Is Amazon making "traditional" lower budget movies now?

[Frank Cox]

Maybe this is just coincidental, but I played Mercy last week and Crime 101 starting tonight and it occurs to me that these are both "traditional" lower budget Hollywood movies that consist of doing stuff and chasing each other around Los Angeles, pretty much what movies used to be before they started putting the second act in London and the third act in Tokyo in order to, I guess, appeal to an international audience.

It's obviously cheaper to keep everything in LA and it seems like 90% of movies used to be set in LA (and the other 10% didn't get much exposure, at least around here).

So I wonder if Amazon is going back to that style of movie making.

I realize that two in a row isn't necessarily a trend, but it's interesting.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Yeah, two in a row feels more like a fluke than a trend.

I've heard complaints that it's often cheaper nowadays to fly an entire film crew and actors half way around the globe, gobble up local subsidies and then ship off post-production to a gazillion of sweat-shops around the globe, than to film the entire thing in and around Hollywood, either on-stage or on-location....

[Steve Guttag]

That Crime 101 thing was interesting (not the content, as I didn't see it) but there was an early access show where they required the sites to start the movie a a precise time so that it would conclude at a precise time so that they could transition to a live-stream. I presume it was some sort of presentation with the filmmakers or something. I just know I had to coordinate with a handful of sites to ensure their automated TMS systems got the shows to start the feature at the right time (remember, with all of the ads and trailers and how people automate those don't have the feature start at the posted time) as well as cue up the live stream transfer.

[Tj Hopland]

I remember being told that at least back in the day they had deals/contracts that within so many miles of the studio everyone was treated and paid as if they were still on the studio lot so that's why so much stuff was shot on the same streets and locations. If they were outside that range then there were different pay rates for everyone and additional things kicked in with support staff and equipment. With how common that stuff was especially it seems in the later 60's and 70's its amazing you didn't see a camera crew from another production going going down the street the other direction. Or maybe that happened all the time and ruined a lot of shots? I presume the city had some sort of permitting process so in theory someone knew what was supposed to be shot where what days.

If they are filming in LA again does that mean we will see landline phones where when the caller hangs up we hear a dial tone? I guess the phone company there was one of the few in the country where their equipment worked that way, most places you got silence and to get tone you had to hang up your end then pick up again. Even if the story didn't take place in LA the on screen phones seemed to work that way. I remember thinking that was just a movie thing like how most phone numbers started with 555. I guess it could have partly been a movie thing since a sound is easier to convey then silence in most cases so they just stuck with it?

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's called the Thirty-Mile-Zone, or TMZ, a term coined back in the 60s. I'm not sure if modern contracts still have this limit, but it certainly was a thing.

Regarding the way phones work in movies: I'm pretty sure 99% of the phone calls in movies are dubbed, at least the far end and so are the sound effects. So I guess that's the way sound mixers thought that's how land lines work.

[Jim Cassedy]

That Crime 101 thing was interesting (not the content,
as I didn't see it) but there was an early access show where they required the sites to
start the movie a a precise time so that it would conclude at a precise time so that they
could transition to a live-stream. I presume it was some sort of presentation with the
filmmakers or something. I just know I had to coordinate with a handful of sites to
ensure their automated TMS systems got the shows to start the feature at the right
time (remember, with all of the ads and trailers and how people automate those don't
have the feature start at the posted time) as well as cue up the live stream transfer.

I do these types of events on a fairly frequent basis. I'd say on average at least one
every other month or so, but I've also had some months we're I've done two a week.
My last one was about two weeks ago. There is usually a very specific playlist, with
no trailers, etc. It's usually just a 'walk-in' holding slide. Sometimes there is also a
live (remote) intro before the feature. There's anywhere from half-a-dozen and often
more locations live-streaming the event. In my organization, none of these shows are
automated. There's a live 'technical engineer' at each location (we're no longer
allowed to use the term "projectionist"), and we're all in communication via a real-
time Google chat to synchronize start times. They usually go fairly smoothly.
The last one I did was about two weeks ago. They were originally planning to have
it originate from my theater, but it requires shutting down the largest auditorium for
a complete day so that the video crew can set up their cameras & lighting. We
were already down to two auditoriums because the others were being upgraded
with new carpets, seats, and lighting improvements, and they didn't want to lose
revenue from the 'big house' for an entire day. So that particular show originated
from a Los Angeles location.

[Bobby Henderson]

It actually would not surprise me one bit if a movie production made things look like the show was shot in Los Angeles, but was actually produced elsewhere entirely.

"Digital back lot" work is very common in both movies and TV productions. Actors perform in front of green screens. In some cases the sets are using really large, self-emitting LED boards to display backgrounds just like rear-screen projection did in the past. Modern LED boards have very fast refresh rates. If the boards are high enough in resolution problems like moiré won't be such a problem, especially if the camera shots have the subject in focus and the background thrown somewhat out of focus. Movies and TV shows also tend to use at least some stock film/video footage of well known landmarks.