Dexter: Original Sin Filming Locations: Debra's High School
The
location: Debra's High School
Q.
What is it supposed to be on the show?
A. Bayfront High School.
Q.
Where is it supposed to be on the show?
A. In Miami, Florida.
Q.
When did we see it on the show?
A. We first Deb's high school in Episode 1, of Season 1, when she plays in a volleyball game with her high school team, the Manatees.
With Harry
in the hospital and unable to attend the game, Dexter promises to be
there to watch Debra perform. But he gets caught up in his first kill,
and misses the game, disappointing Deb.
We see the
high school again in Episode 3, when Debra and her friend Sophia have
lunch at the high school cafeteria, and are snubbed by some rival girls.
It is seen once again in Episode 4, in a scene where Debra and her
friends are leaving the school, and wondering how they are going to get
to the beach, since Harry took the truck Deb was planning to use to
transport them.
Deb's rival shows up driving a new Mitsubishi Montero,
and gives most of the girls a ride, while stranding and flipping off
Deb & Sofia.
The school is seen again during volleyball practice , when Deb gets into
an argument with her rival Tiffany, and ends up punching her in the
face, resulting in her being kicked off the team.And it is seen again in episode 8, when Dexter shows up there to ask Sofia where to find Debra.
The last
time we see it is in the season finale, episode 10, in a short scene
where Deb runs into Sofia in a school hallway and apologizes for taking
Dexter's side against hers.
Q.
What is it actually in real life?
A. A high school. Just not in Miami.
Q.
Where can I find it in real life?
A. In real life, this is Van Nuys High School, located at 6535 Cedros Ave, in Van Nuys, California.
That's about two miles NE of the interchange of the San Diego
(405) freeway and the Ventura (101) freeway, in the
L.A.'s San Fernando Valley.
That is about 5 miles northwest of the studio where Dexter: Original Sin is filmed, and about 3 miles northwest of the Morgan family home where Deb lives.
It's a good example of how many of this year's filming locations are
clustered In the San Fernando Valley, near the new studio.
They filmed the volleyball scene inside the high school's gymnasium, and filmed the cafeteria scene outdoors on the school's cafeteria patio. (The two spots are located right across from each other.)
( Coincidentally, Van Nuys High School does have a girl's volleyball team.)
On the show, the high school team is called the Manatees
(appropriate for Florida), in real life the Van Nuys High School team is
called the Wolves.
So the production covered up the Wolves logo with Bayfront Manatees logos.
The cafeteria scenes
were fairly straightforward, beginning inside where the girls pick up
their trays, then heading out to the covered patio section of the
cafeteria, where the conversations take place at the school's regular
tables .
Van Nuys High School has been the location of filming in the past. Most notably they shot the hit 1982 movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” here, and more recently, it served as Sheldon's high school on TV's “Young Sheldon”.
Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?
A. The
gymnasium and the cafeteria might have been tricky to find. But in the
third episode, at the start of that cafeteria scene, they show a brief
head-on view of the main school building. I recognized it immediately
from both “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Young Sheldon”, both of which I had previously written about.
I then checked online images of both the gym and the cafeteria to make sure they also matched up, which, of course, they did
That screencap, seen at the top of this page, perfectly matches the StreetView seen below:
