5. Babylon
During the silent film era, Los Angeles was just being developed, and there were none of the boxy modern glass houses of today. These early film industry pioneers “were building Tudor Revival and Gothic Revival and Spanish Revival because they were just trying to emulate the things that they thought were great and beautiful. To furnish these properties, Carlino and prop master Gay Perello pulled from LA’s wealth of prop houses, including Warner Brothers’ own supply. The way to recreate the Los Angeles of a hundred years ago is to go to the outskirts of today’s Los Angeles where there are big stretches of unspoiled land and orange groves, and it still feels like a small cow town, says Chazelle. They wanted to find locations where you could still feel the dust of the pre-city that LA was.
Main filming locations: Historic mansions and homes across California, including Shea Castle, Castle Green, Hummingbird Ranch, Busby Berkley’s former Beaux Arts Mansion, the Wattles Mansion, and more; 1920s-era theatres, including The United Artists Theatre at the Ace Hotel Los Angeles, The Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, and The Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, California; and Paramount studios.
