Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:48 — 12.0MB) | Embed
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I have seen every Batmobile used in a live action Batman movie up-close and in-person, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a lesson I learned while riding a ferris wheel.
Today’s Fun Fact: Today I’ll be talking about our recent trip to Los Angeles, including our time at Warner Brothers. Here are some trivia questions that were asked along the tour, that I answered correctly.
What I Learned Yesterday
Los Angeles, California. The place where dreams are made, right? Well, maybe. It is the place where lots of people’s dreams come true and it’s the place where many TV and films are made that cause us to dream.
Back in April we purchased tickets to go see Michael Giacchino conduct the Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra for an evening of music and story from the TV show, LOST. Exactly 12 years to the day that the show first premiered on ABC, we joined 1,200 LOST fans for what turned out to be an incredibly windy and incredibly memorable night. However, well before we boarded our flight to the land of fruits and nuts, we knew that we wanted to experience more than just the LOST concert.
Over the summer months we looked at all sorts of things to do, weighing all sorts of factors before making our decision on what we’d do. We looked at things like total cost, travel time, and total time for the activity. We wanted to get the most bang for our buck and our short time there.
While our plans changed a bit on our last day there, here’s what we ended up doing:
- Pictures with the Hollywood sign
- Warner Brothers Studio Tour
- LOST Concert
- Sony Pictures Studio Tour
- Hollywood Walk of Fame including the TCL Chinese Theater
- Santa Monica Pier
- LA Theater Works performance of “Amadeus” featuring Michael Emerson
- Multiple visits to In-n-Out Burger
I was most excited about the Warner Brothers tour. The kids were both moderately excited about it. Kari was not really excited about it at all. Fortunately, it exceeded all of our expectations, and we were all very happy that we went. The three hour tour included a two hour guided portion that took us all around the front lot and the back lot. In case you’re wondering, the back lot is where they film exterior shots. They are the permanent buildings that look like middle America or New York City. These are all outside in the elements. The front lot is where you’ll find all the temporary sets that are made for TV shows and movies. They are all in huge aircraft hanger-like buildings.
During our backlot tour we got to see buildings used in Gilmore Girls, The Dukes of Hazard, Full House, Spider Man, Batman, The Last Samurai, and many other things. I even got to walk down the street that was used to shoot the famous 1980’s Pepsi commercial featuring Michael Jackson and a very young Alfonso Ribeiro.
During the front lot tour, we saw the set of Two Broke Girls, many of the costumes from Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. We also got to see quite a few of the various vehicles from some of the Batman movies. We took a brief tour through the prop house where I saw some amazing Humphrey Bogart items including original light fixtures from Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca, the Maltese Falcon, and the piano used in the 1983 Casablanca TV show.
After the front and back lot tour ended, we were taken to a section of the studio for a self-guided portion of the tour. There we learned more about the process of choosing scripts, creating sets, designing wardrobes, and crafting props. We got to film a scene with a virtual Phoebe Buffay at Central Perk from Friends, and our kids got to interact with a forced perspective set from The Lord of the Rings. If you’re not familiar with forced perspective, you should go search it on Youtube. It’s the technique that was used to make the actors appear vastly different in size when they were on set with the other actors. The kids even got to get behind the camera and do some green screen action shots on the Batpod from The Dark Knight and pretend to play quidditch while riding a Harry Potter broomstick.
The Sony Pictures Studio Tour was quite different. It wasn’t as good as the Warner Brothers Tour, but we still loved it. In fact, we got to visit more production sets when we visited Sony. We saw sets for Masters of Sex, Ray Donovan, Dr. Ken, The Goldbergs, and Jeopardy! The tour didn’t include nearly as much interactive stuff and the tour guide rarely gave us historical or educational insight during the tour, but it was still very cool to see how the magic is made.
After the Sony tour, we decided to visit the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Outside of the ridiculous cost of parking, it was a free activity. We saw stars for a lot of our favorite entertainers including: Walt Disney, Mickey Mouse, Michael Keaton, Patrick Stewart, James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, Levar Burton, Burgess Meredith, Adam West, Bob Kane, Ridley Scott, Motley Crue, and even Daryl Hall and John Oates. Of course, we found our way to the TCL Chinese Theater where we saw the cement hand and footprints of folks like the entire cast of Star Trek The Original Series, Humphrey Bogart, Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton, Ron Howard, Robin Williams, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks, Johnny Depp, Judy Garland, and Sean Connery. It was a really fun time and the only down side was that we ran out of daylight before we saw all that we wanted to see.
The LOST concert was incredible. The orchestra that performed was almost the exact same personnel that worked each week to create the music for the show when it was on the air. As the music played we were shown scenes from the show via a projection system. Between some of the songs we were entertained by executive producer Carlton Cuse, Sam Anderson who played Barnard, Sonya Walger who played Penelope (Widmore) Hume, and Josh Holloway who played Sawyer. To make the evening even better, we got to see many of our LOST friends that we haven’t seen since we were in Hawaii two years ago.
The “Amadeus” performance was brilliant. It wasn’t a play in the way you would naturally think of a play. There were no sets and no costumes. The cast sat on barstools at the back of the stage until it was their time to perform. You see, it was a radio theater performance. They each had their scripts in hand and read as they performed. Just off to the side of the stage was a foley artist adding in sound effects. Michael Emerson had the lead role of Antonio Salieri and he was stunning. I’ve seen him perform week after week for the last 11 years, first as Ben Linus on Lost and then as Harold Finch on Person of Interest. I know how good he is. However, seeing him perform in person was a treasured experience. I don’t know how to describe it. It was riveting.
On our final day, we made a last minute substitution and visited the Santa Monica Pier. We had planned to spend time at Long Beach to visit the Queen Mary. However, we were staying in the same house with Barb and Emilee from this podcast and our other mutual friend, Melissa. They were all spending the day at the Santa Monica Pier, so we decided to join them. We had a great time. Colby, Barb, and I got the ticket that allowed us to ride everything as much as we wanted. Addi was only interested in riding the ferris wheel. Kari was happy to just watch us from the pier.
We rode the roller coaster a couple of times, and Colby and Barb rode the swinging ship a couple of times. I don’t know who had more fun. I could hear Barb laughing over the sound of all the other screams and laughs filling the air. We also rode the bumper cars and a tower drop ride. It was a lot of fun as you can imagine. However, the very first ride we hopped on was the ferris wheel. There, sitting at the top while taking in the view of the ocean and the beach, I had an epiphany.
Here’s what I learned:
Airbnb Rental: $1,200
Airfare: $1,700
Warner Brothers Tour: $220
Sony Pictures Tour: $120
LOST Concert Tickets: $500
“Amadeus” Ticket: $60
Multiple Trips to In-n-Out: $65
Santa Monica Pier: $70
Ground Transportation: $100
Lifetime of Memories: Priceless
As you can hopefully tell, we had an amazing time. I think we found a great balance of doing stuff we wanted to do and seeing things we wanted to see and yet still have down time to relax and enjoy the time off. But here’s the thing. The view from the top of the ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier was beautiful. I highly recommend it if you’re ever there. If you do the math, we spent about $4,000 on our trip. I don’t think that’s too bad for a family of 4 to fly round trip, pay for 4 nights of lodging, eat, and do all of the things we did, but it’s still a lot of money.
The ticketing system at the Santa Monica pier works just like the State Fair of Oklahoma. That is, entry is free (or nearly free for the fair), and you pay to ride each ride that you want. Alternatively, you can purchase a wristband that lets you ride everything as much as you want. Each year our kids ask us to go, and we always tell them that its too expensive. So a few minutes later as I sat atop the the ferris wheel taking in the beauty and pondering, it occurred to me that going to the state fair is quite a bit cheaper than visiting the Santa Monica Pier.
What I realized is, taking these trips every year or two are truly wonderful. We get to get away from our normal routine and the distractions of life. We spend valuable time together as a family, and we see things that aren’t available in our home town. But I was reminded of the important fact that we don’t have to spend lots of money, travel lots of miles, or sleep in an unfamiliar bed to make memories that last a life time. There ARE things in my home town that we can do. In fact, there are things in our HOME that we can do do make memories that last a lifetime. Life is what happens in the day to day. I only have a few more years that I get the chance to make daily memories with my kids. If I’m wise, I’ll use each of those days to make priceless moments.
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
Follow Golden Spiral Media on Twitter at GSMPodcasts and facebook.com/goldenspiralmedia. To subscribe to Stuff I Learned Yesterday visit goldenspiralmedia.com/subscribe. If you’d like to join our popular Facebook group please go to facebook.com/groups/stuffilearnedyesterday and if you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes by going to goldenspiralmedia.com/itunes.