Dozens of TV shows and films that shoot in Toronto go out of their way to ensure that this town looks like Chicago or New York City. Pretty easy, since all three essentially share the same longitude and latitude, and therefore, the same climate.
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But what about turning Toronto into Los Angeles, the world of endless sun, palm trees, wide, sandy beaches and red carpet parties?
That’s the challenge production designer and art director Stephen Stanley (r.) faced on the set of Degrassi: The Next Generation’s TV movie, Paradise City: Degrassi Goes Hollywood, which finds Manny (Cassie Steele), Marco (Adamo Ruggiero), Ellie (Stacey Farber), Jay (Mike Lobel), Peter (Jamie Johnston), Mia (Nina Dobrev), Sav (Raymond Ablack) and Danny (Dalmar Abuzeid) heading to Los Angeles to star in, or support the stars of, Jason Mewes’ (Clerks) directorial debut about his life. |
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Sure, there are a couple of external shots of LAX, a pier and a few palm trees, but the rest was all shot here.
The expansive beach seen from the cocktail party held at Paige's mansion?
The red carpet where Paige (Lauren Collins) arrives in an attempt to draw the paparazzo’s attention?
The arrivals area at LAX, where Paige meets Marco and Ellie?
The mega-mansion that Paige lives in when she’s not hobnobbing with celebs or on set shooting Mewes’ film?
All film sites in Toronto, cleverly disguised by Stanley.
“Anything I say about Stephen is going to sound hyperbolic, but it’s true. He is one of the most talented people I have worked with in all my years of producing television,” says Linda Schuyler, co-creator and executive producer of Degrassi. “He can make two dollars and fifty cents look like a million bucks! In the special, he sold Oakville [as] L.A. He’s a genius!”
“Luckily, everyone involved in the show is right here in the same building,” he says from a boardroom at Degrassi’s Epitome Pictures home base in east Toronto. “So from script, right on up, we know ahead of time what we need to do art-wise.”
“When it came to shooting the scenes at LAX, I went online to see what photo references I could find,” he continues. “From there, we went and looked at real airports. Usually, you can shoot an airport on location. That’s what we wanted to do. We toured Pearson [International Airport], and were very close to shooting there, and chose a window where you could see the tails of planes. But then we realized that we couldn’t shoot there, so we built it here on set instead.”
“Here” is the large back lot where the entire Degrassi neighbourhood exists. Degrassi High, a strip of businesses, row houses, a street to drive cars on — it’s all in one spot, an enviable position to be in, Stanley says, because you can control what goes on in this somewhat closed environment.
Not so off site, where a little bit of creativity is necessary to make places look L.A.-ish. Stanley explains that Paige’s Hollywood mansion is a house in Toronto’s swanky Bridle Path.
“There are people who get the word out that they would like to have their home used for a film shoot,” he explains. “But we’re always looking for a place that hasn’t been seen before. So we’re out combing the city, knocking on doors and saying, ‘We’d like to shoot in your house.’ We bring an army into their house and shoot and we put it back together. We’re really good at putting things back together as if we’ve never been there.”
As for turning Lake Ontario into a the cool blue waters of the Pacific, Degrassi headed to Mississauga, Ont. Yes, you read that right.
“The nice thing was, the house [we shot at] was up on a hill, so the lake looked like the ocean. We put in palm trees and flowers. We were shooting in September, so we were a little worried that the weather would turn, and then the leaves would change!”
Test yourself, and see if you can spot where Degrassi shot its scenes, in Paradise City: Degrassi Goes Hollywood, Sunday, Aug. 30 at 8 p.m. ET on CTV.
greg@tvguide.ca
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Greg has been a fan of TV since he was five years old, eating dry cereal in front of the TV with his sisters watching Sesame Street, and scrambling downstairs after dinner to watch Polka Dot Door. His influential teen years were taken up by equal parts of The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, The Incredible Hulk, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Magnum P.I. and Friday Night Videos as well as daily doses of Toronto Rocks and the Power Hour on MuchMusic.
He is continually fascinated with the television process from idea to pilot episode and network pickup, development and casting right through to air, and likes all genres of TV. |
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