backlots
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A backlot is an area behind or adjoining a movie studio containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes in
filmmaking Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, cast ...
or
television production A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...
s, or space for temporary
set construction Set construction is the process undertaken by a construction manager to build full-scale scenery, as specified by a production designer or art director working in collaboration with the director of a production to create a set for a theatric ...
.


Uses

Some movie studios build a wide variety of sets on the backlot, which can be modified for different purposes as need requires and "dressed" to resemble any time period or look. These sets include everything from mountains, forests, ships, to small-town settings from around the world, as well as streets from the
Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
, to whole modern-day city blocks from New York City, Paris, Berlin, and London. There are streets that comprise an assortment of architectural styles, Victorian to suburban homes, and 19th century-style
townhouse A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...
s that encircle a central park with trees. An example of this is (the former)
Warner Bros. Ranch The Warner Bros. Ranch is located at 411 North Hollywood Way in Burbank, California and was formerly called the Columbia Ranch. It was the backdrop for many Columbia Pictures films and Screen Gems/Columbia Pictures Television shows, including ...
in Burbank, California seen in the title sequence of '' Friends'' or, in the case of
Universal Studios Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...
, the home of
Norman Bates Norman Bates is a fictional character created by American author Robert Bloch as the main antagonist in his 1959 thriller novel '' Psycho''. He has an alter, Mother, who takes from the form of his abusive mother, and later victim, Norma, wh ...
from the
Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
movie '' Psycho''. The shells, or façades, on a studio backlot are usually constructed with three sides and a roof, often missing the back wall and/or one of the side walls. The interior is an unfinished space, with no rooms, and from the back of the structure one can see the electrical wires, pipes, beams and scaffolding, which are fully exposed. Ladders are usually built into the structure, allowing performers to climb to an upper-floor window or the roof to perform scenes. Not all the buildings and houses are shells. Some are closed in with a fourth wall. When not otherwise in use, they serve as storage facilities for lighting and other production equipment. When in use, the structures are dressed by adding doors, window treatments and landscaping. L-shaped temporary walls are placed inside of doors to give the illusion of an interior. When not in use, the structures are usually stripped of this dressing.
Mel Brooks Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He began ...
' '' Blazing Saddles'' offers a rare look into the Warner Bros. backlot, with scenes spilling off the Laramie Street set into various stages and eventually out of Gate 3 onto Olive Avenue in Burbank, California. Television shows such as ''
Moonlighting Moonlighting may refer to: * Side job A side job, also informally called a side hustle or side gig, is an additional job that a person takes in addition to their primary job in order to supplement their income. Side jobs may be done out of nec ...
'' and ''
It's Garry Shandling's Show ''It's Garry Shandling's Show'' is an American sitcom that was initially broadcast on Showtime from September 10, 1986 to May 25, 1990. It was created by Garry Shandling and Alan Zweibel. The series is notable for breaking the fourth wall. S ...
'' also broke the
fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...
and gave audiences a peek at life on the other side of the camera. All the sets on a studio backlot are built to appear large, as if covering miles of ground on the big or small screen, while actually occupying only a few acres of the backlot. At their peak, some backlots covered hundreds of acres around existing studios, and filmmakers rarely left the lot, as they would intercut the backlot shots with a handful of
establishing shot An establishing shot in filmmaking and television production sets up, or establishes, the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects. It is generally a long or extreme-long shot at the beginning of ...
s filmed on location by a second unit.


Demise

Today many studio backlots are gone or nearly gone. There are several reasons for this. Los Angeles, like the rest of the United States, went through an economic boom after World War II. This caused real estate prices and property taxes linked to fair market value to rise dramatically (the latter problem was curtailed by the enactment of Proposition 13 in 1978). At the same time, during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s (the period when Hollywood underwent the transition from the
Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the '' Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the G ...
to
New Hollywood The New Hollywood, also known as American New Wave or Hollywood Renaissance, was a movement in American film history from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence. They influenced the types o ...
), global movie audiences were increasingly irritated by films which were supposedly set all over the world, but obviously had been filmed in California. The primitive special effects technology of the era made it difficult to remove clear signs that a film had been shot in California, such as chaparral-covered hills at the horizon line. Audiences wanted to see actors in locations which were both exotic and authentic, not cheap Hollywood facsimiles. The mediocre box office performance of the 1967 film ''
Camelot Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and, since the Lancelot-Grail cycle, eventually came to be described as th ...
'' was blamed in part on this issue, which in turn marked the end of large-scale backlot production in Southern California. By the early 1970s, the industry had transitioned to
location shooting Location shooting is the shooting of a film or television production in a real-world setting rather than a sound stage or backlot. The location may be interior or exterior. The filming location may be the same in which the story is set (for ex ...
for the majority of outdoor scenes, and backlots were widely viewed as an obsolete, unwanted capital expenditure and a tax burden on studios. Many were razed and the land was either sold to developers or repurposed for theme parks (e.g.,
Universal Studios Hollywood Universal Studios Hollywood is a film studio and theme park in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles County, California. About 70% of the studio lies within the unincorporated county island known as Universal City while the rest lies w ...
) or office buildings (e.g., Century City). Since the late 1990s, the increased use of CGI and blue/green screen effects in big budget movies has accelerated the decline in the use of studio backlots, as more films are shot completely indoors. Though some studios like
MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
and Fox sold vast tracts in the 1960s and 1970s, many historical sets continue to be demolished today, as there seems to be little interest in their preservation.


See also

*
Cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...
*
History of cinema The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century. The advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined. However, the commercial, public scree ...
*
Sound stage A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a soundproof, large structure, building, or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie or ...
*
Movie ranch A movie ranch is a ranch that is at least partially dedicated for use as a set in the creation and production of motion pictures and television shows. These were developed in the United States in southern California, because of the climate. The fir ...
*
Location shooting Location shooting is the shooting of a film or television production in a real-world setting rather than a sound stage or backlot. The location may be interior or exterior. The filming location may be the same in which the story is set (for ex ...
* Filming location * Digital backlot


References


External links


"40 Acres" The Lost Backlot Studio of Movie & Television Fame

"Columbia Ranch.net" A website about the former Columbia Studios Ranch in Burbank CA

Backlot space at Pinewood & Shepperton Studios
{{CinemaoftheUS Film production Film location shooting