Life around Hollywood

Since I live in the LA area, I am constantly running across film crews working on TV show, movies, or commercials. It has been interesting to get a different perspective of the whole process and it has even become somewhat ordinary. I remember being totally excited the first couple times I saw a film crew, and now it has become much more ordinary. It is neat to know that the “Father of the Bride” house is near, as is the house that Marty’s mom grew up in, in “Back to the Future”. The church from “Father of the Bride” is down the street from mine. I even saw a Christmas movie being filmed there in the middle of the summer. We’ve rented out our parking lot a couple of times to TV shows to use while they film in the area. The latest was for the biggest failure of this year, “Smith”.

Last spring there was a house down the street from ours being used for a movie for a couple weeks. I was surprised how they just let us walk up and watch from across the street and how accessible everything was. I told leah it was probably a made for TV movie, a hallmark movie or something. We asked a crew member and he said it was a movie called “Though None Go With Me”. Then he said, “Yeah, its just a Hallmark movie.”

Probably the most common thing to see is a commercial. It is interesting to see how easy it is to know that it is a commercial being filmed. The crew is a lot smaller, and there is usually only a single camera. We’ve seen a few car commercials being filmed. One is still being run. It shows a car on the highway and it is going through a construction zone. There are two versions. On one, a chain breaks and a large cement tube comes rolling down and the driver is able to escape it. On the other version the car freezes and it shows a guy walking around the car talking about safety features or something. That commercial sent us on a detour off the freeway, so I don’t like it.

One guy I go to seminary with actually stars in some commercials on the side. He grew up starring in a Disney film, and has done some other things since then. I believe he’s been in Star Trek and some other things. His name is Jay Underwood if you want to look him up on imdb.com. He gets ragged for it a lot. Anyways, he’s been in one of those “I’m All Advil” commercials. he’s the guy who’s wife gets him to do yoga and is standing on his head. He was also in a really stupid Hallmark Easter commercial last year. He said he just filmed a car commercial, so I’m keeping my eye open.

Well, this Sunday we drove up to church to see a commercial being filmed across the street and they were filming on our sidewalk. They were filming in a lot that was in between car dealerships. It appears to be a car commercial with a dancing chicken trying to stop cars. We watched them keep filming the same thing over and over. Here’s a pic of it, in case you want to keep an eye out for it.