History Main / CaliforniaDoubling

* ''Beaver Falls'' is about three British teenagers who get to work at the title summer camp in California. There are at least three real places in the US called Beaver Falls, exactly none of which are in California - and in the case of the camp, California was played by South Africa (and few if any of the "Americans", this being a British-Canadian-South African co-production, were played by actual Americans).

Any exotic foreign locale in a TV series or film will find some local environment that feels slightly different to give an appropriate look, such as KirksRock. For British sci-fi shows, it's "Quarry Doubling" — any desolate alien planet is usually a quarry (usually the BBCQuarry) within a couple of hours' drive from London — or DoublingForLondon. One of the most famous examples of this is in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' (and all subsequent series), in which every planet they land on looks exactly like the [[KirksRock deserts of southern California]], the redwood forests of Northern California, or the mountains of Central California (assuming it isn't a studio cyclorama instead). Oh, and from time to time the script might call for a beach. Any ideas?

* ''Series/{{Bootleg}}'' was filmed in Melbourne, Australia. Though the series was presumably set somewhere in Britain, a lot of distinctly Australian things sneak through such as licence plates and signs, and one prominent scene takes place outside the Melbourne Museum with a clear shot of the Royal Exhibition Building.

* ''Film/{{Upgrade}}'' has various road signs in the U.S. style, and the cars have the driver on the left-hand side. However, some shots early in the film clearly show Melbourne's Bolte Bridge

** Following in the footsteps of the movies, ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' was also shot in New Zeeland. Season 2 is filmed in both NZ and UK.

* Following in the footsteps of the movies, ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' was also shot in New Zeeland. Season 2 is filmed in both NZ and UK.

* Averted with the DirectToDVD sequel to ''Blue Crush'', which was both shot and set in South Africa.

* ''Series/TheReallyLoudHouse'' has Albuquerque double for the fictional Royal Woods, Michigan.

The nature of film and television production means that you don't have to actually be in the exact location where the action is taking place. While you would think there is an advantage to actually filming on location, a decision is made to find a generic alleyway or studio backlot for the action to take place and simply have the characters say they are in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity when they are really in UsefulNotes/{{California}}. Add some graffiti to the walls, trash on the ground and fake snow drizzling on the actors and what was filmed in an 80 degree palm tree environment can give the feel of a cold New England winter. How convincing it may be varies, especially to those familiar with the area and may spot unique signage or a LocalHangout that gives it away.

The main reason this happens is that a production crew is much more than a cameraman, director, and actors. There are usually at least two or three dozen people working on prepping a location, providing the appropriate light, and transporting the equipment to film a scene. Moving everyone, especially on a weekly television budget, is sometimes implausible even if the location is willing to permit filming. Other times, the actual location is not an option for security, political, and/or cultural reasons. Even in the most general sense, many cities are averse to blocking off the entire downtown for weeks on end or offering unlimited access to important landmarks, and so some sequences are filmed piecemeal, getting a [[ShootTheMoney couple vintage shots]] of actors [[EiffelTowerEffect near scenic imagery]] and then finding a more practical location to film the rest.

* ''Series/ThunderInParadise'' had episodes set in many exotic locations, but the entire series was filmed in Florida. Some scenes were convincing, making good use of EPCOT Center's World Showcase. Trying to pass off Cinderella Castle as London, on the other hand...

** ''Film/Transformers2007'' filmed scenes set in the Middle East in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sands_Missile_Range White Sands Missile Range]] that's in New Mexico, for fairly obvious reasons.
** ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen''[='=]s climactic battle in Egypt was also filmed at White Sands. The opening scene set in an industrial area of Shanghai was filmed at the former Bethlehem Steel plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The forest battle, which according to [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Pine_Barrens TFWiki]] was fought in the Pine Barrens in New Jersey ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Barrens_(New_Jersey) a rather flat area]]), was filmed in Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico.

* The ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' movie filmed scenes set in the Middle East in the White Sands military bombing range, in New Mexico, once again for fairly obvious reasons.
** ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'''s climactic battle in Egypt was also filmed at White Sands. The opening scene set in an industrial area of Shanghai was filmed at the former Bethlehem Steel plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The forest battle, which according to [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Pine_Barrens TFWiki]] was fought in the Pine Barrens in New Jersey ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Barrens_(New_Jersey) a rather flat area]]), was filmed in Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico.
** ''Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon'' had Chicago, aside from portraying itself, double for Sam's apartment in Washington D.C. The Chernobyl scenes were filmed around northwest Indiana (again, for obvious reasons), while Detroit stood in for some scenes in Chicago.

* ''Fanfic/TheEndOfTheWorld'' series: An in-universe example; while watching a Capitol soap opera about a detective in District 4, Haymitch notes that the seashore looks suspiciously like the Capitiol lake.

* In ''Film/{{Tenet}}'', the opening sequence set in Kiev was actually shot at the Linnahall concert hall in Tallinn, Estonia. Strangely enough, several other scenes shot in Tallinn were set there in the script, so this doubles as both an aversion and being played straight.

* ''Film/TheSpyWhoCameInFromTheCold'' was shot in very run-down early Sixties Dublin to stand in for Checkpoint Charlie and the various bombed-out back-alleys of East Berlin.

* ''Series/FloridaMan'' is set in Florida but was filmed in and around Wilmington, North Carolina.

The nature of film and television production means that you don't have to actually be in the exact location where the action is taking place. While you would think there is an advantage to actually filming on location, a decision is made to find a generic alleyway or studio backlot for the action to take place and simply have the characters say they are in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity when they are really in UsefulNotes/{{California}}. Add some graffiti to the walls, trash on the ground and fake snow drizzling on the actors and what was filmed in an 80 degree palm tree environment can give the feel of a cold New England winter. How convincing it may be vary, especially to those familiar with the area.

The main reason is that a production crew is much more than a cameraman, director, and actors. There are usually at least two or three dozen people working on prepping a location, providing the appropriate light, and transporting the equipment to film a scene. Moving everyone, especially on a weekly television budget, is sometimes implausible even if the location is willing to permit filming. Other times, the actual location is not an option for security, political, and/or cultural reasons. Even in the most general sense, many cities are averse to blocking off the entire downtown for weeks on end or offering unlimited access to important landmarks, and so some sequences are filmed piecemeal, getting a [[ShootTheMoney couple vintage shots]] of actors [[EiffelTowerEffect near scenic imagery]] and then finding a more practical location to film the rest.

Any exotic foreign locale in a TV series or film is, due to budget or danger to the cast, likely to actually be somewhere in UsefulNotes/{{California}}, such as KirksRock. For British sci-fi shows, it's "Quarry Doubling" — any desolate alien planet is usually a quarry (usually the BBCQuarry) within a couple of hours' drive from London — or DoublingForLondon.

One of the most famous examples of this is in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' (and all subsequent series), in which every planet they land on looks exactly like the [[KirksRock deserts of southern California]], the redwood forests of Northern California, or the mountains of Central California (assuming it isn't a studio cyclorama instead). Oh, and from time to time the script might call for a beach. Any ideas?

California is not the only place that has done this. The Canadian province of British Columbia, between the metropolis of UsefulNotes/{{Vancouver}} and its vast mountain forests and oceans nearby, has become the third-largest film production center in North America thanks partly to tax incentives, and its ability to stand in for [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest the Pacific Northwest]] (usually UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}} or UsefulNotes/{{Portland}}) or any small, rural town in the northern half of the US. You could describe the city as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojm74VGsZBU "one giant backlot, a bunch of anonymous buildings that can stand in for anywhere else."]]

The main reason is that a production crew is much more than a cameraman, director, and actors. There are usually at least two or three dozen people working on prepping a location, providing the appropriate light, and transporting the equipment to film a scene. Moving everyone, especially on a weekly television budget, is sometimes implausible even if the location is willing to permit filming. Other times, the actual location is not an option for security, political, and/or cultural reasons. Even in the most general sense, many cities are averse to blocking off the entire downtown for weeks on end or offering unlimited access to important landmarks, and so some sequences are filmed piecemeal, getting a [[ShootTheMoney couple vintage shots]] of actors [[EiffelTowerEffect near scenic imagery]] and then finding a more practical location to film the rest.

Another time that this may be necessary is if the original location (and this is true especially for period pieces) no longer looks like what it did in story. While obviously it might be a bit difficult filming an ancient Rome in Rome itself, as the city resembles Caesar's city in name only, even the London of today is quite different from the London of Victorian times through the early part of the twentieth century (thanks [[UsefulNotes/TheHomeFront in no small part]] to the ''[[UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons Luftwaffe]]''). This makes some doubling in another city more valuable simply because that location actually looks more period-accurate [[note]]Görlitz, a city of less than 100,000 at the easternmost border of Saxony with Poland, has stood in for numerous other cities, because it was left nearly unscathed by the war and has seen few urban planners trying to rebuild the whole thing according to their vision since. Even more famously, Prague in the modern day Czech Republic was ''the'' stand-in for pre-war Paris. Unlike the actual capital of France, Prague still had its medieval and renaissance era buildings (in varying states of disrepair) and it was cheaper too. It was additionally one of the few ways to (legally) get behind the Iron Curtain for smugglers, spies, and defectors, though the extent to which Hollywood-affiliated people took advantage of this is grossly exaggerated by both fiction and the documents produced by the House Un-American Activities Commission at the time. It probably was done, but nowhere near as widely as people thought[[/note]]. Conversely, filming in a story set TwentyMinutesInTheFuture will have its own problems because to make a location seem futuristic would require a lot of construction and visual effects anyway.

* Most of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse movies, starting with the 2014 production of ''Film/AntMan1'', have been filmed at Pinewood Studios in Fayette County, GA (about 20 miles south of Atlanta). Anything that isn't filmed in the studio itself is done in various locations in the Atlanta area. The downtown area stands in for New York City, Piedmont Park for Central Park, and the Avengers' headquarters (at least the exterior) is part of Porsche's (as in the automobile) North American headquarters just south of the city. They film some on actual locations, but the bulk of it is done in Atlanta.

** Jack's off-Island scenes in the third season finale were shot on location in Los Angeles, with hospital scenes [[RecycledSet borrowing sets]] from ''Series/GreysAnatomy''. This was the first time the show filmed outside the US.

* ''Film/CodeRedTheRubiconConspiracy'' was set in the jungles of Africa, but filmed in Australia.
* ''Film/DarkCity''. The only real giveaway that the filming took place primarily in a studio near Sydney is the somewhat out of place Australian accent of a young police officer who talks to Detective Bumstead in one scene. Also, the director happens to be from Australia.

* ''Film/Elvis2022'' was set almost entirely in the United States, with a couple scenes set in what was then West Germany. However the film was shot entirely in Queensland, Australia.

* ''Film/InspectorGadget2'' is set in the fictional Riverton, Ohio but was filmed in and around Brisbane, Australia with an Australian supporting cast. The commentary track on the DVD notes that actors would occasionally lapse back into their natural Australian accents.

* Zig-zagged with ''Film/PeterRabbit'': the scenes in London were shot in both London itself and Sydney (e.g. the scene's at Harrod's in London were actually shot there, while the scenes in Paddington Station were actually filmed at Sydney Central Station).

* Inverted in ''Film/PointBreak1991'', where the scenes set in Australia were actually filmed in Oregon.

* ''Film/TheShallows'' takes place in Mexico (and briefly in Texas), and was shot in Queensland and New South Wales.

* Parts of ''Film/TheWolverine'' set in Japan and Canada were filmed in and around Sydney, Australia.

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' filmed entirely in Australia, including Earth scenes that were supposed to be located on the Florida Space Coast. For all that the beaches are decidedly different, upper middle class tract housing can evidently be pretty similar in both places.

* ''Film/ThePowerOfTheDog'' is a Western, set in Montana and filmed in the Otago region of New Zealand.

* Neither ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'' or ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'' were filmed anywhere near Greece. New Zealand, particularly West Auckland, made a passable substitute.
** New Zealand also doubled for China and Japan in ''Xena''. Not to be mention present-day America in both series ("Yes, Virginia, There Is A Hercules" and "Deja Vu All Over Again").

* ''Film/MeanGirls'' is set in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, but was mostly shot in Toronto.

* ''Film/Red2010'' had Toronto double for many major cities (such as New York, Chicago, Washington and Cleveland) while New Orleans doubled for several cities as well (such as Kansas City).

* For the Steven Seagal film ''Film/ExitWounds'', not only did Toronto and nearby Hamilton double for Detroit...so did Calgary.

* ''Series/{{Nikita}}'' was mainly filmed in Toronto and the surrounding Ontario area, which doubled for a very wide variety of locales, including New York City, rural New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Quebec, Russia, Belarus, China, Mexico, the Netherlands, and many more.

* ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'' is filmed in Toronto and the surrounding area, and they barely attempt to hide it. In the third season finale, there is a Valu-Mart which is supposed to be in Elk Ridge, South Dakota. Valu-Mart is a grocery store that doesn't exist outside of Canada at all. Union Station in Toronto doubled for Geneva, Switzerland in the second season premiere as well.