Universal Studios, Hollywood! Part 2

 After our awesome lunch, we moved to the V.I.P tram for the studio tour.

We toured around different studios and sound stages before going to our first stop this was the sound stages for the American show: Parenthood. Watch it here

We got to take a look at the massive 'shower curtain' -esque photo which they pull all the way around the set (a house, with no roof for ease of camera access) as well as go inside the house. The two floors were separate and on the same level so first we explored downstairs and then upstairs. It was great to see how they utilised different lighting and set curtains to show different times of day. It felt like a real family home, that was until you knocked on the walls and heard how thin they were.

After the sound stages we moved on to outdoor sets. First we visited the 'New York' style city street, this was the site of filming for things like Captain America, The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spiderman and more. The fibre-glass walls mean they can be replaced really easily and the set can be transformed i.e for Captain America, all modern glass building façades had to be removed because it is set in the 30s/40s.

After this we moved on to the 'Little Europe' the site of films such as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl, the original Frankenstein and Princess Diaries. This set is a little older that New York, as that one was recently rebuilt after a fire.

After that we moved on to the King Kong 3D experience. This was designed by director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong, The Lovely Bones) and was really awesome. We donned our 3D glasses and were driven into a dark, domed 3D screen where we were jigged about as King Kong fought some dinosaurs around us. After that we experienced the Old-Mexico style flash flood set where, at first, heavy rain was simulated, and then we saw the flood coming down the street towards us. The way that they controlled the water was astonishing and I've never seen anything like it. Take a look at this video of it...

We also got to visit the set of Desperate Housewives: Wisteria Lane. This set was made up of a street of real houses, all of which were used in the TV show. We also got a sneak preview of the outdoor set for a new 'Munsters' re-boot, which we will be seeing in the future.

Next up was the classic set of Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho'. Having watched this film just recently, it was amazing to experience such a piece of movie history. We saw both the Motel rooms and the actual Psycho house, where 'Mother' was sitting in the window.

After we'd enjoyed that, we were shown to the 'War of the Worlds' plane crash set. This set was really breathtaking. The director had bought a real Bowing 747 plane in order to break it into 4 pieces and plonk it in the middle of Universal Studios. The set was so realistic, that when it was first constructed, the pilots who flew over were radioing in to tell air traffic control that there was a plane down! This meant they had to repaint the plane to represent an imaginary airline so that they knew it was a movie set.

Later on we visited the earthquake simulation set. We drove in and then the event started unexpectedly. The machine simulated an 8 Richter-scale in a subway set. The tram shook really violently and then the Studios utilised their water harnessing technology to simulate a water main bursting and filling the station with water. It was really realistic and exciting. Another interesting thing we saw was the giant green screen and water trough which has been used for the Pirates of the Caribbean series and the Jaws series. It is the biggest green screen in the world and stood about 100 feet tall!

A great experience we also had was looking around the prop-warehouse Universal Studios. We saw some statues and rows upon rows of chairs all of which can be rented out for films/TV/adverts. Something that really excited me was seeing a couple of chair which were on reserve for one of my favourite TV shows: The Walking Dead... I'm hoping to see them in the show next season :)

After our amazing tour, we said goodbye to Cat and headed off to go on all the rides we wanted to go on again. We really enjoyed the rest of the day at Universal Studios. Watch the next post for our trip to Disneyland!

Caroline :)