Stitchers - Filming Locations

Seeing Stars: Where the Movies Were Shot (on Location)

Actual filming locations for the sci-fi series, "Stitchers".

EPISODE 1: A Stitch in Time:

01:52: As the first episode opens, we see a college campus.

An on-screen title tells us it's Cal-Tech, in Pasadena. It's not.

In this college scene, Kirsten Clark (Emma Ishta) is placed on academic suspension
after her roommate, Camille, accuses her of sabotaging her research project.

Shortly after, still on campus, Kirsten meets Detective Fisher for the first time.
He informs her that her father has died - but she displays little emotion.

Kirsten, it turns out, suffers from a rare condition called 'temporal dysplasia' which
causes her to be unable to measure the passage of time, and also seems
to limit her ability to experience a normal range of emotions.

This campus location was an easy for me to identify. Although I graduated from UCLA,
I took a few summer classes here at Cal-State Dominguez Hills, in Carson, CA.

The full, official name of the campus is
California State University, Dominguez Hills
and the address is 1000 E. Victoria Street, in Carson.

That's about 12 miles south of downtown Los Angeles
(and about 25 miles southwest of the real Cal-Tech).

The large building you see in the top photo is the Leo Cain Library.
They are walking past the east side of the Library,
and the camera is looking south/southwest.

06:41: We get our first glimpse (a night time shot) of the Craftsman house
where Kirsten lives (along with her roommate Camille).

A title on-screen reads: "Echo Park, CA."

And here's a shot of the same house (from a later episode), seen in the daytime:

This was another easy find. You can see the house number on the front
of the house (986), and it's clear that it's located on a steep, sloping street
just west of downtown Los Angeles (which can be see in the background).

And this time, the onscreen-title was telling the truth. It actually is in Echo Park.

You'll find the house at 984 Everett Street, in Los Angeles, about a mile east of
Echo Park Lake, and less than a mile southwest of Dodger Stadium.

[ Just a few house to the south of Kirsten's home, on the same street, you'll find the
house that was seen in "Drag Me To Hell" (as the main girl's home) and in both
"Training Day" and "Blue Streak", at 1031 Everett Street.] (Thanks, Jeff.)

[ Warning: This is a private home. Do not knock on their door,
trespass on their property, or do anything to disturb the residents. ]

Here is a wide Google StreetView of the house, showing the downtown skyline.

10:04: Kirsten is kidnapped, and when her hood is finally removed, she finds herself in
a Chinese restaurant, where she meets Maggie, the head of the
"Stitchers" program - who wants to recruit her.

Apparently, her 'temporal dysplasia' condition makes her the ideal candidate
for this top-secret agency's experiments, which involves probing the residual
memories of the recently-deceased, by 'stitching' a living person into
these quickly-deteriorating memories, allowing them to experience,
first hand, what the dead person has experienced before they died.

Supposedly, the Chinese restaurant is a cover - it sits 200 meters above the
secret, underground, high-tech headquarters of the "Stitchers" program.

This scene was shot inside an actual Chinese restaurant:
Hop Louie, at 950 Mei Ling Way, in L.A.'s Chinatown.,
which is just north of downtown Los Angeles.

The restaurant is just inside (east of) the ornate Chinatown gate on Hill Street.

You can easily recognize Hop Louie by the restaurant's pagoda-like tower.

It has appeared in a number of movies and TV shows,
including the 2009 comedy, "I Love You Man":

The restaurant was built back in 1941, and while nobody raves about the
Chinese food served there, Hop Louie has become a bit of a landmark.

(But no, you won't find any underground labs here - just a dive bar downstairs.)

Here is a Google StreetView of the restaurant from Hill Street.
And here is a Google StreetView of the Chinatown gate nearby.

28:36: After the first Stitchers experiment, Kirsten wakes up in a strange bedroom, in a loft.

It turns out to be is Cameron's apartment. Cameron (Kyle Harris) is a friendly
co-worker at the Stitchers project, who soon develops a crush on Kirsten.

The building shown as the exterior of Cameron's loft building is actually the
former downtown May Company Department Store.

Actor/comedian Jack Benny used to say that he met his future wife (Mary)
at the May Company, where she worked as a lingerie salesgirl.

The lofts sit above (what once was) that famous department store.

Today, it is known as the Broadway Trade Center, in downtown Los Angeles.
The official address is 830 S Hill Street, but that's not the side we're looking at.

This large building lies between Hill Street & Broadway, and in this scene, we're looking at
the east-facing Broadway side, which is just south of 8th Street, at 801 S. Broadway.

In the screencap above, the camera is looking southwest, down Broadway.
Here is a matching Google StreetView of the lofts.

The unique aqua building to its left is the Columbia Eastern building,
an Art Deco gem in downtown L.A.

Plans call for the 1908 building to be transformed into an upscale mixed-use project that will
include a 200-room hotel, a food hall, retail & office space, and rooftop restaurants.

Kirsten sees a blue door in one of her memory trips, and goes looking for it,
despite Maggie telling her that she isn't allowed to do so.

Cameron chases after her, and (at 32:51) catches up with her out on the street, near a crosswalk.

In the screencap above, she is standing on west side of Broadway, right outside
the entrance to that same lofts building, at 829 S. Broadway.

The camera is looking northeast, up Broadway.

Across the street, you can see the Broadway Bar. That is at 830 S. Broadway.

Here is a matching Google StreetView of the crosswalk and the bar.

36:00: The Stitchers team figures out who will probably be the next victim of the bomber, so
they go to her home to warn her. They arrive just as the woman is getting out of her car.

As Kirsten approaches her, a bomb goes off inside the woman's house, destroying it.

An on-screen title reads: "Santa Clarita". And this time, the title is telling the truth.

You'll find this house at 27907 Alta Vista Ave, in Santa Clarita, CA.

Santa Clarita is up in the northwest corner of L.A., near Six Flags Magic Mountain.

(Not long ago, producers might have looked for an old house, slated for demolition,
that they could really blow up. But in today's world, the explosion is strictly CGI.)

[ Warning: This is a private home. Do not knock on their door,
trespass on their property, or do anything to disturb the residents. ]

Here is a Google StreetView of the house.

36:57: The woman gives them the name of the bomber's next likely victim: Fred Castellano,
and tells them they can find him at the Science Building at U.C. Santa Monica.

So, Kirsten & Cameron go there, to head off a bombing.

The caption reads: "UC Santa Monica" - but there are two problems with that.

First and foremost, UC Santa Monica doesn't exist.
Second, the large room you see above isn't a science building.

It's actually the Cain Education Center, a 2010 addition to the Leo Cain Library.
Sound familiar? It should. That was the supposed "Cal-Tech" building
that we saw near the start of in this episode.

Yep, we're right back on the campus of Cal-State Dominguez Hills, in Carson, CA.

Here is an 2010 photo of the ribbon-cutting for this new library wing, and as you can see,
they are standing in almost the same spot seen in the screencap.

And here's what the same building looks like on the outside:

Which means that the same university, Cal-State Dominguez Hills,
actually stood in for two different colleges in this same episode:
first it played Cal-Tech in Pasadena, and now it's playing the role of UC Santa Monica.

But back to the plot: Cameron pulls a fire alarm to clear out the building, in case a
bomb goes off. They find Castellano in the basement, tied to a really big bomb,
about to go off. Kirsten figures out the shut-off code and diffuses the threat.

40:22: As they are wheeling Castellano out on a stretcher,
we see another CSUDH building behind them:

That building behind them (above) is James L. Welch Hall.
(The camera is looking northwest.)

The camera then pas around to show Kirsten & Cameron coming out of a building.
Supposedly, it's the same "Science Building (the Cain Education Center) - but it's not.

This is actually the exterior of the Loker Student Union., located to the north of the Library.
(The camera here is looking south/southwest.)

Here is a Google StreetView of both Welsh Hall and the Loker Student Union.

More Stitchers locations!

Looking for something in particular? Search the Seeing-Stars website!