Be sure to check out my latest Discover Los Angeles post about locations from ten Best Picture winners, just in time for Oscar weekend!
AFI’s Warner Bros. Building – aka the Hospital from “The Artist”
Another locale from The Artist that I found thanks to John Bengtson’s fabulous Silent Locations blog was the Warner Bros. Building on the American Film Institute campus in Los Feliz, which stood in for the exterior of the hospital where George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) was admitted after being injured in a fire towards the end of the Academy Award-winning flick. Amazingly enough, despite the fact that I have lived in Southern California for over twelve years now, for whatever reason, while I had heard of the legendary film school, I had never before visited it. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place two weekends ago, shortly after we stopped by Red Studios Hollywood, aka Kinograph Studios from The Artist which I blogged about yesterday.
The American Film Institute, or “AFI” as it is more commonly known, was founded in 1967 by the National Endowment for the Arts in order to “preserve the history of the motion picture, to honor the artists and their work and to educate the next generation of storytellers.” Such luminaries as actor Gregory Peck, director Francis Ford Coppola, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., actor Sidney Poitier, and longtime Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) president Jack Valenti sat on the organization’s original Board of Trustees. The institute was first headquartered inside of the famous Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, but moved to its current location, an eight-acre property which formerly housed Immaculate Heart College, in 1983. AFI Conservatory, the establishment’s fully accredited graduate film school which, in 2011, was named the #1 film school in the world by The Hollywood Reporter, boasts such notable alumni as David Lynch, Edward James Olmos, Darren Aronofsky, Terrence Malick, Amy Heckerling (the writer/director of fave movie Clueless!), Marshall Herskovitz (one of the Executive Producers of fave show My So-Called Life!), Edward Zwick (another of My So-Called Life’s Executive Producers!), and Gary Winick (the director of fave movie 13 Going on 30!). Talk about a Who’s Who of the film industry! The Warner Bros. Building (pictured above) is AFI’s main facility and houses classrooms, a soundstage, screening rooms, computer labs, and production offices.
Thanks to AFI’s hilltop location, the place boasts some rather incredible views of Downtown Los Angeles, as you can see above!
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The Warner Bros. Building only shows up once in The Artist – in the scene in which Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) arrives at the hospital to check on George. According to the Los Feliz Ledger website, the short, one-day shoot took place on November 14th, 2010.
Only the exterior of the Warner Bros. Building was used in the filming. All of the interior hospital scenes were shot about four miles away at The Ebell of Los Angeles, a private women’s club that I have stalked twice, but have yet to blog about. And while hundreds upon hundreds of movies have been filmed at the historic property over the years, for today’s post I would like to concentrate on The Artist. A few different areas of The Ebell appeared in the flick. When Peppy runs through the hospital hallway and asks a nurse where she can find George’s room, she is actually running through the site’s Garden Arcade. And while I do not have a photograph of the actual Arcade, the area where it is located is denoted with a pink arrow above. (You may recognize the courtyard pictured above from the prom scene in fave movie Never Been Kissed.)
Peppy is then shown running through The Ebell’s Solarium Hallway into the 3rd Floor Terrace (both of which were also used prominently in Forrest Gump).
John at Silent Locations was lucky enough to speak with Carol Kiefer, the Art Department Coordinator for The Artist, who informed him that The Ebell had also appeared in several other scenes in the movie. The club’s Art Salon was used as the auction house where George sold all of his belongings after his career took a downturn.
When leaving the auction, George is shown walking down The Ebell’s Lounge Stairway, followed by his loyal chauffer, Clifton (James Cromwell).
The club’s Dining Room masqueraded as the storage room in Peppy’s mansion where George discovered all of his former possessions.
And while the Dining Room was made to appear much smaller than it actually is for the filming and is virtually unrecognizable from its appearance onscreen, I recognized this location thanks to the unique circular-shaped decoration above the window that was visible in the background of the scene.
Supposedly, the Kinograph Studios office of director Al Zimmer (John Goodman) was also located somewhere inside of The Ebell, but I did not see any areas of the property on either tour that looked even remotely like the screen captures pictured above. So I am guessing that a room of the property was either completely redone for the filming or that that information is incorrect.
The anteroom to Zimmer’s office is located at The Ebell, though. In actuality, it is a small room located on the building’s third floor.
Big THANK YOU to John Bengtson, from the Silent Locations blog, for finding these locations! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: The Warner Bros. Building at the American Film Institute, aka the exterior of the hospital from The Artist, is located at 2021 North Western Avenue in Los Feliz. You can visit the official AFI website here. The Ebell of Los Angeles is located at 743 South Lucerne Boulevard in Hancock Park. Sadly, The Ebell is not currently open to the public, but you can visit the property’s official website here.
Red Studios Hollywood – aka Kinograph Studios from “The Artist”
In early March, my friend Tony, the fellow stalker who has the amazeballs On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream, wrote a comment on my post about the duplex where George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) lived in The Artist alerting me to a blog named Silent Locations. The blog, which is authored by business lawyer/film historian John Bengtson, features a six-part column chronicling several locales that appeared in The Artist and their connection with various silent films made during Hollywood’s heyday. I highly recommend checking out the feature and the site in general. It is fabulous! Anyway, one of the places mentioned in the column was Red Studios Hollywood, the exterior of which stood in for both the exterior of Kinograph Studios in The Artist and Maroon Cartoons in 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place on a very windy Sunday afternoon two weekends ago.
The site where Red Studios Hollywood now stands was originally founded as Metro Pictures Back Lot #3 in 1915, long before the company joined forces with Goldwyn Pictures and became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. During its Metro heyday, such films as Scaramouche, Little Robinson Crusoe and The Champ were filmed on the premises. Beginning in May 1946, the lot went through a series of different owners, the most prominent of whom were Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The showbiz powerhouse couple leased the property in 1953 and turned it into the very first Desilu Studios, where they shot seasons 3 through 6 of I Love Lucy. In 1974, the lot became known as Ren-Mar Studios, an independently owned and operated facility where various production companies were able to rent out studio space. Legendary television producer David E. Kelley made his home there in the 80s and shot Picket Fences (one of my faves!), Chicago Hope, The Practice and the first two seasons of Ally McBeal. In January 2010, the lot was sold yet again, this time to Red Digital Camera Company, who renamed the place Red Studios Hollywood.
A few of the countless other productions that have been filmed on the premises over the years include The Golden Girls, The Dick Van Dyke Show, the first four episodes of Seinfeld, The Andy Griffith Show, Make Room for Daddy, Lizzie McGuire, NewsRadio, Empty Nest, Monk, and, most recently, True Blood. The series Weeds was also filmed on the lot, back when it was Ren-Mar, and during Season 4, after Agrestic burned down, producers had Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) move to a fictional seaside town named “Ren Mar” in honor of the historic studio. Love it!
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In The Artist, the back entrance of Red was used as the main entrance of Kinograph Studios, where George Valentin worked at the beginning of the flick.
As you can see above, that area was changed drastically for the movie – so much so that it is virtually unrecognizable today. A huge false front was built over the actual studio entrance for the filming and the Hollywood Rounder blog was lucky enough to get to watch it being constructed. You can check out some very cool pics of the construction here and here, the fake security guard kiosk here, and the finished product here.
Interestingly enough, when Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) is shown being dropped off at a location that is supposedly directly across the street from the Kinograph entrance, she is actually on New York Street at Paramount Studios, in front of the building that is used regularly as the Boston police station on Rizzoli & Isles.
At one point in The Artist, George is also shown walking in between some of the Red Studios Hollywood soundstages.
The area where he walked is denoted with a pink circle above.
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Red’s main entrance on Cahuenga Boulevard stood in for the entrance to Maroon Cartoons, where the famous animated hare worked.
The courtyard just beyond that entrance was also used in the filming.
That area is denoted with a pink circle above.
On a Who Framed Roger Rabbit side-note – while doing research prior to writing this post, I came across a blurb in The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations book which, in reference to the flick’s title, stated, “No, there is no question mark, as it’s considered bad luck in a film title.” I had never before heard that bit of trivia and found it interesting, especially since my good friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong grammatical errors blog, had recently written a post which mentioned WFRR’s punctuation error. Superstition or not, I think the flick really needed the mark in its title and I found myself inadvertently adding one each time I typed “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” in this post. I guess some habits are hard to break.
The music video for Britney Spears’ hit 2000 song “Lucky” was also shot at Ren-Mar and the exterior of the studio is visible in the MTV Making the Video special about the production.
You can watch Part I of the Making the Video of “Lucky” by clicking above.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John Bengtson, from the Silent Locations blog, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Tony, from the fantastic On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream, for pointing me to John’s site!
Stalk It: Red Studios Hollywood, aka Kinograph Studios from The Artist, is located at 846 North Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. You can visit the official Red Studios Hollywood website here. The area of the studio used in The Artist can be found on Lillian Way, in between Willoughby and Waring Avenues. The studio’s main entrance on Cahuenga Boulevard is the entrance that stood in for Maroon Cartoons in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Red Studios Hollywood is not open to the public and does not currently offer a tour.
George Valentin’s Duplex from “The Artist”
As I mentioned way back in early 2010 in my post about Julia Child’s childhood home, one of the best parts about being in the Screen Actors Guild is the fact that all Guild members are sent several “For Your Consideration” DVDs just prior to the SAG Awards each year. One of the DVDs that I received this particular year was The Artist and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Out of all of the movies nominated, I definitely think it deserved to win the Best Picture Oscar for 2012. The concept was completely novel, the cinematography beautiful, the acting stellar, and best of all, in my opinion at least, was the fact that it featured numerous Los Angeles-area locations. It was actually My Week with Marilyn, though, that knocked my socks off and won my SAG vote for “Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role”. Michelle Williams was absolutely PHENOMENAL in it and not only managed to capture Marilyn’s walk, voice and mannerisms, but also that quality that MM had of not being able to take your eyes off of her. How that characteristic can be acted is absolutely beyond me, but Michelle did it, and seamlessly at that. I honestly cannot say enough good things about My Week with Marilyn or Michelle’s performance in it and I am beyond saddened that she did not take home the Academy Award! I mean, honestly, how many does Meryl Streep really need? But I digress. Anyway, as soon as I finished watching The Artist, I, of course, immediately started searching for the many locales featured in it, the most important of which was the duplex where silent film actor George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) lived towards the end of the flick. Thankfully, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, was able to track it down fairly quickly for me, and the two of us dropped by to stalk it while in the area a couple of weeks ago.
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In The Artist, George Valentin sees his career falter during the advance of “talking” pictures, much like real-life silent film actor Douglas Fairbanks, on whom the character of George seems to be loosely based. After divorcing his wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller), George is forced to move out of his ornate Hollywood estate – which is located inside of the gated Fremont Place neighborhood in Hancock Park, just a few doors down from the Taken mansion, which just so happens to be where Peppy Miller (the absolutely adorable Berenice Bejo) lived in The Artist – and into the duplex pictured above. It is while living in the duplex that George (SPOILER ALERT) burns copies of his former films, accidentally setting fire to the property and almost killing himself in the process.
I sent screen captures of George’s duplex to Mike shortly after I first watched The Artist and, like me, he was convinced that the property was located somewhere in Hancock Park. And while we spent more than a few fruitless hours looking for it there, we both came up completely empty-handed. It was not until Mike expanded his search a couple of miles to the south that he finally found the right place, just a few blocks north of the 10 Freeway. And I am very happy to report that the building, which in real life was originally built in 1924, looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.
As does the sidewalk in front of the duplex, which also appeared in the movie.
Because the interior of George’s residence was very non-descript and because the ceilings were abnormally high, I am fairly certain that a set was used and not the actual duplex.
Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! 
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: George Valentin’s duplex from The Artist is located at 4056 West 21st Street in the Mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles.