Tag Archives: film shoot

How to make Toronto’s suburban streets look like Chicago’s suburban streets on screen

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A new Peacock show on John Wayne Gacy filmed many scenes in Toronto but wanted them to look like Chicago. Here is how they did it:

Photo by Andre Furtado on Pexels.com

The series was filmed largely in Toronto, though the sets bear a striking resemblance to Chicago’s suburban sprawls in the 1970s. Macmanus works with a private researcher, Patrick Murphy, on most projects; Murphy scoured local reports from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, as well as news footage, and produced a “great bible of photos” that was passed off to the production team to scout and replicate.

And they needed the scenes to look like a particular Chicago neighborhood (Norwood Park):

“I didn’t realize how close he was to O’Hare. That was just shocking, in the sense that he truly was hiding in plain sight. The house wasn’t in some remote area, it was a suburban street like so many other suburban streets, with houses right next to each other, right next to the airport,” Chernus said in a recent chat over Zoom.

Will the average viewer be able to tell that the filmed scenes are in Toronto and not actually in Chicago? Probably not. If the production team found similar settings and then adds a combination of establishing shots and internal sets (that could be located anywhere), it may be hard even for people with lots of Chicago experience to spot differences.

I have heard people suggest Toronto and Chicago are similar in character (and population). How much harder would it be to make it look like Chicago if it were filmed in Vancouver (a common Canadian setting for American production) or Atlanta (still in the same country but different landscape) or another American city with bigger tax breaks?

Is there any evidence that filming in the actual location improves the final product? If filming elsewhere is about saving money, what could be gained by filming on location in Chicago? Are there particular producers or networks that prioritize filming in the actual location?

Filming a popular music video in a Brooklyn church leads to changes

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Churches are not usually settings for popular music videos. After the release of a video from a popular new artist, there was some fallout:

Photo by Alem Su00e1nchez on Pexels.com

The priest who permitted Sabrina Carpenter to film her music video for “Feather” has been stripped of his duties.

On Monday, Nov. 18, Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello was relieved of his role after church officials determined that an investigation revealed other evidence of mismanagement, per the Associated Press.…

Last November, just days after Carpenter, 25, released the visual for “Feather,” Gigantiello was disciplined and stripped of his administrative duties because of the video, per The New York Times.

The Diocese of Brooklyn shared a statement with the Catholic News Agency stating that Bishop Robert Brennan was “appalled at what was filmed at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Brooklyn.”

According to the outlet, the Diocese claimed that the Blessed Virgin Mary Church did not follow policy when it came to approving what gets filmed on Church property, and it was Gigantiello who gave Carpenter’s team permission to film the video.

As a researcher who has written about church buildings, I wondered how many churches or congregations would allow a music artist to film within their building. Would it matter what kind of music the video involved? Or if the artist had a personal connection with the faith tradition or the particular building? I would guess many religious congregations would hesitate before approving the filming of a music video in their space.

Religious buildings often work to separate profane – everyday – activities from sacred – transcendent – activities. How this is done can vary across religious traditions and spaces. If a congregation is renting space in a high school for services or is meeting in what used to be an Army barracks, how do they do this (see Chapter 6 in Building Faith for these examples and several others)? Or some religious traditions might mark religious spaces by distinct architecture and design while others argue they can do this in a multifunction space that can be a sanctuary at one moment, a gym the next, and a wedding reception space after that.

If this church had turned down the music video filming, where might they have gone next? Another religious building or a sound stage?

Using suburban homes for film shoots

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The Daily Herald describes what happens when suburban homes are chosen for film shoots:

Directors of Hollywood movies, TV shows, commercials and national print ads regularly use suburban homes as locations for filming and photo shoots. Just a few weeks ago, scenes from the movie “Precious Mettle,” starring Paul Sorvino and Fiona Dourif, were shot at homes in Naperville and Aurora…They will add the photos to their online database and show them to prospective directors. Because they have thousands of homes in their database, the odds of being chosen are slim. But you never know what a director is looking for, and there’s growing demand for suburban-styled homes, said longtime location scout Oryna Schiffman, based in Elmhurst.

“Since the recession started, I’ve been getting less and less requests for your typical North Shore mansions. They say, ‘I want real people who live in real houses,'” said Schiffman, who accepts photos at oryna@me.com. “You never know what they’re going to ask for next.”…

However, there is a downside to offering up your home. Filming and photo shoots can disrupt your routine, your sleep, and possibly your neighborhood. Movie crews, especially, tend to completely take over an area with trailers and equipment. Homeowners usually get short notice about the shoots and need to hastily sign off on the legal paperwork.

While most film crews are respectful of people’s property (and often contractually obligated to return it to its original condition), paint sometimes gets chipped and things get broken or banged up. That’s why it’s important to get things in writing before the filming begins.

Of course, the article starts with a story of a family who was paid $12,000 for giving up their home for six days for a print advertisement shoot. There may be quite a few suburbanites who would relish such an opportunity.

The quote that directors are looking for “real homes” is interesting. The suggestion here is that with tighter economic times, people want to see more normal homes while during more economic prosperous times people like seeing bigger homes. When they arrive at a home, how much do they take the home as is or they change it up to suit their filming needs? Plus, how often is the tone of the commercial, TV show, film, or advertisement that the suburban home needs improving or there is something to critique? On one hand, there are a lot of critics of suburban tract homes but they are apparently useful for marketing and some artistic purposes.