USA Part One - Los Angeles and Warner Bros Studio Tour

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We had a 9 hour flight from Rarotonga to Los Angeles, which was the longest flight that we had been on since our journey to Australia all those months ago! As it was a late flight - the plane took off at 11:59pm, they turned off the lights once they had served dinner – Emma had salmon again whilst Craig had butter chicken curry, which he actually quite liked, which is unusual for him when it comes to plane food. We both actually got a decent amount of sleep thankfully, which made the journey go pretty fast. By the time we knew it, it was only around 2 hours to go until arrival, so we each watched a film as they served breakfast. We were at the back of the plane, so were a little disappointed when our first choice of pancakes had all gone by the time it reached us, just leaving us with the other choice of scrambled egg and chicken sausage, which wasn’t too bad I guess – there will be plenty of time for pancakes in the USA!

We landed at 12:30pm local time and were greeted by a huge queue at immigration – boo! There must have been a few flights that had landed at the same time, but as we were among the last off the plane it meant that we were at the back of the queue. It probably took about 40 minutes until we were finally at the desk, being asked the usual questions and getting our photos taken and fingerprints scanned. We grabbed our luggage, which had been taken off the conveyor belt as they were pretty much the only bags left that hadn’t yet been claimed!

We finally emerged into the arrivals hall and headed straight to the LAX Flyaway Bus stop. We were staying at the Travelodge in Hollywood that we stayed at last time we were in LA, so we knew exactly where we were going. The Flyaway turned up after a short wait, and we handed over our luggage to the driver to load onto the storage area underneath before taking our seats. The trip to Union Station took about 30 minutes (not helped by stopping at 5 other terminals to pick up more people on the way out of the airport), but once there we headed straight down to the Metro Red Line.

We had brought with us all of our random cards from our last trip (loyalty cards, etc that usually give you discounts in the stores), which included our TAP card for the LA metro system. We each loaded up $10 for the next few days and hopped straight onto the next train that came along, headed towards North Hollywood. We got off at Vermont/Sunset and only had a short two minute walk to the Travelodge just around the corner.

We checked in and took our stuff up to our room, which was as nice and spacious as we remembered! We had a little rest in the room before going out to get a few things from Rite Aid (a pharmacy/food mart place – they have a lot of these types of stores over here!) and pick up some lunch/dinner (it was pushing 4:30pm by this point so we figured we would just combine them). We then returned to the room where we were finally able to reconnect to the world after being so detached in the Cook Islands and spent a while checking various things on the internet, before trying to get an early night to catch up on some sleep. Unfortunately, even though we hadn’t really had a proper night’s sleep on the plane, it was only around 7pm in our heads when it was actually 11pm, and we probably ended up staying awake until well after 1am – so much for an early night!

Thankfully, we didn’t actually have much planned for the following morning, other than to catch up with our families on Skype, but this wouldn’t be until at least after 10am so that it would give them chance to get back in from work. We did, however, have a Warner Bros Studio Tour booked for 2pm, so once we had finished chatting to each of our families, we set off to the Metro station just after 12pm.

We caught the Red Line to Hollywood Boulevard, where we then had to catch a bus over to Burbank, where the studios are. Surprisingly, we didn’t actually take any pictures of the ‘Walk of Fame’ stars or the Hollywood sign – I guess we have plenty from our last visit anyway and nothing has changed! Once at the studios, we had a bit of a walk to get to the VIP tour entrance – we actually went into one of the other entrances first, but the nice security guards pointed us in the right direction!

We were around 45 minutes early, as we had planned to get something to eat around there before going on the tour, and we each had a sandwich from the Starbucks just inside the studios. We then went to pick up our tickets as we had booked online, and the guy at the register actually bumped us up to the 1:45pm tour instead. We had a little look around the shop as we waited, which had memorabilia from various Warner Bros films and TV shows, such as Harry Potter, Batman, Superman, Friends, Big Bang Theory, Game of Thrones, etc.

At 1:40pm, we went to wait by the door which we had been told to wait at 5 minutes before the tour, which we entered, along with around 40 other people, and watched a short video on the history of Warner Bros and the studios. We were then split into groups of 10-12 people and were each introduced to our tour guide. We had a guy that we think was named Noah (we’ve forgotten already!), but he was brilliant – he had a lot of knowledge about the studios and the various productions filmed there. We were lead out to our little tram where we hopped on board, and were then taken on our 2 hour tour around the various sets and sound stages in the studios. Before leaving, our guide asked everyone to shout out some of their favourite TV shows so that he could cater the tour more to our tastes. We are both huge fans of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ so we shouted this out, and also ‘Game of Thrones’, however we were informed that although this is owned by Warner Bros, this is all unfortunately filmed in Scotland, so we wouldn’t be seeing any sets from that. Pretty much everyone on the tour also said ‘Friends’, and a few others mentioned shows such as ‘Pretty Little Liars’, ‘Gilmore Girls’ and ‘Hart of Dixie’.

We were taken first around the back lot, where a few different outside sets were located. These were mainly from TV shows and were still in use - most backgrounds/sets in movies are created using green screens, so we didn’t actually see any sets from any movies all day). As it was Labor Day, which is a public holiday over here, the studios were quiet as they were not filming on this day, although this did mean that we had a bit more access to areas that might be closed off to the public on filming days. A few highlights from this part of the tour included seeing the Gellar’s house from Friends, which we went inside and saw the set of stairs that Ross sat on in the flashback episode when Monica and Rachel go to their prom – anyone who has seen this will know what I’m talking about! We also saw ‘Central Park’ from Friends, and the patch of grass that Phoebe “runs” on – again, Friends fans will know understand! There were also a few sets from Big Bang Theory, including the outside of the block of apartments where Leonard, Sheldon and Penny live. Most of the other sets were from shows that we had not really seen, though it was interesting to see and hear about how they reuse the sets for different shows, fooling the viewers into thinking they are completely different sets. We also passed through a jungle area which had been used in a few older films and more recent TV shows, which was the only jungle set in all of the LA studios, which meant that some of the other film studios (Universal, Paramount, etc) would sometimes pay to use this jungle for their movies! We were quite amused by the use of the ‘bush wagon’ – literally a triangular wagon disguised as a bush which they would use as a background or if they wanted to block something else out!

Once we had looked around the back lot, we were taken into some of the sound stages. Again, there was a mix of sets of shows that we had and hadn’t seen, but the first highlight for us were seeing the ‘Central Perk’ coffee shop set used in ‘Friends’, which is much smaller than it looks on screen! There was even a wall right next to the sofa (which we got to sit on and get a picture taken!), which is never shown in any of the shots in the show. Apparently, they used forced perspective when filming so that it draws your eye to the furthest corner of the room, making it seem much bigger than it actually is.

We then got to go into a large room filled with cars used in various films – including all of the Batmobiles! We were quite impressed to find out that they were all fully working cars, and apparently the ‘Tumbler’ Batmobile (from ‘The Dark Knight’ movie) could reach speeds of about 120mph – they actually test them all on the LA storm drains (where the race in ‘Grease Lightning’ took place). We also saw Austin Power’s ‘Shaguar’, the Weasley’s car from ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’, the Mystery Machine from ‘Scooby Doo’, and the car from ‘Gran Turino’, which actually belongs to Clint Eastwood!

The final highlight for us on the tour was seeing the sound stages for ‘The Big Bang Theory’. As it is filmed in front of a live audience, we were taken to the seating area in front of the stage, which is all split into several different sets in a row facing the audience. The only three permanent sets are Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment, the lobby area with the stairs and (broken) elevator and Penny’s apartment. As these are all in a row, it is one of very few shows that are able to continuously film characters moving through three different sets. All of the other sets used in the show are called ‘Swing Sets’, and they literally consist of three walls that they construct together and then dress the sets as appropriate. We’re huge fans of the show, so it was pretty cool to see all of the sets that were used, which again seem much smaller when you see them in person! Unfortunately, as this was a working set, we were not allowed to take our cameras inside the sound stage (something about the sets being dressed for episodes that wouldn’t be aired for two months), so we didn’t actually get any pictures.

For the final part of the tour, we were taken to a small museum filled with costumes from different Warner Bros productions. Again, we were not allowed to take our cameras in with us, so no photos again, although they didn’t actually say why! The bottom floor was full of costumes from films such as ‘Batman’, ‘Superman’ and ‘Inception’, and also some from shows such as ‘Big Bang Theory’, ‘Smallville’ and ‘Friends’. The top floor was entirely dedicated to Harry Potter, so there were lots of different costumes for each character, and also models of Dobby, Volemort’s snake and the goblin behind the desk at Gringott’s Bank.

We were taken back to the tour office building, where we all thanked our guide for a great tour, and we took a few photos of ourselves next to the Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck statues before making our way back to the bus stop. Once we got back to Hollywood, we had a little walk along the Walk of Fame before catching the Metro back to our motel, where we later packed up our stuff, ready to leave the next day for San Diego.

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