Line #12 Main/InformedLocation


1	So AliceAndBob are running a bakery in...where are they? Let's just say UsefulNotes/{{Boston}}.
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3	If your story takes place in a [[LikeRealityUnlessNoted specific, extant location]], some local color is to be expected: the natives of the place should act like people who live there do; the ones who are visiting should react to the unfamiliarity. Food, dialect, and weather all shape a town. But all that is complicated, particularly if it's a place with which you're not familiar. Just start off with "{{It was a dark and stormy night}} in New York" and just like that, your tale is set in New York. However, for the most part, the location is added in later.
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5	TV series will usually go to some effort to shoot footage in the actual location (which may or may not feature the actors) for the TitleSequence, or they may just license StockFootage. This will usually be the only time it is ever featured in the show.
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7	Note: this isn't necessarily when a work fails to depict a location properly, merely when it isn't relevant. Often it appears to be done to avoid either EverytownAmerica or WhereTheHellIsSpringfield. Contrast the EiffelTowerEffect and HollywoodAtlas. See also CaliforniaDoubling.
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10	!!Examples:
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12	[[foldercontrol]]
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14	[[folder:Comic Books]]
15	* ''ComicBook/{{Witch}}'' takes place in the USA but seems more European if anything. The [[WesternAnimation/{{Witch}} animated adaptation]] fixed a lot of the issues.
16	* Jon Arbuckle and his pets ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' and Odie are stated on a few occasions to live in Muncie, Indiana (author Jim Davis' hometown), but their home could be Anytown USA and the theme would not change.
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19	[[folder:Literature]]
20	* ''Literature/AllTheLightWeCannotSee'', by Anthony Doerr, is set (at least half of it) in the French seaside city of St. Malo, during the Second World War. Doerr certainly did his ''geographic'' research of the city (or what the city was like before it was bombed to rubble), but ''culturally'' the city is lacking compared to its real life counterpart. St. Malo has a distinct Breton culture - a culture with Celtic roots - complete with its own folklore, language, cuisine, crafts, and holidays. But the way that Doerr wrote about it, it could be just about ''any'' French town that happens to be on the sea.
21	* Much of the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' series by Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins is set in some of the world's largest cities, including Chicago, Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Jerusalem. Many readers have written commentary on how inaccurately their respective cities are depicted, pointing out the jumbling of landmarks and the lack of any of the city's real life defining traits.
22	* ''Literature/CaptainUnderpants'' is set in Piqua, Ohio, which at the time the series began had an annual Underwear Festival. Dav Pilkey is from Ohio, but it functions as EverytownAmerica.
23	* An important plot point in Andrew Holleran's ''Literature/DancerFromTheDance'' takes place in UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC, which Holleran had not yet visited. Holleran provides no insights about the city that could not be gained from glancing at a map. His descriptions range from EverytownAmerica to hilariously wrong.
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26	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
27	* ''Series/BeingHumanUS'' is set in Boston, despite being [[CaliforniaDoubling filmed in]] UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}}.
28	* ''Series/{{Community}}'' is set in UsefulNotes/{{Denver}}. For legal reasons.
29	* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' is set in Boston, but doesn't make much use of that fact. Oddly, when they go somewhere else, it doesn't really make a difference.
30	* ''Series/FullHouse'' is set in UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco. You can tell from the opening theme, and nothing else. Ditto ''Series/FullerHouse.''
31	* Quick, where's ''Series/ThreesCompany'' set? [[spoiler:Santa Monica]].
32	* Pretty much every Creator/DisneyChannel KidCom.
33	* ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'' is set in south central Indiana, but all of its exterior shots are filmed in California. This means that the weather is peculiarly sunny and dry, with about two days of snow per year - you know, like Indiana has.
34	* ''Series/OneDayAtATime1975'' showed Indianapolis locations in the opening credits only (sometimes extensively, as in [[https://youtu.be/OWruhl1qYCA the first round of season 5 titles]], which consisted mostly of helicopter shots over city landmarks). Some attempts at averting this trope were made periodically, but in a way that would only come across to Indianapolitans: for example, in one episode one of the daughters mentioned going shopping at Block's, a big local department store that no one out of the area would have recognized.
35	* A study in contrasts: two iconic Creator/{{NBC}} shows from TheEighties, both set in Miami, Florida. One is ''Series/MiamiVice'', which shot on location and made full and ample use of the sights and sounds of the city. The other is ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'', which was almost entirely studio-bound and relied entirely on establishing shots to convey the location. Even the famous exterior of the home they lived in was actually of a house in California!
36	* Low-budget soap operas made in Singapore or Malaysia are a particularly notorious offender of this trope, where an episode allegedly set overseas will take place ''entirely'' indoors, with the dialogue being the sole indicator that the characters aren't in their home country anymore. For example, ''Portrait of Home'' (a cheesy love drama made in Singapore) have two characters going on a business trip to Paris... and having all the Paris scenes being filmed in a hotel room that appears to be in Le Méridien Singapore, with one of the characters saying how much she missed home despite clearly having never left the country at all. For some baffling reason, they didn't even include visual indicators to imply the scene takes place overseas, like hiring Caucasian extras as porters, chambermaids, and hotel staff, or throw in a brief stock recording of the Eiffel Tower.
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39	[[folder:Video Game]]
40	* ''VideoGame/SeventySevenPEggwife'' is allegedly set in Sheffield, England, but you sure as hell can't tell from the surreal graphics, abstract humor, and over-the-top design nature.
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43	[[folder:Web Animation]]
44	* ''WebAnimation/MadnessCombat'' is said to take place in Nevada, but early episodes showed it through a nondescript desert town and its Sheriff's office. The bulk of the series is set inside buildings with AlienGeometries and demonic hellscapes.
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