You Were WHERE?

Years ago, there was a spy series on TV called I Spy. Every episode was filmed at one exotic location - London, Shanghai, the whole bit. Actors loved to get parts on those shows because they'd get to go to those places, and get paid, too. The comedian Don Rickles said that when they offered him a role for one episode, he leapt at it, for that reason. He then found out that this one episode was being entirely shot on a back lot in Hollywood. Inside a railway car. The whole thing. All the other episodes, they traveled for, but this one was a classic locked-room mystery. No travel needed.

Now, thats true even when it isn't.

According to Studio Daily, which is oriented toward the movie industry, a company called Stargate Films has built what they call a 'virtual back lot' -- a series of digital recreations of locations that are well known -- downtown Moscow, the Las Vegas Strip -- and used them to 'place' actors in those locations, without ever going there. And unlike the matte paintings or CGIs of old, these virtual back lots allow the actors to appear to interact with the location. They get onto and off trains. They walk in the snow down the street from the Kremlin. They are there.... But they're not.

Check the sample video on the Studio Daily site. It's amazing.