I find myself wondering this quite often now. I truly have no idea what is actually real and what is fake in programming now. I know in marvel shows and movies almost nothing is real, but there are a ton of sets where characters are walking down a hall for like 30 seconds which is really quite far and it looks so incredibly real, as if they found some actual hall that had the look they want, like in Loki for example.

Do they build green tunnels hundreds of yards long or do they find a hallway and render part of it to have the appearance they want? Are they now able to change things that don't have the green screen, making basically any location available for a shoot as long as the 'bones' fit what the show needs?

Also in the new Batman, I know they shot part of it in front of a giant screen with basically a rendering of a city on it, although I cant recall the name of the system. It was incredibly cool, but basically makes filming where you don't need to have any real on location sets anywhere.

Anyways, it is kind of crazy to me how hard it is to tell what is real and what isn't IRT sets these days. My eyes tell me that what I am seeing is a real place but my brain tells me there is no way they found some crazy perfect location that fits their set design to shoot. Interested to hear some insights and thoughts on this.

Are you referring to the new virtual production sets like this?

I've seen a few YouTube videos on the recent tearing down of the "Warner Ranch". It wasn't a ranch but several city blocks in the middle of LA used as a movie set. It had suburban homes, commercial buildings, a gas station, etc. All sorts of movies and TV shows were filmed there going back to the 60s.

It was similar to the town square used on "Back To The Future", but I think that was a different studio lot.

edit - location on Google maps

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1589491,-118.3434889,17z?entry=ttu

I was shocked at how much of Wolf of Wall Street was CGI, especially from Scorcese. That thing may as well have been a Marvel movie

Sex Panther said:

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I was shocked at how much of Wolf of Wall Street was CGI, especially from Scorcese. That thing may as well have been a Marvel movie

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Is this serious? Why was it cgi? That seems weird. Speaking of cgi and Scorsese though, watching young face deniro try to beat guys up with his old body was so bad in the Irishman.

torrid said:

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I've seen a few YouTube videos on the recent tearing down of the "Warner Ranch". It wasn't a ranch but several city blocks in the middle of LA used as a movie set. It had suburban homes, commercial buildings, a gas station, etc. All sorts of movies and TV shows were filmed there going back to the 60s.

It was similar to the town square used on "Back To The Future", but I think that was a different studio lot.

edit - location on Google maps

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1589491,-118.3434889,17z?entry=ttu

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Set building is really interesting to me, especially in westerns. You'd think there are dozens of ready to use old west sets all over the place because I swear no 2 look the same.

First thing you learn in Hollywood is that everything is fake.

One of my kids soccer coach was a set carpenter. The way he described his job was that it had to look real but, it only had to last 2 weeks.

On the other side of the coin, I've been watching the series Bosch and the LA locations they use are all real.

torrid said:

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I've seen a few YouTube videos on the recent tearing down of the "Warner Ranch". It wasn't a ranch but several city blocks in the middle of LA used as a movie set. It had suburban homes

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Yeah ... the Partridge Family and Samantha and Darren lived on the same street!

It depends

Snake Farmer said:

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Sex Panther said:

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I was shocked at how much of Wolf of Wall Street was CGI, especially from Scorcese. That thing may as well have been a Marvel movie

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Is this serious? Why was it cgi? That seems weird. Speaking of cgi and Scorsese though, watching young face deniro try to beat guys up with his old body was so bad in the Irishman.

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Recall seeing all the exterior shots in Italy or whatever near the parked yacht was CGI. Don't recall what else.

SJEAg said:

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Snake Farmer said:

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Sex Panther said:

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I was shocked at how much of Wolf of Wall Street was CGI, especially from Scorcese. That thing may as well have been a Marvel movie

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Is this serious? Why was it cgi? That seems weird. Speaking of cgi and Scorsese though, watching young face deniro try to beat guys up with his old body was so bad in the Irishman.

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Recall seeing all the exterior shots in Italy or whatever near the parked yacht was CGI. Don't recall what else.

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Same. All the yacht exotic locale stuff was CGI but don't remember seeing a lot else that was CGI?

Snake Farmer said:

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Sex Panther said:

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I was shocked at how much of Wolf of Wall Street was CGI, especially from Scorcese. That thing may as well have been a Marvel movie

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Is this serious? Why was it cgi? That seems weird. Speaking of cgi and Scorsese though, watching young face deniro try to beat guys up with his old body was so bad in the Irishman.

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Because of all the details that would be cost prohibitive in real life, it's really hard to find the exact layout/set you want and particularly for historical or very specific productions.

Set extensions are one of the most common things in most movies and tv shows, which is one reason the "CGI is bad/X director didn't use CGI" is total BS.

Another famous "they filmed it all for real" example...

Well this just reaffirms the fact that I know ****all about making movies

What would have been the price difference to shoot all of that on greennscreens vs building the sets?

Seems like that show Ted Lasso got a huge amount of CGI.

Once you notice it you can't unsee it.

Lord of the Rings is often lumped into the pile of "CGI" movies, but in reality was one of the last major blockbusters to have such a significant amount of practical effects. (Miniatures, prosthetic orcs, real sets, in-camera trickery for the Hobbits, real locations, etc.)

Even ROTK had far less CGI shots than the average big budget movie nowadays.

There's a reason Mad Max: Fury Road was so well received with such a simple plot. They made **** for real and it was awesome.

Snake Farmer said:

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torrid said:

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I've seen a few YouTube videos on the recent tearing down of the "Warner Ranch". It wasn't a ranch but several city blocks in the middle of LA used as a movie set. It had suburban homes, commercial buildings, a gas station, etc. All sorts of movies and TV shows were filmed there going back to the 60s.

It was similar to the town square used on "Back To The Future", but I think that was a different studio lot.

edit - location on Google maps

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1589491,-118.3434889,17z?entry=ttu

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Set building is really interesting to me, especially in westerns. You'd think there are dozens of ready to use old west sets all over the place because I swear no 2 look the same.

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I'd remember watching re-runs of 60s Westerns and seeing the set from one show being used for another show. For example, I think I recall "Wild Wild West" being filmed on the set of "Gunsmoke" with James West walking out of the Long Branch Saloon.

If you ever get a chance to go to Wellington, NZ, they're very proud of "Wellywood" and of course, everybody knows somebody who worked on one of the LOTR films in some way.

At the airport in Wellington, they've got some pretty impressive statues, etc. from the movies. I think they have some in Auckland too since not that many tourists make it down to Wellington.

With AI everything will be fake including the actors.