Shapiro's LA Adventure: Hollywood and Baseball

For their last day here, we took Jim, Jo, AJ and Zach on the Warner Brothers Studio tour. It was very similar to the one Lou and I did a few weeks ago (even got the same tour guide). She covered some slightly different territory, but I didn't hear her repeat any of the same jokes!

Our guide explained how they shoot a scene using Jo and Zach as actors. She had them recite a simple couple of lines, then pretended to move the camera, and say the lines again, and again. Each time they move the camera it takes about 45 minutes to set up. During that time stand-ins stand in place for the actors who go off to their rooms to practice and get ready. Apparently it can take hours to get one short scene taped.

The famous Warner Brothers water tower. Apparently it's empty now, but it's a historic landmark.

Some of the "city" sets:

This little store is in the TV show Shameless:

This fake movie theater was in a lot of films. Currently it can be seen in the introduction to films at AMC theaters.

The prop shop - acres and acres of props.

The telephone room:

The put plaques up at each stage listing when it was build and what major shows were recorded there. Here's one. We walked onto the set of the Ellen Degeneres Show.

Bugs and friends:

Next: La Brea Tar Pits. (we've written about them before - so look further down for more details)

Grauman's Chinese Theater:

The courtyard has hundreds of blocks with actors names, hand prints and foot prints. You can see everybody milling around looking at them in the picture above. Here are a few. Click on them to enlarge.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame! Jo's first pic:

Some of the local "color" on the walk. Who knows what sights you might see? There are a lot of people dressed up as characters, apparently shilling for tours or for tips once we tourists take pictures.