Originally Posted By 999HAUNTS Hello, Yes, its day two (and the final day) of our studio tours - today we hit three! We had a 10am tour at Paramount Pictures Studio today. We almost didn't get to go. I kept calling for a reservation but continued to get voicemail. So I called a certain sister of mine and she arranged a tour for piratebrittany and I through one of her Oscar winning buddies. How cool is that?? So we get to the main gate and the security guard asks us why we are here. We say we are here for the tour, and he asks us who invited us. I guess we weren't supposed to be at this gate unless we knew someone, but Mr. Security was quite satisfied with the name we dropped on him. We got our passes, parked, and walked on over to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Cafe to wait for our tour to start. We didn't see anyone else looking touristy, so we asked the clerk if we were in the right spot. She said yes, asked us our name, and gave us our tour passes. We later found out that there were only 6 people on our tour. Two from England who's daughter worked in Paramount's marketing department, one gentleman from Brazil and one gal from Maryland. We are introduced to our two tour guides. One was named Jennifer and she was bubbly and sweet and loud enough to hear. The other gentleman was really nice but needed to work on his delivery and volume and the pronounciation of names. (He actually kept saying Alfridge Hitchcock, and pointing to things saying "there goes..." instead of "here is"). We first learned that there are 22 stars on the Paramount logo to honor the 22 original contracted movie stars at the studio. We learned that back in the day when the stars were under contract there were many forced abortions and arranged marriages. Also, if you were considered a sex symbol you weren't able to marry at all because they figured your box office take would deminish. We were then loaded into a golf cart with three rows and taken to our first soundstage and learned how Howard Hughes darn near ruined RKO studios and eventually sold it to Desilu productions. We also learned that Mr. Hughes used to hide his airplanes in these soundstages because he thought that folks would steal his designs. We got to see the room where he locked himself up in when he began really going nuts. This was actually called Gower Studio. It is now used for screenings of almost finished movies to a select group of people. The studio daycare center is right across the street from this building, so Paramount asked the kids to screen a cut of Charlotte's Web to get the right feedback. Some scenes were actually changed based on their reactions.
Originally Posted By 999HAUNTS We then got to enter the Entertainment Tonight set. This was cool. It looks so different in person. Very limited and almost boring. We then got to go to the Dr. Phil stage, but since they were done filming for the season, the Soul Train set was set up in there. I don't know how many of you are children of the 70's, but let me tell you this was a thrill for me. We actually got to take pictures on the set! Woo hoo! After this, we were told to wait outside and our tour guide went inside another building, and came out with a big thumbs up. What were we going to see now? We're told to watch our step because we are going into the ET control room where the technicians are actually prepping for tonight's show. What?!?! This was very, very cool. We got to see them cut some of the flubs out and add graphics and I was allowed to read part of the script aloud while the recording of Pat was being prepped. We stayed in there for quite some time. It was very interesting. This room is also the same room that you see the girl from ET tell you about her upcoming stories. She had just finished shooting her segment minutes before we entered so we got to witness the techs put graphics on this as well. We left here and saw the outside of the Monk set that was being dressed right infront of us. This was recently just moved to Paramount. We then got to drive through New York street, but were soon stopped because they were filming a scene from HEROES. OMG, HEROES? Shoot, we didn't get to see any of the stars because they made us go around. But, I did get to sneak a peak, and a photo, before we were told no pictures please. We saw the apartment from EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS and the outside of the precinct from 21 JUMPSTREET. And I was quite excited to see the brewery from LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we were invited into the camera room where they package, store, and transfer film. There were all of these film reel cans laying everywhere. We were told that these were the original cans used, and that after the film had been transferred to digital it was placed in permanent cans for better storage. We were asked if we recognized any of the names on the film cans and we did. We were then told that if we wanted we could actually take the cans that we liked home! How cool is that?? I got a can from Cabin Fever 2 and piratebrittany got a can from The Cure. We were stoked.
Originally Posted By 999HAUNTS We carried our new found treasures back to our studio golf cart and are taken to see the big water backdrop that was used in THE TRUMAN SHOW. We were also told a story as to how Shelly Long was shooting an episode of CHEERS here and she had to jump from a boat. (Remember that one?) - She refused to jump because the water was too cold for her. They had to stop production for a whole day to heat up the water, and rumor has it that's why her contract wasn't renewed the next year. We drove to the main Paramount gate which is called Bronson Gate. This is where movie extras used to wait hours in line before there were casting offices for extras. Anyway, the story goes that a young man was waiting in line to be a movie extra and the casting director asked him what his name was. When he replied Charles Buchinsky, the casting director told him that the name would never catch on. He glanced across the street, and seeing Bronson street across the way, dubbed him as Charles Bronson. In front of this gate is the fountain that they filmed the opening of FRIENDS at. I was not allowed to dance in it. Yes, I did ask LOL! To the right of this gate is the Paramount Theater where each seat inside cost $500 to make. We are told they are quite comfortable. It is used for cast and crew screenings. To the left of this gate is probably the most famous bench ever...Yes, you guessed it, the bus bench from FOREST GUMP. We got to take pictures sitting on it. We were then driven past the Rudolf Valentino building where there are rumored to be a tunnel underneath where he hid from adoring fans. Both of our tour guides were amazed to find out that he is one of my relatives. Very distant of course, but a relative none the less. This was the last stop on our tour. We had a great time here. Thanks to all who made it happen! I will post pictures tomorrow as I'm exhausted right now. Tomorrow I will also post our Warner Brothers adventure. Thanks again for listening.
Originally Posted By DlandJB Wonderful trip report - thanks!! Have never been to Sony and would love to go. Have taken the Warner Bros. tour twice and think it is the best. I hope you get more time in the museum than we did though!
Originally Posted By lesmisfan that sounds like such a fun trip! wish i could go on that tour. looking forward to pics!
Originally Posted By cstephens It's too bad they're not shooting anything Star Trek at the moment. It's always funny when random alien species are wandering around. One time, I was there during an eclipse, and we went to the camera department for a lens we could safely see through. As we were walking back through the lot near the Star Trek DS9 stages, it was pretty funny watching a bunch of Klingons trying to use a homemade device to see the eclipse... /cs
