Movies & TV Shows set in a particular city that totally fail at it

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Comrade

eh unless you're talking about something else, I feel it's a reasonable backdrop. It's certainly not in an a area that feels like a major urban city (and remember, Derry was based on Bangor, Maine, which is a decent sized town, though not big by any means):

There were Vancouver skyscrapers in the background. It screamed Vancouver. And even if you weren't familiar with Vancouver, it was obviously shot in a major urban city.

Derry, Maine with Vancouver condo towers?

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Camelback

Isn't Wilmington NC a film hotspot?

Wasn't Dawson's Creek filmed there and it was supposed to portray a place in New England?

This was back in the late 90s, but that's right. Wilmington stood in for both a sleepy fictional town on Cape Cod, as well as for Boston later on when they're in college. These days, Massachusetts itself is a major filming hot spot thanks to tax credits and a bunch of studios/editing houses. Georgia is the other major East Coast hot spot.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

The two most popular mockumentary series, The Office and Parks and Rec, do a decent job with set selection, but in the episodes that feature extended outdoor scenes, trying to substitute LA for Rustbet/Midwest is difficult.

I think about like the Rabies Run episode of the office:

• Video Link

As they're filming the scenes throughout residential neighbourhoods, the bungalows, front fences, stucco construction, etc. make it painfully obvious that you're not in Scranton, PA. Pretty difficult to find this kind of vernacular in LA:



I think Parks and Rec had it slightly easier, since small town Indiana actually would feature more bungalows, but you'd still expect the houses to be more spaced out and probably wouldn't see many jailbar windows.

Parks and Rec had a great bit where they go to the perfect (and enemy) city of Eagleton, where the local city officials inform them that Eagleton sits on a natural hot spring that allows them to have palm trees and other LA plants lol.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Peggerino

The Cobra Kai series is set in LA (like Karate Kid) but is so obviously not filmed there given the greenery and fauna I've come to recognize just from streetview and watching movies and such. Apparently it's all Georgia which is crazy to me since Karate Kid 1 feels like the most LA movie ever made.

Its filmed in GA I think but in season 2 they have thrown in establishing shots they did in SoCal

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Derry, Maine with Vancouver condo towers?

I mean, yeah why not?

Okay, Vancouver is more hilly but it's not like that last scene was a bustling metropolis lol. Just compare that final shot to Bangore:





Definitely not a mirror image but to the average moviegoer? They probably aren't going to think, "gosh that's Vancouver..." from that shot.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by Camelback

Isn't Wilmington NC a film hotspot?

Not since the NC state government deliberately killed off the NC film industry. Georgia and Louisiana have since taken over as the primary places to film in the South. It still has an industry, but nowhere near what it was or where it could have gone.

[mr1138]

The one that comes to mind for me is Donnie Darko, which is supposed to be set in Middlesex, Virginia (which is a county but not a real city to my knowledge), but is pretty clearly California. It's even more glaring because it takes place in October but features no fall colors. It's still a great movie though.

Also, though not an urban setting, the movie Oklahoma was filmed in a valley in Arizona. The landscape (including mountains in the background) doesn't look even remotely like the part of Oklahoma where it is supposed to take place.

[Shawn]

If you want to include destination-specific b-roll that's wildly incorrect, there's a sequence in the first Sharknado where an intense storm is battering Santa Monica and the main characters are driving through it. The b-roll in this sequence is of Okinawa, Japanese street signs and all. Yeah, it's Sharknado, but still up there for audacity. Just another reason to love that train wreck!

[Camelback]

Originally Posted by Shawn

Georgia is the other major East Coast hot spot.

Yeah I see the logo of Georgia with Peaches on the credits of shows and films. The Walking Dead for example.

This image: