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A location that you just know you've seen in five other TV shows or movies. To locations what Hey, It's That Guy! is to actors.
Filming at a landmark is a separate trope when the scene is supposed to take place at that specific landmark (e.g. the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, famous courthouses), but it counts here when a landmark is used generically (e.g. any Vancouver landmark).
Sub-Trope of California Doubling, Kirk's Rock might be the single most-used That Place in American television, and the various BBC Quarries serve a similar role in the UK.
Examples of Hey, It's That Place! include:
Los Angeles and California[]
- Circus Liquor (Clueless, Alias, Private Practice)
- The former Unocal building, now part of Los Angeles Center Studios. The lobby and some other interior spaces are available for filming, and you might recognise them from these photos. (Alias, Cold Case, Numb3rs, NCIS, Mad Men, the X Files film, early commercials for Life, even a California tourism commercial of all things).
- This house (Numb3rs, Shark, a Verizon commercial)
- Diamond Ranch High School (various high-tech facilities in Live Free or Die Hard, The Cell, Serenity, Imposter)
- There's a house somewhere in California that was used in Charmed, Journeyman, and the film Premonition.
- For anybody who watched MTV in the '80s, The Rainbow Bar and Grill is an example.
- The concrete ditch surrounding the Los Angeles River (Terminator 2, Boomtown, 24, The Italian Job, Point Blank, Grease, The Other Wiki has an extensive list)
- Also happens to be a drivable location in Midnight Club; LA
- As well as a few levels of Need for Speed Underground. This location's overuse in car chase scenes was made fun of in The Simpsons, when Abe races a rival group of seniors through a similar ditch in Springfield.
- Also happens to be a drivable location in Midnight Club; LA
- Bronson Canyon
- The Brandeis-Bardin Institute library, also known as the House of the Book; featured once in Star Trek (sixth movie) and once in The Next Generation ("Descent"), and served as the visual for the exterior of the command center/power chamber in Power Rangers. As well as several commercials and a movie nobody has ever heard of.
- The Museum from Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
- Another museum on Chuck.
- Also the headquarters for the Visualize cult on The Mentalist.
- The Universal Studios back lot is highly recognizable from Back to The Future, Murder, She Wrote, Remington Steele, and other works. Unfortunately, it was destroyed by a massive fire in June 2008, making its appearance something of a Funny Aneurysm Moment.
- Colonial Street, on the backlot, made famous as Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives, actually first gained cult status as "Mayfield Place" in the Tom Hanks Comedy The Burbs. also seen in The Munsters and Leave It to Beaver'.
- The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute was featured prominently in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, although Greeked into simply the "Marine Institute".
- Point Dume in Malibu is a favorite spot for beach filming. It's most memorably appearance was at the end of Planet of the Apes, but it also appeared in several of the other films in that series as well (it's where the apes land in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, for example). Tony Stark's home in Iron Man was there via CGI; Psycho Beach Party was was filmed there as well. It also appears in several commercials.
- The Bradbury Building's unusual architecture has made it a staple of sf and quirky TV and film, most notably Blade Runner.
- And the Genesis music video for the song "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight".
- Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles slopes down along Bunker Hill past several photogenic Los Angeles landmarks like the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the MOCA. As a result, it shows up in a surprisingly large number of car commercials.
- Running three blocks parallel is Broadway, whose grimy, old-new architecture has been a popular location for films like Blade Runner and Inception.
- If there's a scene at a carousel, there's a good chance it was filmed in one of two L.A. locations: the outdoor Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round or the indoor carousel at the Santa Monica Pier.
- The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis House has been in quite a few movie and TV productions, perhaps most famously the Vincent Price version of House on Haunted Hill, Blade Runner and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- There are several mansions in southern California that have appeared in a dozen or more adult films each.
- Torrence High School was used as the school in Beverly Hills, 90210, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and multiple movies.
- The Quality Cafe has appeared in numerous movies and TV series, including Mad Men, Se7en, Ghost World, and Catch Me If You Can. It was once a working restaurant, but since 2006 has been closed to the public and used only as a filming location. More information here.
Vancouver[]
- The SFU Burnaby quad and rotunda (Battlestar Galactica, J Pod, Masters Of Science Fiction,SG-1's Tollan homeworld)
- Library Square (Battlestar Galactica, Bionic Woman, unaired Global Frequency pilot)
- Hatley Castle - not actually in Vancouver, but close enough for BC-based productions to use (Smallville, X-Men)
- The Ovaltine Cafe (I Robot, unaired Global Frequency pilot)
- The Chan Centre and other locations at UBC (The4400, Battlestar Galactica, Reaper)
- The Capilano Suspension Bridge (Sliders, MacGyver, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven)
United Kingdom[]
- Several British productions have used the gate of Chatham Dockyard (now Chatham Historic Dockyard after the Naval base closed in 1984) as a prison gate. The linked photo doesn't show the wooden doors, but when closed they look convincingly prison-like.
- London's 30 St Mary Axe, affectionately known as the Gherkin, is popular when the script calls for a contemporary-style European Skyscraper. Previously, it was the Lloyd's of London.
- Cardiff Freakin' Castle. It's been in no less than five stories in the Whoniverse as of 2011.
- Eilean Donan Castle, ancestral fortress of the Clan MacRae, on Loch Long. Or, if you go by film only, it's the home of the Clan Macleod,, stands on a lake where a big scary monster has lived for hundreds of years, and is a branch office for M.I.6.
- The Sunbury Pump House, near Shepperton Studios, Surrey, provided interiors for Red Dwarf and Gamesmaster. The Red Dwarf cast invoke this trope on the DVD commentary as they try to remember what other series were filmed there.
- St Cadoc's Hospital is starting to become a stock location for BBC Wales Productions too. for now : 2 Torchwood appearances (Episode "Sleeper" and the Children of Earth miniseries) plus Doctor Whos "The Eleventh Hour" and is Nina and George's workplace in Being Humans third series.
- Walthamstow Town Hall and the neighbouring Assembly Hall in north London are the UK's stock location for a large inter-war building due to the art deco exterior and surviving 1930s interiors. Notable appearances include many different fictional locations in Poirot, the exterior of the hotel in Misfits series two part six, and the exterior of the Reichskanzlerei and the Nazi nightclub in the Doctor Who episode "Let's Kill Hitler".
Elsewhere[]
- Casa Loma in Toronto has stood in for any number of fancy houses and castles. Not to mention its interior was used as the inside set for Xavier's School in the first X-Men film.
- The UWaterloo Waterfall Building (Battlestar Galactica, Bionic Woman)
- In many Hong Kong action films, there will be a fight in an abandoned industrial plant with a lot of pipes. This is actually a desalination plant that proved not be economically viable and is now used as a location for filming.
- Tokusatsu fans are familiar with quite a few locations in Japan that seem to be used every year, no matter what the series. This practice goes back to the original Kamen Rider, which prided itself on picking outdoor locations like dams, quarries and coasts for elaborate fight scenes.
- 55 Central Park West, otherwise known as the Ghostbusters Building. Note that it's not as tall as the film makes it out to be.
- Numerous locations in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Hamilton's been a popular shooting location in the past two decades because of its wide variety of locations, its proximity to Toronto and regional tax incentives.
- Monument Valley is in a number of films and other media outlets--particularly Westerns.
- Hatley Castle/Royal Roads University, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, has featured in numerous films; The X-Men franchise and Masterminds are among the better-known titles. Other Victoria landmarks seen or at least used include Fan Tan Alley (seen in Bird on a Wire), and the Royal British Columbia Museum (which hosted an episode of MacGyver).
- The art deco edifice of the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant in Toronto has appeared as as a lair for corporate villainy (The Pretender, Undercover Brother, Mutant X), a prison (Half Baked, Flashpoint), a mental asylum (In the Mouth of Madness, Robocop: The Series), and a brewery (Strange Brew).
- The detention room in The Breakfast Club in suburban Chicago was re-used in Not Another Teen Movie. For bonus points, Paul Gleason reprised his role as the principal!
- Virtual example: 90% percent of Machinimas using The Sims 3 will be filmed in recognizable Sunset Valley locations. This is because Sunset Valley is the only neighborhood which comes pre-made with the game.
- Chateau De Pierrefonds, known best now for playing Camelot in Merlin, also appeared in several other shows and movies-one example was as an Italian castle in Highlander episode 'Star-Crossed'.
Sets[]
- The sitcom 227 used the same famous set as Sesame Street for its "outside" scenes.
- Hang'n With Mr. Cooper used the same set as Growing Pains for the first season.
- The house from ET the Extraterrestrial was used briefly in the first Charlie's Angels movie. This was the scene where Drew Barrymore's character falls naked from her house.