Honestly, that’s how many it takes according to Dave the Foley guy at Warner Brothers Studios. Footsteps, holster leather creak, gun movement, spurs, swish of long coat, crunch of boots. I kid you not! A brilliantly interesting 15-20 minutes spent in the Foley department. On to one of the 8 recording/mixing studios where we were sooo lucky to see them mixing together a climactic scene from an up and coming Chuck episode, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT: where Morgan has the Intersect in HIs head an is sporting a pretty scary new hairdo AND A GUN! The guys shows us a run through of the scene about half a dozen different ways where there is a shoot out on the roof of a building and a gunfight, each time adding in more of those darn channels again. Until we finally saw the finished 30 seconds of footage. Totally awesome. These guys throw around anything up to 300 channels at a time and can multiplex these things together too.
Later on the tour we got to walk onto the rear loading bay for the Buy More which was equally awesome, plus we got to see a kosher Nerd Herder.
Dinner was in the commissary, which is the fine dining eatery at the studios where the execs like to wine and dine each other and woo actors. Cool. We actually got to see the head of Warner Brothers Television and a we are not worthy moment when Chuck Lorre walked in. Creator of Big Bang Theory and 2 and a Half Men to name but a few. I was sorely tempted to go over, introduce myself and just thank him for The Big Bang Theory but I didn’t think it was conducive to the continued employment of our guide Thomas, so passed on that in the end. Did have a bit of a moment going to the rest rooms though, how do you deal with that celebrity moment?
During the day we saw then preparing to shoot the next episode of the Mentalist but as it was absolutely bloody hacking it down we couldn’t hang around. Although we did get a complete tour of the Mentalist set, offices and THE LIFT (which I have to say I couldn’t resist and stood in). Fun to see how they’d dressed the set to make all of the regular officers desks etc appear totally normal and forma but Patrick Janes area, complete with couch, was a complete contrast of individuality. Also amusing that the we walked past the digitally printed skyline that they hang behind the office. Did I mention the lift was cool?
Coolest part of the day though started while we were still in the Mentalist set when Thom’s Sally tally blurted out that Soundstage 25 was now open. Soundstage 25 for the pens out there is where they film The Big Bang Theory, yay! Stood in front of Sheldon and Leonard’s room, including door and dart board. Got the low down on how they film the staircase scenes, which IS a series of separate takes with the floors and door re-dressed, no real surprise there. And finally Penny’s room. We were lucky enough to get on the set as Wednesday is the start of the BBt cast work week and is marked out for rehearsal of the next episode, a read-through in fact and the entire casts names directors chairs were still in place!!!
Oh and we got to sit on the couch in the Friends set … What A DAY!
UPDATE: Ok, a very surreal moment an hour or two after leaving Warner Brothers as we are sat in Boho in the Highland Centre in Hollywood watching a Mentalist ep over the bar 🙂