Out of the Loop: A look at Sony Pictures Studios Twilight Tour
There are weekday tours of Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, Calif. However, in summer months, additional tours are scheduled in the evening hours. This gives guests an opportunity to see some areas that are not available during working hours, as well as an opportunity to see the studio lot at night. Let’s take a look.
The tour begins in the lobby of the headquarters building. Many movie props are on display, including these motorcycles from “Men in Black 3” and “Ghost Rider”.
Movie props are also on display in the adjacent company cafeteria.
A Baby Godzilla suit from the 1998 movie.
The tour leaves the headquarters and crosses a city street.
This production area has been home to several movie studios. It is now owned by Sony Pictures, which owns Columbia Studios and TriStar Pictures.
Just past the guarded gate is a lovely park setting that you’ve probably seen in many movies and TV shows.
Facing this park is the Thalberg building, which used to be the offices of MGM Studios. This building has also been seen in many movies.
A permanent rainbow shines here. It’s a reference to “The Wizard of Oz” and the “Over the Rainbow” song.
The rainbow was built as public art. Local ordinances require public art to be part of major architecture improvements and projects. Here’s some details of how the rainbow was built.
As the tour moves forward, the buildings get closer together. The grass here is artificial. Artificial grass doesn’t need to be mowed. No mowing means no motor noise affecting any nearby sound recording.
All areas lining this walkway are quickly available as sets.
An overhead walkway in art deco style, connects these disguised office buildings.
More architecture that probably dates back to the MGM Studios.
One of the most exciting areas to see was this scoring stage. Music for every Pixar movie has been recorded on this stage, and the wall of the stage has a display of the Hawaiian shirts that John Lasseter wore during the recordings. This stage is also where music for “The Wizard of Oz” was recorded. Unfortunately, this was a production area where photos were not permitted past the entrance.
One of the production areas we could take photos in was this ADR stage. ADR is where actors re-record their lines when on location sound was too noisy. They watch themselves on screen and say the lines again.
The heavy duty railing gives actors something to hold on to when they need to shout or have some other heavy emotion during the ADR.
We also visited a Foley stage, where footsteps and other background sounds are recorded. The wood seen here is from the deck of the replica ship set built for the “Titanic” movie.
The tour reached the soundstages, and the architecture here looks familiar. Some of this seems similar to the soundstage rows in the Universal Studios and Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme parks.
Some architectural details unique to the Sony Studios.
Happy Madison is Adam Sandler’s production company.
The water tower has an odd, truncated look from this angle.
Farther away, the water tower looks traditionally shaped. At night, the beacon at the top blinks “Sony” in Morse Code.
“The Queen Latifah Show” tapes in this soundstage.
One of our stops was a visit to an upcoming reality TV show about an expedition planned to the South Pole in these vehicles.
The vehicles are very interesting.
The vehicles are modified Humvees.
The planned route.
It’s unknown what role this door has in the show. It might be a facade for the show participants to enter this lab.
We then moved on to visit the sets of some long-running TV games shows.
First stop, “Wheel of Fortune”.
Photos weren’t permitted of the set. They were taping shows for Halloween week, and the set needs to be a secret.
A photo from the “Wheel of Fortune” foyer.
The next game show was “Jeopardy!” The show has a new set for the new season. Photos of it were not allowed because the new shows had not aired yet.
The stage foyer has replica contestant stands where audience members can pose for photos. In the background is Alex Trebek from the first season.
This is the contestant’s Final Jeopardy question board, and at right is the trigger to press when you are ready to respond with a question in normal rounds.
A display of what Alex generally has on his podium.
Emmy Awards won by Jeopardy!
The tour continued past a New York set built for the movie “Burlesque”, and is in continual use since. Note the shipping container.
These seems like New York City facades seen in the Orlando theme parks.
However, this facade is built in front of a stack of shipping containers! Holes have been cut in the containers for windows and doors.
The final stop of the tour was to see some show cars. The race car is from “Talladega Nights”. The car in front, right, is from “Breaking Bad”.
Another car from “Breaking Bad”. The tour guide said fans of the show will love seeing photos of these vehicles.
A mobile lab from “Breaking Bad”.
The Green Hornet’s car.
A camper section used in filming.
The tour ended after sunset, and the lot had a completely different look.
We walked back on the same center walkway as we entered, and it felt something like being the last guests out of a theme park.
The Loews theater in the distance is used for special events.
The Thalberg building at night.
We’re headed back across the city street, to the Sony Picture headquarters. Our cars were parked in the underground parking.
The Sony Pictures Studios Twilight Tour was excellent. More information about this tour and the daytime tour is at sonypicturesstudiostours.com
