Red Studios Hollywood – aka Kinograph Studios from “The Artist”

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In early March, my friend Tony, the fellow stalker who has the amazeballs On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream, wrote a comment on my post about the duplex where George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) lived in The Artist alerting me to a blog named Silent Locations.  The blog, which is authored by business lawyer/film historian John Bengtson, features a six-part column chronicling several locales that appeared in The Artist and their connection with various silent films made during Hollywood’s heyday.  I highly recommend checking out the feature and the site in general.  It is fabulous!  Anyway, one of the places mentioned in the column was Red Studios Hollywood, the exterior of which stood in for both the exterior of Kinograph Studios in The Artist and Maroon Cartoons in 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place on a very windy Sunday afternoon two weekends ago.

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The site where Red Studios Hollywood now stands was originally founded as Metro Pictures Back Lot #3 in 1915, long before the company joined forces with Goldwyn Pictures and became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.  During its Metro heyday, such films as Scaramouche, Little Robinson Crusoe and The Champ were filmed on the premises.  Beginning in May 1946, the lot went through a series of different owners, the most prominent of whom were Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.  The showbiz powerhouse couple leased the property in 1953 and turned it into the very first Desilu Studios, where they shot seasons 3 through 6 of I Love Lucy.  In 1974, the lot became known as Ren-Mar Studios, an independently owned and operated facility where various production companies were able to rent out studio space.  Legendary television producer David E. Kelley made his home there in the 80s and shot Picket Fences (one of my faves!), Chicago Hope, The Practice and the first two seasons of Ally McBeal.  In January 2010, the lot was sold yet again, this time to Red Digital Camera Company, who renamed the place Red Studios Hollywood.

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A few of the countless other productions that have been filmed on the premises over the years include The Golden Girls, The Dick Van Dyke Show, the first four episodes of Seinfeld, The Andy Griffith Show, Make Room for Daddy, Lizzie McGuire, NewsRadio, Empty Nest, Monk, and, most recently, True Blood. The series Weeds was also filmed on the lot, back when it was Ren-Mar, and during Season 4, after Agrestic burned down, producers had Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) move to a fictional seaside town named “Ren Mar” in honor of the historic studio.  Love it!

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In The Artist, the back entrance of Red was used as the main entrance of Kinograph Studios, where George Valentin worked at the beginning of the flick.

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As you can see above, that area was changed drastically for the movie – so much so that it is virtually unrecognizable today.  A huge false front was built over the actual studio entrance for the filming and the Hollywood Rounder blog was lucky enough to get to watch it being constructed.  You can check out some very cool pics of the construction here and here, the fake security guard kiosk here, and the finished product here.

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Interestingly enough, when Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) is shown being dropped off at a location that is supposedly directly across the street from the Kinograph entrance, she is actually on New York Street at Paramount Studios, in front of the building that is used regularly as the Boston police station on Rizzoli & Isles.

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At one point in The Artist, George is also shown walking in between some of the Red Studios Hollywood soundstages.

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The area where he walked is denoted with a pink circle above.

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In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Red’s main entrance on Cahuenga Boulevard stood in for the entrance to Maroon Cartoons, where the famous animated hare worked.

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The courtyard just beyond that entrance was also used in the filming.

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That area is denoted with a pink circle above.

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On a Who Framed Roger Rabbit side-note – while doing research prior to writing this post, I came across a blurb in The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations book which, in reference to the flick’s title, stated, “No, there is no question mark, as it’s considered bad luck in a film title.”  I had never before heard that bit of trivia and found it interesting, especially since my good friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong grammatical errors blog, had recently written a post which mentioned WFRR’s punctuation error.  Superstition or not, I think the flick really needed the mark in its title and I found myself inadvertently adding one each time I typed “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” in this post.  I guess some habits are hard to break.

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The music video for Britney Spears’ hit 2000 song “Lucky” was also shot at Ren-Mar and the exterior of the studio is visible in the MTV Making the Video special about the production.

You can watch Part I of the Making the Video of “Lucky” by clicking above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker John Bengtson, from the Silent Locations blog, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Tony, from the fantastic On Location in Los Angeles Flickr photostream, for pointing me to John’s site!  Smile

Stalk It: Red Studios Hollywood, aka Kinograph Studios from The Artist, is located at 846 North Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood.  You can visit the official Red Studios Hollywood website here.  The area of the studio used in The Artist can be found on Lillian Way, in between Willoughby and Waring Avenues.  The studio’s main entrance on Cahuenga Boulevard is the entrance that stood in for Maroon Cartoons in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  Red Studios Hollywood is not open to the public and does not currently offer a tour.

Grandma Bunny’s House from “You Again”

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As I mentioned in last Friday’s post, the hunt for Aunt Mitsy’s (aka Kathy Bates’) house from Rumor Has It actually began when fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, asked for some help in tracking down the abode where Grandma Bunny (aka Betty White) lived in the 2010 flick You Again.  I immediately got fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, and Owen on the case, but even with their master stalking skills, for whatever reason, this particular location mystery took us quite a bit of time to solve.  The one major clue that we had to go on was that the house appeared to be situated on some sort of slanted lot and was not perfectly parallel to the street.  And while several crew members had informed Chas that the dwelling was located in Altadena, he had remembered seeing some slanted-type houses in the Monrovia area while he was searching for the Georgia Rule abode way back in March of this year, so he decided to begin his hunt there.  Thank god that guy has a good memory!  Winking smile

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As you can see in the above screen capture, an address number of “240” was also visible in the background of flick, so Chas got started searching all of the 200 blocks on every “slanted” street he could find in the Monrovia area and, amazingly enough, it was not long before he spotted the right house!  So I, of course, ran right out to stalk the place just a few days later.

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Grandma Bunny’s Victorian-style abode is actually only featured once in You Again and very briefly at that.  It pops up in the scene in which Marni (aka Kristen Bell), her brother Will (aka James Wolk) and his new fiance/Marni’s high school nemesis Joanna (aka Odette Annable) arrive to pick up Grandma Bunny for a wedding dance rehearsal.  It is there that, while helping Bunny put in her false teeth, Marni accidentally gets denture adhesive all over her hands and then winds up getting her hands stuck in her hair, causing Grandma Bunny to chop a large chunk of it off. (It pretty much goes without saying that You Again was not that great of a movie. Winking smile)

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I am very happy to report that Grandma Bunny’s house, which was originally built in 1887 (the same year that Monrovia was incorporated) and is one of the city’s oldest surviving Victorians, is just as adorable in person as it appeared to be onscreen.  At the time of its construction, there were only 164 homes in Monrovia and a scant 2,000 residents.  According to the city’s Historic Preservation Group’s website, the Colonial Revival-style front porch is not original, but was added to the property in the early 1900’s.  In real life, the charming little abode boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and measures 1,482 square feet, although its façade makes it appear to be much larger.  Ironically enough, in a bit of foreshadowing the home’s actual owner described the dwelling as “everyone’s idealized version of grandma’s house” in a Los Angeles Times article that was published in January 1989.  I guess the You Again filmmakers felt the exact same way when they scouted the property.  Smile

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location.  And you can check out Geoff’s, from the 90210Locations website, extensive You Again filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Grandma Bunny’s house from You Again is located at 240 West Hillcrest Boulevard in Monrovia.