When we’re watching a movie we usually become immersed with the world presented to us on the screen. Very rarely do we think of the work that goes into putting it all together behind the scenes.
However, every backdrop has to be meticulously scoped out and carefully planned by a dedicated team. In many cases the production company will build their own set or use a location that they already own.
But often production companies have to find private locations and rent them from the owners. For example did you know you can rent your home to a film crew? It’s not all big deals and closed door negotiations, a lot of the time it is average Joes working with big production companies to provide locations.
In this post we’re going to cover 3 of the wackiest film locations of all time and the movies they were in.
A Miniature Model City (Metropolis – 1927)
In this movie a complete miniature city was built for the purpose of allowing a camera to pan through, creating a realistic futuristic environment in which the film was set.
Taking this one step further though, special effects guru Eugen Schüfftan developed a technique that used mirrors to place actors into the miniature city. This made the model city infinitely more realistic and was a revolutionary practice; the technique was later dubbed the Schüfftan process.
An Aircraft Flying in Zero-G Conditions (Apollo 13 – 1995)
In most space or sci-fi based movies these days there isn’t a hint of a physical set. However in Apollo 13 the producers not only built a physical set, they actually had the actors float in zero gravity conditions!
The actors were inside NASA’s KC-135, which flies in an elliptic flight path. At certain points, the aircraft is in free fall, which can produce limited amounts of weightlessness for up to 25 seconds.
Apollo 13 set was constructed inside this NASA aircraft to allow filming to take place while the vessel was in short bursts of zero gravity. Apparently over 4 hours of weightless footage was captured overall from this setup.
A man made atoll (Waterworld – 1995)
Rather than building an actual water world, the cunning team behind the hit movie built a 365 foot atoll just off the coast of Hawaii. Although this was mostly attached to land for security and stability there were shots that involved the structure free-floating in open water.
Unfortunately for the producers costs soared when part of this innovative set was destroyed by adverse weather conditions.
Do you know of any strange or wonderful film locations? Leave a comment and let us know!
