Location #20:

The Parking Lot


Q.  Where is it supposed to be?

47:59: This is literally the shortest scene in the movie, just four or five seconds in which Mia parks her car in a lot and heads in for that humiliating audition.

But it was also one of the most difficult locations to track down...



Here's the entire scene.  All four seconds of it.  Watch it:




And that's all there is.  (Told you it was short,)

They never really explain where the audition is taking place,
although I originally assumed it was somewhere at her studio.



Q.  Where was it really shot?

I know I shouldn't get caught up in these minor things, but when I set out to do every single shot in a movie, I don't want to miss one.  And short or not, this was a new location.  So, I had to check it off my list

At first, I thought it would be easy to find.  Given the palm trees, and the mountains behind it, I assumed this was shot at one of the parking lots at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank.  It wasn't.


I spent a long time pouring over Google Earth shots of the various Warner's lots, trying to match one to this shot, but it couldn't be done.  It was somewhere else.


I didn't have much to go on, just the fact that there is a long row of hedges at the edge of the parking lot behind her, tall mountains, and lots of palm trees.


After hunting all over L.A., with no success, I thought of a new strategy.


I knew that there were a lot of still photos online showing Emma during various filming moments, and it occurred to me that her clothes might be the key.  In this scene, she's wearing dark jeans and a plaid shirt.


So I went hunting for photos of Emma wearing that specific outfit.


And I found them:




( Not only the same clothes, but the same silver car. )

And better yet, the caption said that Emma
was filming a scene in Pasadena.  Bullseye!

All I had to do now was figure out where in Pasadena.


And that wasn't easy either. 


Fortunately, there are only a few locations in Pasadena that location scouts return to on a regular basis.  So I decided to look at them first.


Back when I was tracking down the locations for the TV show "
Dexter", I came across a former hospital in Pasadena which I've since seen used over & over again in films and TV series.

So, just on a hunch, I checked it out. And while there was no parking lot in front of the hospital, when I looked behind it, there it was:  The very same parking lot, right down to the green hedgerow and the palm trees.


This was shot in the parking lot
behind
Saint Luke's Medical Center

at 2632 E. Washington Blvd, in Pasadena, CA.

Pasadena, home of the famous Rose Parade (and Rose Bowl)
is located about 11 miles northeast of downtown L.A.


But remember that the lot is
behind the hospital, so it's not on Washington Blvd.
Instead, the lot faces Del Rey Avenue (at approximately 1286 Del Rey).

The camera in the shot is looking
north.

Here is a matching Google StreetView of the lot:




Compare it to the scene below... and note the same hedgerow, the same
white trash enclosure with a checkerboard pattern, the same palm trees,
and the same mountains in the background.


( Also, after she finishes the failed audition, and we see her exit the building, heading back to the parking lot. If you're curious, that is indeed the back of the same St. Luke's Hospital building, in Pasadena. )


Here is a link to a Google Earth 3-D view
of the parking lot.


    

Move on to the next movie location seen in "La La Land".

    

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