Dexter Filming Locations: Museum of Art (exterior)

DEXTER Filming Locations - hundreds of actual places where the TV show Dexter was filmed.


The location: Museum of Art (Exterior)





Q. What is it supposed to be on the show?

    A. A museum of art.


Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show?

    A. In Museum Square, in Miami.


Q. When did we see it on the show?

    A. In Episode 8, of Season 6, "Sin of Omission".

    This was supposed to be the same Museum of Art that we saw before, in Episode 5 - where Travis worked.

    But they used an entirely different location for it this time.

    In this scene, we first see a shot of the museum's grand exterior.  It's a large, modern building with a tall angel statue/fountain outside its main entrance.

    Then we see Dexter slip into Travis's workspace (at the museum) and talk to him.

    Travis isn't happy to see Dexter (he recognizes his voice as the man who tried to kill him in his car), and tries to make him go away.

    Dexter tells him he did the right thing, by letting the abducted woman go free.

    Travis says that he freed her because of what Dexter had said to him -- that it made him realize that he didn't have to do everything that Gellar tells him.

    Dexter tells Travis he can get rid of Gellar, but Travis is clearly frightened.  He tells Dexter that Gellar is crazy and incredibly dangerous - that he won't stop until he's finished his mission.

    When Dexter keeps trying to convince him, Travis leaves the room.

    The art museum turns up again in Episode 11, "Talk to the Hand", when Dexter decided to bait Travis into showing himself.

Dexter goes to the museum at night and desecrates to statue/fountain of an angel, outside the museum, painting it to look like it is drenched in bright red blood, painting 666 (the "mark of the beast") on the statue's forehead, and leaving Gellar's frozen, severed hand on the scene.






The next day, police arrive on the scene and find the hand, and deduce that Gellar is dead, and Travis is now acting alone.



Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. A convention center.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. The exterior scene was actually shot at the Long Beach Convention Center, at 300 East Ocean Blvd,
in Long Beach, CA.

To be more specific, there is a long, glass-covered walkway/atrium in front of the Convention Center, running north/south, along Pine Avenue.

This shot was of that walkway's south end, with the camera looking north.

The walkway is elevated, above Pine Ave, and can be reached by walking north across the pedestrian bridge which crosses Shoreline Drive.  That bridge begins between Shoreline Village and Rainbow Harbor, passes the Hyatt Hotel, and ends at this Convention Center entrance.

    (The interior was a studio set.)

    Compare this screenshot of the "museum"...


    with this photo I shot     at the Convention Center, in November 2011:


    As you'll note, there's no angel fountain on the right side...
    And it doesn't say "Museum of Art" above the door.

    Here is a somewhat wider view of the same entrance, which I shot, so you can see it in context:

    Here is an aerial photo of the location.  Here is a Google StreetView.
      And here is a map link.



    So, what about that angel statue/fountain    ?

    It's not in Long Beach.  It was clearly inserted into the scene.

    The question is: Is it a real fountain?  And if so, where can we find it in real life?

    The answer appears to be twofold.

    First, there is indeed a real fountain that looks like that. And it is located (in all places) in Bellevue, Iowa, in a city park, near the Mississippi River.  That's a long way from either Miami or L.A.

Here's a photo of it (courtesy of Danny Higgens), next to a smaller shot of the angel fountain
seen on Dexter (which I flipped, horizontally, to make the comparison easier):


    So my first guess was that they superimposed that fountain onto the Long Beach Convention Center via CGI.

    But I was wrong.

    Because in the 10th episode ("Talk to the Hand"), guess what showed up again in front of the "Museum of Art" (that is, the Convention Center)?

    That's right.  The Angel fountain was back, in all its glory, in a scene where Dexter desecrates the fountain with blood, to leave a message for Travis, while faking evidence that Gellar did it.

    But this time, there was no question that it was an actual statue, a prop which the producers physically brought in for the scene and placed in front of the Convention Center.

    (Why it seems to be a clone of the statue in Iowa is anyone's guess.)


Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

    A.  In previous seasons, I've usually had to hunt down the locations after viewing the episodes, using clues from the various scenes.  By the 6th season, though, I'd developed a small group of fans, spies & tipsters who kept an eye out for Dexter filming in their neighborhoods, and would let me know in advance when something was about to film there.

    Between those reports, my own personal reconnaissance around town, and a few new resources I discovered, by the time the first episode aired, I already knew most (but not all) of the filming locations, and only needed to watch the episodes and match up the scenes with the correct locations.

    This group of helpful fans includes Kerry, Rick, Ellen, Susan, Jason, Elaine, Joel, Julie, Geoff, Jeff, Jen, and others. My thanks to all of them.

    I knew that they had filmed the first Museum of Art scenes at Cal-State Long Beach, but this building looked a little to fancy to be CSULB.  So I contacted Jason (a CSULB student who had sent me photos of the first museum scene) and asked him if this building was on campus.  He told me it wasn't.

    Taking a closer look at it, I knew it looked familiar.  At first, I thought it might be part of the Getty museum, but their buildings tend to be more cubic, with fewer curving lines.  Then I got worried that it might just be stock footage, and if so, it could have been anywhere in the world.

    Fortunately, just then, Rick emailed to say that he had found it, at the Convention Center.  Which was great news, confirmed by Bing aerial photos.  We knew that they had filmed another scene at the Center, which will be in the 11th episode. So I headed down there and got the matching photos you see above.  (Thanks, Rick!)

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