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Released in 1989, "Mystery Train" was the first widely seen and widely acclaimed movie to be shot from a Memphis production base since King Vidor's "Hallelujah" 60 years earlier. The movie not only affirmed Jarmusch's identity as one of America's most distinctive and interesting filmmakers but "kept the Film Commission from shutting down," according to Memphis Film Commissioner Linn Sitler: The production arrived at a time when government officials were considering eliminating funding for the film office. The success of "Mystery Train" demonstrated that The Memphis & Shelby County Film and Television Commission could benefit from abetting the film industry, and such movies as "The Firm," "The Client" and "The People vs. Larry Flynt" soon followed.

Cast and crew members from New York and elsewhere gathered at the Arcade restaurant on South Main, swapping stories about Jarmusch and such late-great "Mystery Train" cast members as Memphis' "Clown Prince of Dance," Rufus Thomas; inimitable rock-and-roll-and-hoodoo shaman, Screamin' Jay Hawkins; and Joe Strummer, the co-founder of The Clash, to celebrate the the 30th anniversary of the start of principal photography on the film in Memphis on Aug. 4, 1988.

Michael Berry, location manager on the film, said Jarmusch's movie preserves an underdog Memphis, before the Grizzlies, the craft breweries, the revitalized Overton Square, the National Civil Rights Museum and the other injections of money and creativity boosted its confidence. "He really captured what it was like back then — the ghostliness."

Set over a single haunted (perhaps literally) night in Memphis, "Mystery Train" tells a trio of stories, all involving visitors to the city, from Japan, Italy and England. The focus is on down-and-out Memphis — places of grit-and-grind, before the term was coined, but also places of serendipitous magical mystery, as when Rufus Thomas suddenly appears to speak in Japanese to a young pair of rockabilly-loving Yokahama tourists.

A key scene is set in the Arcade, which production manager Kathie Hersch, who came to Memphis from Salem, New York, for the reunion, called "the center of the 'Mystery Train' universe," which made it an appropriate location for the party.

Across the street from another important location, the now-vanished Arcade Hotel, the restaurant functioned as "the nexus of the film — the center of the Bermuda Triangle, where Elvis' ghost could appear," Hersch said. She said she and other crew members often spent mornings literally mopping up moisture from the street between the hotel and restaurant with paper towels, because cinematographer Robby Müller wanted "a dry kind of street — he didn't want the corny neon-reflection look." ... See MoreSee Less

14 hours ago

Mystery Train, Memphis Film Prize return

commercialappeal.com

30th anniversary celebration of the Memphis-made Jarmusch masterpiece "Mystery Train"; plus, Memphis Film Prize winners

While Singapore is the main setting for most of the Crazy Rich Asians story, much of the filming also took place in neighbouring Malaysia. Penang’s Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion aka the Blue Mansion features quite prominently, while the coastline of Langkawi and Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur were also key shooting locations.

Let's take a look at some of the Singapore filming locations found in the film, and what you can expect to find if you head to the theaters this weekend to see what else the region has to offer. ... See MoreSee Less

2 days ago

7 Singapore Locations Filmed in Crazy Rich Asians

theculturetrip.com

We dissect the Crazy Rich Asians trailer and show you which parts of Singapore were used as filming locations in the movie.

In the new Mission: Impossible - Fallout, the sixth installment of the franchise, Ethan Hunt and his team once again crisscross the globe to save the world. This time, the plot places them to Berlin, Paris, London, and the north Indian state of Kashmir as they race against the clock to recover plutonium cores that are set to explode and poison waterways that can contaminate a third of the world’s population.

But in reality, the actors only visited half of those locations and visited a handful of others to create what audiences saw on-screen. Here, Fallout production designer Peter Wenham and location manager Ben Piltz give AD - Architectural Digest a breakdown of where they shot and why some of the movie’s most memorable scenes and sequences took them to Abu Dhabi, New Zealand, and Norway. ... See MoreSee Less

3 days ago

The Actual Architectural Wonders Used in Mission: Impossible—Fallout | Architectural Digest

architecturaldigest.com

Tom Cruise's character may look like he's landing on the Grand Palais, but don't be fooled—the production designer and location manager for Fallout ...

In almost 25 years as a location manager, Pierre Blondin has helped to transform Montreal and its suburbs into New York, part of Europe, New Jersey and New England cottage country.

Foreign filming in the city has been booming of late, spurred on by tax incentives, varied architecture, an endless appetite for online streaming and the presence of several top studios and visual effects companies specializing in post-production.

Last year, foreign investments in shooting and audiovisual production investments totalled $645 million in the province, including from the 23 foreign productions that filmed in the province, many in Montreal, according to Quebec's film and TV council.

While few of the productions are actually set in the city, Blondin says it's been common for decades to "cheat" one location for another, usually for budget or scheduling reasons.

While its filming industry isn't as big as Toronto's or Vancouver's, Montreal's offers a variety of architecture that isn't found elsewhere, he says.

In particular, the architecture of parts of Old Montreal allows it to pass for parts of Europe, while other sectors of the Old Port and downtown are more reminiscent of New York.

Patricia Durocher, a location manager who works mostly with Quebec or Quebec-Europe co-productions, said she used Montreal and its suburbs in her latest movie to represent a number of U.S. states, including Kansas, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York.

Blondin says that while he gets a lot of help from a team of workers at the City of Montreal and Quebec's film and television council, permits are getting harder to obtain over worries about parking, street closures or inconvenience.

For that reason, he says, it's unlikely that Montreal will ever film a major action movie such as "Terminator" or "Mission Impossible," because many authorities are too reluctant to agree to major street closures or the use of certain infrastructures.

He says he's hoping people will remember that, in the end, film and TV shooting results in a product that is enjoyed by millions, and that each production provides hundreds of jobs to Quebecers. ... See MoreSee Less

4 days ago

Locations managers reflect on good and bad of Montreal's foreign-filming boom

ctvnews.ca

In almost 25 years as a location manager, Pierre Blondin has helped to transform Montreal and its suburbs into New York, part of Europe, New Jersey an...

FilmL.A. has released a new report prepared by its research division. The 2017 Feature Film Study analyzes the 100 highest-performing U.S. feature films released theatrically last year, identifying where these films were made and how much was spent to produce them. The report also examines five-year trends in feature production including physical production, postproduction and animation.

Among non-U.S. jurisdictions, the top production center in the 2017 study was Canada, which hosted a record 20 films, followed by the United Kingdom (U.K.) with 15 projects. Within Canada, the top provinces were British Columbia (11 films), Ontario (7), Quebec (1) and Manitoba (1). Within the U.S., top production centers included Georgia with 15 projects, California with ten films, and New York with six.

In addition to the world’s top production centers, production work for sampled projects took place in more than a dozen U.S. states, and 20 nations spread across the continents of Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia. Antarctica stands as the only region of the world untouched by a top movie released in 2017.

“In an age when film production is an established global enterprise, California remains a top international competitor,” observed FilmL.A. President Paul Audley. “This report reinforces a fact that is increasingly well understood – that a skilled local workforce, robust infrastructure support, and a competitive film incentive are prerequisite for film project attraction at scale.” ... See MoreSee Less

5 days ago

FilmL.A. Issues Fifth Annual Feature Film Study

filmla.com

FilmL.A. has released a new report prepared by its research division. The 2017 Feature Film Study analyzes the 100 highest-performing U.S. feature fil...