Does Having TV and Film Set in a City Have Economic Impact?
Lately, I've noticed we've watched a bunch of movies (some ok, some crappy) set in Chicago. And there are certainly have been a number of major and minor TV shows set there.
Of course, as most savvy viewers know, lots of movies and TV shows that claim to be located in a particular place may use stock footage and/or 2nd unit footage to place themselves, but are actually filmed in, say, Vancouver, sometimes referred to as "Hollywood North."
We have a Missouri Film Commission that works to get movies and TV filmed in Missouri for the economic benefits.
But is there any significant benefit to having a movie or TV show set here, regardless of where it is shot?
A handful of shows have been set in Missouri; I only remember "The John Larroquette Show" (which was pretty funny) and "Day by Day" (quite bad) as shows that claimed to be set in St. Louis.
I don't have a good answer to my question; but maybe it's just that cities that people already think are cool are more likely to have movies and TV shows set there.
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4 comments:
I think people only remember a setting when it's a crucial part of the story. Sadly, our city's role as a nice place to raise a family (Day by Day, Parenthood) won't be remembered, while an edgy place of struggle and strife (John Larroquette Show, American Vacation) will.
But a range of movies with a range are moods are set in the same cities, from dismal "Escape from New York" to perky "Friends," though neither actually filmed in NYC. Although St. Louis was the post-apocolyptic set for the former, I'm very glad the fictional setting was still New York. But the worst thought-of city in the US still has to be Detroit, which I imagine the Robo-Cop series didn't help.
What we need is a Black Hole Festival celebrating one of the worst movies ever made here or anywhere else. It has everything you want in a it's so bad it's hilarious movie: bad writing, bad directing, bad acting, bad photography, bad special effects, bad costuming, you name it. The object of the festival would be to a) have fun and b) lure the motion picture industry to realize St. Louis City is the must have setting for shooting bad movies. The combination of a + b would produce c) St. Louis City becomes international home to Worst Movies Festival, Worst Movies Museum, etc., which would be good for tourism and give us yet one more thing to be proud of in our charming inferiority complex pride sort of way.
Oh, Yes! Black Hole! So laughably bad that I don't know where to begin. I wonder what the premiere night was like. Great idea for Worst Film Festival. I can see it now: "The award for Best Comic Performance(Inadvertant) goes to..."
Oh wow, what a flashback. I can remember watching The Black Hole on TV (maybe on Beta) in the early 1980s, while my mom and aunt hung Mickey Mouse wallpaper in this boy's bedroom.
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