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'When Harry Met Sally", a 1989 film, has the main characters, who are portrayed by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, driving away from the University of Chicago campus in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.
At the start of their road trip, there is a long shot of them driving on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. But, they are heading south towards downtown Chicago, with Lake Michigan on their left. If they were leaving the city from Hyde Park to go through downtown, they would have to travel north from that area, with Lake Michigan on the right.
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sharif662
Not until you drive on Hwy 61(Delta), I-59 ( Pine Belt ), & I-10 ( best scenery in the state). Everything match up with the minir exception of hilly areas.
I want to clarify that I don't mean to imply the scenery was bad at all. Just that it was unchanging for most of the length of the state.
So filming in southern MS can easily pass for anywhere else in the state, especially along the river.
I want to clarify that I don't mean to imply the scenery was bad at all. Just that it was unchanging for most of the length of the state.
So filming in southern MS can easily pass for anywhere else in the state, especially along the river.
That's why i stated those specific thoroughfares in the state. It can pass for any location except along the river ( if your speaking of the Mississippi). When you hit certain towns is an obvious difference.
Yeah, Little House on the Prairie is definitely one of those shows you have to just accept is not even trying to create a realistic portrayal of southwestern Minnesota. It's just filmed in a completely different environment. If it really was shot in Minnesota during the summertime, the landscapes would be luxuriantly green—even the fields. The unplowed prairie grasses would have been tall and soared over pioneers' heads. Rivers and creeks would be way bigger, and in that era in time, outside of the largest towns or cities, you would have seen wagons floating on wooden ferries as river crossings, which was a frequent occurrence.
Another thing that bothered me about the show is the layout of the Walnut Grove set — buildings just kind of randomly plopped down in a sort of circular clump. In small towns on the Minnesota prairie, businesses and other buildings would have been built in a single line down a single main street, and generally all of the buildings would have been constructed next to each other without gaps. The schoolhouse likely would have been built farther outside of town, closer and more central to nearby homesteads. There also likely would have been two churches — one Catholic, and one Lutheran. Also, why are the Olesons the only people who seem to live in town? There would have been at least a dozen or more houses.
Little House on the Prairie, at least in its early years (I believe they later moved most of the set south), was filmed in the foothills of Northern California near Yosemite. Most of the cast would stay at a motor lodge in the small town I grew up there and I often used to crash the motel pool in the summer and met and actually hung out with the two Melissa’s, the twins who played the youngest daughter and even Michael Landon with his Hollywood hair and sunglasses.
It certainly didn’t look anything like Minnesota but it looked perfectly at “home” to me when I watched it as it was the very countryside I grew up in. That explains the yellow hills and the Black Oaks everywhere, part of the California landscape of the summer.
Yeah, Little House on the Prairie is definitely one of those shows you have to just accept is not even trying to create a realistic portrayal of southwestern Minnesota. It's just filmed in a completely different environment. If it really was shot in Minnesota during the summertime, the landscapes would be luxuriantly green—even the fields.
Throughout this thread, people are spreading more inaccuracies. The book Little House on the Prairie was set in KANSAS (and not Minnesota). The Ingalls family did live briefly in Wisconsin and Minnesota, but that they left there to settle on the Kansas prairie in the southeast corner of the state, where Kansas meets Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. They built the "Little House" near present day Independence, Kansas.
After marrying, Laura and Alonzo finally settled in Mansfield, Missouri (in the Ozarks), where she wrote all of the books and spent the rest of her life.
I visited the house and museum about 10 years ago.
Throughout this thread, people are spreading more inaccuracies. The book Little House on the Prairie was set in KANSAS (and not Minnesota). The Ingalls family did live briefly in Wisconsin and Minnesota, but that they left there to settle on the Kansas prairie in the southeast corner of the state, where Kansas meets Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. They built the "Little House" near present day Independence, Kansas.
After marrying, Laura and Alonzo finally settled in Mansfield, Missouri (in the Ozarks), where she wrote all of the books and spent the rest of her life.
I visited the house and museum about 10 years ago.
I think a lot of people mix up "Little House on the Prairie" and "Prairie Home Companion".
Laura Ingalls Wilder only spent 2 years in Kansas as a small child. While the third book in the series, Little House on the Prarie, is set there, the others in the Little House series are set in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota. 2 books take place in Minnesota, 5 take place in South Dakota, none in Missouri, though that is where she eventually settled for the rest of her life. The TV show took place during the Minnesota years.
One of my pet peeves, as someone who likes to travel and as a screenwriter, is the way some movies and TV shows completely misrepresent what a place looks like in not just geography, but even architecture and sometimes climate. This was more common in the early and mid-20th century, when film making really WAS dominated in California, but it still happens in more recent works. If it's a good show, I can look past it but sometimes it's off putting and just shows laziness.
One example that comes to mind is "Paper Towns" which I watched 3 years ago with a friend. Personally I found the movie boring and kind of pretentious, but more than anything... I was annoyed by how its largely "set in Orlando" but CLEARLY not filmed there. Orlando is in Florida, meaning most of the country looks very different. But they could have at least filmed in Louisiana or southeast Texas... but they filmed the Orlando scenes in North Carolina, and by both the architecture (the houses honestly look more Midwestern than anything you'll see in Florida) and the abundance of deciduous trees and not ONE palm tree... Also looked pretty hilly. Definitely not Florida!
There was an episode of Little House on the Prairie where a character was out in the "prairie" and it looked like a straight up desert in New Mexico. This is supposed to be Minnesota, right? The prairie of Minnesota isn't void of trees and it's not brown unless it's late autumn or early spring. (Character was dressed for summer!) Also looked really dry. I'll excuse this one as it's an old TV show.
Halloween (1978) is my second favourite movie of all time, and it's set in Illinois (I always assumed somewhere downstate, I don't think they ever specify.) and to the film's credit... they did a pretty good job of replicating the Midwest for it being filmed in California. The trees for the most part don't look out of place and the houses fit right in. Just a few things; in one scene you can see a palm tree. It's not horribly jarring but it's there. Also, everything looks pretty green for being late October. Again, they did try to make it look as autumnal as possible, and they did a pretty decent job. But there's one scene... it's supposed to take place in a rural area... it's pretty much a desert and you can make out mountains in the background lol.
And then there's Stranger Things. Great show, set in small town Indiana, but I can't remember if I've ever seen a damn cornfield lol. There's some shots that show rocky terrain and pine trees that let you know that it's definitely filmed in Georgia. Overall, the least offender of them.
The worst of all, though... I saw a trailer for a show called "Waco" that's about the whole fiasco down there in the '90s... they show a complete DESERT area, like it was Breaking Bad or something. I've passed through Waco. There's nothing dry or desert like about that part of Texas. Wow, can you get anymore off base!
What are some that you've noticed, and other's that aren't perfect but impressive in how much they try to portray the location?
I find that Texas is not accurate in a lot of hollywood depictions.I think Odessa's depiction in Heroes was very inaccurate.
The movie "city by the sea" takes place in Long Beach, NY but it's filmed in Asbury Park, NJ .. which kind of sucks b/c they make Long Beach look so run down! (It's the furthest thing from it).
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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Since we're talking 70's shows, I was a big fan of The Waltons, which takes place in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. In a one episode, the family go to Virginia Beach. However, when they show the beach scenes, there are cliffs on the coast with mountains in the background. It was clearly filmed in California, as Virginia Beach has no mountains or cliffs. It's very flat.
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