Nathan's Insights

Saturday 30 November 2024.
Highlights: Warner Studios Bros. Tour, Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles Skyline at night

A big day awaited us today but first, we had to adjust to our new time zone. I woke up several times during the night and finally got up at 9 am, which was 4 am in Melbourne roughly the time I lock the cats out of my room, so nothing new. I let Erin sleep in a little longer.

An Uber saw us off to our Warner Bros. Studios Tour. While our ticket had our tour starting at noon we got on an earlier tour starting at 11.20. The tour started with a video on the history of the Studio with big stars appearing. Then we moved on to a guided tour of the studios. Being a Saturday they were not shooting so we got full access.

This included seeing outdoor street sets that I could still recognise locations like West Side Story and Young Sheldon. 

We also got to go into Stage Studio 14, used for Friends Season 1 and Young Sheldon. We then moved on Stage used for Big Bang Theory and are currently set for the new spin-off Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage so we could not take photos as the sow hasn’t aired yet.

The next stop included Central Perk Cafe where we got lunch. Then we started to learn about filmmaking. This included animation, costumes, sound editing, and set dancing. We got to sit on the actual Central Perk couch from Friends, and later The Big Bang Theory couch from Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment. It was very cool to touch and use items used in these iconic shows.

Erin got to use a green screen to shoot a scene from Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, very cool. We both use motion capture as a house elf from the Harry Potter films. We finished with a visit to the film props studio which included DC Comics (mostly Batman), the Harry Potter films, and Game of Thrones. We even got to hold the actual Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Best Picture Academy award.

In the late afternoon, we headed up to the Griffith Observatory for a tour of this amazing facility. From here we got a great view of the Hollywood sign. As it was sunset we got stunning views of Los Angeles.

Our guide talked to us about the history of astronomy in Los Angeles which was way bigger than I realised.

The highlights of this visit included watching The Search for Life at the Samuel Oschin Planetarium and observing the skyline of Los Angeles at night. 

A packed and enjoyable day.