleum, which is denoted with a blue circle and a blue arrow in the above aerial views.