Day 6: Universal Studios

On day 6 of our trip, we got up early to go to Universal Studios Hollywood. Of all of the theme parks, I was most excited about this one, mainly because I LOVE movies, celebrities and everything in between. I was excited about seeing the sets, backlots and possibly a celebrity or two? It was a jam-packed day. Our tour guide kept us moving the entire time, but because we did the VIP tour (which I highly recommend), we didn't wait for a single ride. 

Our tour started off with stops to the Chelsea Lately set and the Parenthood soundstage. It was neat to see how the soundstages are set up--they may look like a normal house on television, but in fact it's a wide-open shell of a house with no roof so they can get all of the cameras and lights set up. Our guide also told us some very interesting facts, most of which I have since forgotten. The tour lasted nearly 3 hours and I loved every minute of it. Finn was not as interested in movie/tv trivia as I was but he proved to be a trouper. They have some "rides" and special effects thrown in along the way so he was definitely interested. We saw a couple of shows, rode lots of rides, played in Curious George's monkeyland and ended the day with the Waterworld Show. All in all, a great day. 

At the entrance to the park

Getting ready to walk the red carpet

This was the city center lot where they film a lot of scenes that need a town hall. It's where they filmed the clock tower scenes from the Back to the Future movies. It is basically a collection of generic looking buildings that each movie customizes with signs and decor and then adds things in digitially

Same building from Back to the Future --just altered 

The Braverman family house on Parenthood

Same room seen on tv

A shot of the prop department which resembled a 10-story Homegoods store with every possible piece/style/type/color of furniture, dish, jewelry, tsotchke

This was where they filmed some major scenes from the Pirates of the Carribbean movies

The most amazing thing being all of these buildings are fakes . . . there is nothing behind them. 

Looking out on the sets--you can see how it's really just a flat wall with nothing behind it

The real JAWS shark from the movies. So funny how fake he looked. They told us when they were filming scenes with the mechanical shark, it was always broken so they ended up inserting him digitally anyway. It's amazing to see how far technology has come.

Mechanical jaws lurking beneath the surface

Whoovile 

The Bates Motel from the movie Psycho

Set of War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise movie) 

They flew in an actual Boeing 747 to use in this scene--total destruction. It was a little surreal to see

the giant blue screen where they film a lot of the water scenes

One of the shows we saw was how they train animals to be in the movies. Very fascinating to learn that most of the pets used are rescues and see how well some of them can be trained. My dogs would not make very good movie stars. This is Finn and Kevin, the dog from the movie The Proposal.

Scene from the Waterworld show. 

My takeaway from the day was that everything looks better on tv. During our tour I kept thinking how worn out everything looked--from the furniture to the sets to the facades of the buildings themselves. But on television, they appear anything but. Note to self: get on tv!