La La Land - Filming Locations: The Pier

(F.) 1:00:12: We see a pier at dusk. And a couple silhouetted on the beach.

This is another blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot, lasting only an instant in the musical montage. Still, we need to identify it.

Although it seems as if it should be, this is NOT the same pier where we saw Sebastian sing "City of Stars" a short time ago...

I must admit, at first glance, I thought it probably was the same pier.

But there are at least 13 public piers ( that I can think of, off the top of my head ) along the coast of Greater Los Angeles (between Malibu and Newport Beach).

Some of them are big pleasure piers and easily recognized, such as the Redondo Beach Pier and the Santa Monica Pier. But most of them are fairly nondescript, and tend to resemble each other. So, I had to take a good look at this one to determine exactly which pier it was.

If the shape of the pier isnt' distinct, what you mostly have to go on are subtle differences between the lights on each pier, and the pilings below it.

It turned out to be the Venice Pier (sometimes called the Venice Fishing Pier), at Venice Beach, which, in relation to other local piers, is located between the Manhattan Beach Pier (on the south) and the Santa Monica Pier (on the north).

You'll find it at the far west end of Washington Blvd, in Venice, California.

( Which is about nine miles north of the City of Stars pier. )

The camera is looking north by northwest (my apologies to Hitchcock).

Venice lies just north of Marina del Rey, and just south of Santa Monica.

If you're not familiar with Venice, California, be assured that you have seen its crazy boardwalk scene many times in movies and TV shows. The Venice boardwalk has a circus-like atmosphere on crowded weekends, with local street performers doing everything from juggling chainsaws to eating fire to the attract attention of tourists along this walkway of beachy restaurants, tattoo parlors and sunglasses vendors.

Although most of L.A. is not nearly as off-center as most outsiders suspect, Venice is the one place that measures up to the unconventional stereotype. It doesn't get much weirder than the Venice Boardwalk. But it makes for a fun visit.

The Venice Pier isn't really part of The Boardwalk, tho which lies along Ocean Front Walk, between Venice Blvd (on the south) and Rose Ave (on the north). The pier is about half a mile south of that main stretch of craziness.

Here is a Google 360° panorama of the pier:

Here is that very short scene from the montage: