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One of the most famous examples of this is in ''[[Star Trek]]'' (and all subsequent series), in which every planet they land on looks exactly like the [[Kirk's Rock|deserts of southern California]] or the redwood forests of Northern California, or the mountains of California (assuming it isn't a studio cyclorama instead). Oh, and from time to time the script might call for a beach. Any ideas?
There is also [[
The main reason is that a production crew not only includes a cameraman, director and actors; there are usually at least two or three dozen people working on prepping a location, providing the appropriate light and transporting the equipment to film a scene. Moving everyone, especially on a weekly television budget, is sometimes implausible even if said location is willing to permit filming. Other times, the actual location is not an option for security and or political reasons.
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Of course this can lead to [[Television Geography]], as well as [[It's Always Spring]]. In many cases the average viewer may not be familiar with the location in question, but can end up bugging those viewers who have been or actually ''live'' in those locations.
This can have a very odd effect the first time one ''visits'' southern California. Upon seeing for the first time those scrub-covered hills and twisty roads, one gets a truly unearthly sense of deja vu. Have I been here before, you ask yourself? Then you realize that you have... on TV! For those who live in southern California, it is amusing to point out places one recognizes from TV shows. The most used location is Griffith Park, whose scrabble mountains can be seen in nearly every
This can lead to [[The Mountains of Illinois]] when the setting is full of [[Critical Research Failure]]s.
Contrast with [[Canada Does Not Exist]], where the shooting location actually affects the storyline.
This trope may have begun dying as of the early 2020s, with the invention of digital cyclorama technology, first used on ''[[The Mandalorian]]''. This technology gives a production team the ability to produce completely realistic exterior backgrounds, responsive in real-time to camera position, on a sound stage. Once the cost of using a virtual exterior matches or becomes lower than location shooting, expect California Doubling (and its foreign equivalents) to become a [[Forgotten Trope]].
{{examples}}
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=== Film ===
* ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (film)|Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie]]'' was filmed entirely in Australia, though the series at the time was set in California.
* Averted in ''[[Dark City]]''. The only real giveaway that the filming took place primarily in a studio near Sydney is the somewhat out of place Australian accent of a young police officer who talks to Detective Bumstead in one scene. Also, the director happens to be from Australia.
* Set in the universal American city, Metropolis, all of ''[[Superman (film)|Superman]] Returns'' was filmed in Australia. The Kansas scenes were filmed near Tamworth, a country town. At one point Bryan Singer was worried that the original Kansas farm scenes from the first movie were actually filmed in Kansas; he learned that Richard Donner filmed them in Alberta.
* In ''[[Knowing]]'', Melbourne serves as a stand-in for both [[Boston (useful notes)|Boston]] and parts of [[New York City]].
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* ''[[The Marine]]'' was mostly shot in Queensland, Australia but set in South Carolina.
* ''[[The Matrix]]''. The scene in which Neo says "I used to eat lunch there. Good noodles", the car is clearly driving through the Chinatown end of George street in Sydney's CBD. Of course, you also see the Sydney Tower and the Maritime Services Board control tower on the city's skyline.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* The 1988 TV revival of ''[[Mission: Impossible (TV series)|Mission: Impossible]]'' was filmed in Brisbane, and later Melbourne. The Brisbane TV station screening the series ran a competition asking viewers to pick out the local landmarks used. (Averted in three episodes - "The Cattle King" and "The Golden Serpent" parts 1 and 2 - which ''did'' involve Australia!)
* ''[[Farscape]]'' filmed entirely in Australia, including Earth scenes that were supposed to be located on the Florida Space Coast. For all that the beaches are decidedly different, upper middle class tract housing can evidently be pretty similar in both places.
** Specifically: IASA's HQ shown in "Won't Get Fooled Again" was shot in and around Sydney Olympic Park, in Homebush (a
* The entirety of ''[[The Pacific]]'' was filmed in various locations Victoria. It doubles for everything from Guadalcanal and Pelieliu to Mobile, Alabama, and California. It's also averted when the Marines actually go to Melbourne on Liberty.
* ''[[K9]]'' was filmed in Brisbane, although the show is set in London in 2050.
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* ''[[Time Trax]]'' had the hero "travelling through our world, searching for fugitives from his own," but all of this travelling was done in Australia ("Photo Finish" was a rare episode to be set there).
* Inverted by ''[[The Fast Show]]'' in the Shore Leave sketch. The sailors start singing that they are in New York in what is clearly Newcastle.
== New Zealand Doubling ==
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* ''Boogeyman'' had the US be played by New Zealand.
▲=== Live Action TV ===
* Neither ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' or ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'' were filmed anywhere near Greece. New Zealand made a passable substitute.
** New Zealand also doubled for China and Japan in ''Xena''. Not to be mention present-day America in both series ("Yes, Virginia, There Is A Hercules" and "Deja Vu All Over Again").
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** They've thrown in a few gags, like [[Power Rangers SPD|Piggy]] getting teleported there and landing in the middle of a herd of sheep.
== California Doubling ==
=== Film ===
* Too many to mention have been filmed in Griffith Park, especially 1950's jungle movies. Just keep an eye out for Griffith Mountain.
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* The movie ''The Russians are Coming'' (a comedy which revolves around a Soviet submarine running aground in Massachusetts) was filmed in California.
* ''[[Shazam|The Adventures of Captain Marvel]]'' (1941) was filmed in the deserts of Southern California, despite the fact that the first episode supposedly takes place in the jungles of Siam. In fact there seems to be some confusion between Thailand and the Middle East.
* In the movie ''[[Love Actually]]'', Colin travels to the city of Milwaukee, WI. However, the airport shown has a sign that says "Milwaukee International Airport" (the real one is "Mitchell Int'l"). The bar he goes to has California license plates and prominent Budweiser signs. Milwaukee is the home of Miller brewery, the chance of finding a bar that looks like the one in ''[[Love Actually]]'' is slim to none.
* And [[Dreaming of a White Christmas|it's snowing]]. Even shows that are [[Freaks and Geeks|specifically set]] [[Glee|in the Midwest]] seem to [[It's Always Spring|have California weather year-round]].
* The outdoor scenes in ''The Lost World: [[Jurassic Park]]'' have significantly more redwood trees than you'd expect from a equatorial island. This is because they were filmed near Eureka, CA (no, not [[Eureka|that one]]).
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* In ''[[Home Alone|Home Alone 2]]'', all the scenes that take place at Kevin's uncle's house in Manhattan were shot in Hollywood, CA, while the scenes with Kevin's family in Miami were shot in Malibu.
=== Live
* ''[[Knight Rider]]'', ''[[The A-Team]]'', ''[[The Incredible Hulk (TV series)|The Incredible Hulk]]'' and dozens of other 70's and 80's action shows never left the general southern California area either. For all the [[Walking the Earth]] the heroes did, they were never able to go anywhere that didn't have scrub grass and Joshua trees.
* Funny how Culver City, California looks a lot like [[Hogan's Heroes|Nazi Germany]] and [[The Andy Griffith Show|Mayberry, North Carolina]] at the same time.
* Both ''[[Matlock]]'' and ''[[Profiler]]'' were set in or around Atlanta, GA. Were it not for establishing shots, dialogue references, and the opening credits of 'Matlock', no Atlantan would know this.
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* ''[[Angel]]'' had a few episodes supposedly set in places like Rome and U.K. For the U.K. one, they went to a forested area of northern California but were still disappointed at how little it looked like the English countryside. Minutes before they were to film, however, a fog bank rolled in and gave the setting a much more UK feel.
* The fourth-season premiere of ''[[Bones]]'' was set and filmed in London. However, the show set in [[Washington DC]], with special locations such as Washington State, Las Vegas, and New Orleans, has NEVER left California to shoot any of those episodes. An episode set in Baltimore, complete with Baltimore accents ("Welcome to Bawlmer"), but the opening scene was clearly filmed at the Sepulveda Dam.
* ''[[Buck Rogers in
* ''[[Castle]]'' is set in New York. Only the pilot was actually filmed there. The episode set in Los Angeles takes advantage of that fact.
* ''[[Cold Case]]'' has occasional location shots in Philadelphia, but has many scenes clearly filmed in LA: the architecture that is supposedly "Germantown" or "the River Wards" has no business anywhere that gets harsh winters. The LA Metro has stood in for the Broad Street Subway at least once, as well. Any scene involving the cops standing outside their workplace is a bit strange since it's the same building that the FBI's LA bureau uses in ''[[Numb3rs]]'', shot from below the bridges.
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* ''[[Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman]]'' substituted Southern California for the Colorado mountains... poorly. Especially with such sights as the cast climbing the gentle, rolling slopes of Pike's Peak, lush with the dry brown grass of summer.
* ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'' was set in [[Cleveland Rocks|Cleveland, Ohio]], but filmed in Burbank, California.
* A horrifying example of California Doubling in the United States was the short-lived Fox series, ''[[Drive (TV series)]]''. The series started in Florida, going through Georgia, and through the desert of southern California every step of the way. Florida has no mountains, period, end of discussion.
* ''[[Firefly (TV series)|Firefly]]'' takes advantage of this phenomenon, as the show has a Western feel to it, so it is entirely appropriate for every outlying backwoods planet to look like Old West California.
** Despite the fact that it had a comparatively higher budget than the TV series, the movie sequel to it, ''[[Serenity]]'', nonetheless has a planet that, CGI aside, is represented by a local high school campus. The chase scene around the Companion Training House seems to have been similarly filmed in local woods, with the rest of the landscape around it having been filled in with CGI and basically all of the other settings being either soundstages, the Universal lot, or CGI.
* Assuming this is a good example of California Doubling, ''[[Fresno]],'' a miniseries that parodied ''[[Dallas]]'' and shows like it, was mostly filmed in Los Angeles, CA. The first 1 1/2 days, however, were spent filming in the actual city of Fresno. However, due to the extreme 100-degree heat, production moved 205 miles down south.
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* Particularly ridiculous in ''[[Little House on the Prairie (TV series)|Little House On the Prairie]]'' which is set in Minnesota, a state not exactly known for its mountains or its long stretches of lush green summery weather.
* The "Korean" setting of ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|Mash]]'' is actually a section of Malibu Creek State Park in California, which was then the "Fox Ranch". Other scenes were shot in Griffith Park.
* In the original ''[[Mission: Impossible (TV series)|Mission: Impossible]]'' it's astonishing how much of [[Cold War|Eastern Europe]] looks like LA and its environs, or how Soviet cars (namely the KGB use-only [http://www.oldrussiancars.com/archives/gaz-m-23 GAZ M23 Volga] and [http://www.oldrussiancars.com/archives/gaz-m13-chaika M13 Chaika]) look remarkably like [[The Taxi|civillian Checker A12 Marathons.]]
* ''[[Monk]]'' is set in San Francisco and filmed in Culver City. There are buses with the word CULVER written in five-foot-high orange letters that went through the end of the [[Cult]] episode. One episode has Monk wander his way to the train station after three nights of sleep deprivation. The station used for the shot was clearly the LA Union Station, leading the audience to wonder just how far Monk had wandered off.
** So I guess that would be California doubling for...California.
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* ''[[NCIS]]'' is set in Washington DC and filmed in California. When they had to go to Arizona in an episode they were still in California, surrounded by the unmistakable rock formations near Simi Valley.
* ''[[The Office]]'' had one episode taking place in Winnipeg, but shot in California. In fact, while they have occasionally filmed exteriors for the U.S. version at real Scranton, Pennsylvania locations, most of the show is filmed near L.A.
* ''[[Pretty Little Liars (TV series)|Pretty Little Liars]]'' is set in the fictional Pennsylvania town of Rosewood and filmed on location... in California. (Unlike many, many examples of this kind, this is actually mentioned on the show's end credits.)
* ''[[Roswell]]'' heavily featured [[Kirk's Rock]] for the wilderness scenes, while the town itself was actually Covina, CA.
* ''[[Silk Stalkings]]'' was set in Palm Beach, Florida, but filmed mostly in San Diego. See also [[The Mountains of Illinois]].
* As alluded to in the opening, it's pretty rare for ''Star Trek'' to shoot outside of California. All the TV shows have been filmed entirely in California and no ''Trek'' production has filmed outside the United States. Much like Vasquez Rocks, Griffith Park has been used many times as many planets over the years. Only five of the eleven films have filmed any scenes outside California. These are the only exceptions to California doubling in the entire series:
** ''[[Star Trek: The
** ''[[Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country|Star Trek VI the Undiscovered Country]]'': A second unit filmed long distance shots in Alaska with doubles for [[William Shatner]], [[DeForest Kelley]], and Iman.
** ''[[Star Trek Generations]]'': Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada was the surface Veridian III
** ''[[Star Trek:
** ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'': The scene where young Kirk drives his stepfather's car into a quarry was filmed in Vermont.
* ''[[Ugly Betty]]'' is set in New York but was shot in LA for most of its run. The first episode after they moved filming to New York simply ''[[Scenery Porn|reveled]]'' in shooting outdoors.
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** However, in "The Concert", during the third season, one plot thread takes place by the side of a road, where the surrounding landscape looks a lot more typical of California than central Indiana.
* Inverted in the HBO miniseries version of ''[[Mildred Pierce]]'', where New York doubles as [[The Great Depression|Depression-Era]] California. Fortunately many LA buildings were modeled on ones in NY, and there's even some California-style bungalows built so CA-based actors could feel at home—all they needed was a sunny day and a greenhouse's-worth of tropical plants!
=== Real Life ===
* California has doubled for '''the moon''': certain rocks there contain the same minerals as the moon, and the astronauts did some training in Death Valley.
* [[
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/wisconsin-protests-fox-news-sacramento_n_830314.html O'Reilly used video from Sacramento], discussing last winter's protests in Wisconsin. ("Subtropical Wisconsin" in January.)
** Likewise, FNC also used footage of protests in Athens in a report on similar protests in ''Moscow''. An item on the equally fair and balanced (!) Russia Today Channel helpfully pointed out that the street signs in the report were in the Greek alphabet, not Cyrillic.
* US Army stages its National Training Center for desert operations out of Fort Irwin in California. Unfortunately it was quickly discovered that American deserts look substantially different from Middle Eastern ones, leading to ineffective camouflage.
== [[Toronto]] Doubling ==
=== Film ===
* ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk]]'' film (starring [[Edward Norton]]) was shot in Toronto, doubling for Harlem, New York.
** The climactic rumble in ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk]]'' was shot on a stretch of Yonge Street in Toronto, running from the intersection of Yonge & Dundas to about a block north. The Zanzibar strip club is a dead giveaway, as are the spinning records on the side of Sam the Record Man.
* Shoot'em'up is also clearly shot in Toronto: They don't even try to hide the CN tower
* Some films shot in the Toronto area: ''[[Cinderella Man]]'', ''[[The Pacifier]]'', ''[[Bulletproof Monk]]'', ''[[Kick-Ass (film)|Kick-Ass]]'', ''[[Dawn of the Dead (2004 film)|Dawn of the Dead]]'' (2004). Ironically, a belated coda for ''Dawn'' was shot in California.
* ''[[Resident Evil: Apocalypse|Resident Evil Apocalypse]]'' features several things to make Torontonians grin. Perhaps the most obvious of which is the {{spoiler|nuke}} that just so happens to {{spoiler|explode}} right on City Hall (the recognizable dual curved towers). Other fun features include the fact the film makers neglected to airbrush out the CN Tower, numerous logos on buildings on the Bay St. area and the Toronto Sun logo on the sides of several paperboxes.
* In the remake of ''[[Hairspray]]'' the movie was set in Baltimore, but was filmed in Toronto.
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* ''[[Silver Streak]]'' has Toronto standing in for Chicago.
*
▲* Cop procedural ''Night Heat'' filmed in Toronto and took place in a generic American city.
* The short-lived action show ''FX: The Series'' doubled for New York.
* The Canadian TV series ''[[Due South]]'', although ostensibly set in Chicago, was mainly filmed in Toronto. While most of the first two seasons featured establishing shots of the Chicago area, the distinction of scenes shot at recognizable Toronto landmarks became more noticeable in the last two seasons. On the other hand, the episode where the characters go to Toronto was filmed in... [[Chicago]]. The streetcar tracks are a dead giveaway, in just about every exterior scene, as Chicago doesn't have street-running trolleys anymore. Not to mention the periodic occurrence of street signs saying things like "Centre Street".
* ''Tracker'' was filmed in Toronto while being set in Chicago.
* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: ''[[Queer as Folk]]'' once had its characters point out the similarity of a Toronto street to a street in their hometown [[Pittsburgh]]. A lot of movies are shot in Toronto; some few are actually ''set'' there.
* Though supposedly set in the US, the fact that ''[[21 Jump Street (TV series)|21 Jump Street]]'' is shot in Canada is made by the fact that the extras/bit parts were hired locally and thus do decidedly non-US things like say "grade 3" instead of "3rd grade" and write graffiti with words ending in "-our" instead of "-or".
* ''Sue Thomas F. B. Eye'' was set in [[Washington DC]] but filmed in Toronto.
* The art deco facade of the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant has appeared in several movies and TV series, usually as either the villains' lair (''[[The Pretender]]'', ''[[Mutant X]]'', ''[[Undercover Brother]]'') or an insane asylum (''[[In the Mouth of Madness]]'', ''[[RoboCop]]: The Series'').
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* Toronto doubles for Los Angeles in ''[[The L.A. Complex]]'' with a mix of location-shot [[Establishing Shots]] and yellow filters to make the sun look brighter.
== [[Vancouver]] Doubling ==
=== Film ===
* The [[Jackie Chan]] movie ''Rumble in the Bronx'' is shot in Vancouver rather than [[New York City]]. This becomes especially apparent during a beach scene when the lofty majestic volcanic Cascade Mountains can be seen in the background...
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** In the [[X-Men: The Last Stand|third X-Men movie]], the scene with the protest outside the cure clinic was not in front of a massive skyscraper, but a very nondescript two-floor building.
** Jean Grey's childhood home is in the Vancouver suburb of Tsawwassen.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080626105613/http://www1.skicanadianrockies.com/alberta-winter-stories/hollywood-comes-to-alberta/explore-hollywood-in-alberta.html Rural Alberta] can also Vancouver Double for any number of outdoor locations, depending on the particular area, with the Badlands of southern Alberta being used for numerous Westerns over the years. Famous examples include ''[[Unforgiven]]'', ''[[Brokeback Mountain]]'', and ''[[Shanghai Noon]]''.
** Winnipeg has also Vancouver Doubled for 21st century Minneapolis and 19th and 20th century Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis, due to the hundreds of Victorian and Edwardian buildings still remaining in the downtown core.
* Sort-of done in ''[[Batman (film)|Batman]]'': Gotham City was a set, [[wikipedia:Gotham City#1989 movie|but a map of it was represented by a mirrored map of Vancouver]].
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* ''Shoot To Kill'' both plays this trope straight and averts it; most of the film was shot in British Columbia, but the film's set on the West Coast of the US... until the characters cross into B.C. for the final act. It still finds time to play it straight - in a case of Vancouver ''itself'' being doubled, the climactic underwater fight just off the coast of the city between Sidney Poitier and Clancy Brown was filmed in the Bahamas!
▲=== Live Action TV ===
* The western Canadian province of British Columbia has profited greatly from the various American and TV film productions shot there, including but not limited to ''[[The X-Files]]'' for most of its run.
* ''[[Sliders]]'' (and ''[[The X-Files]]'') moved from Vancouver to Hollywood in the course of production.
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* ''[[Hellcats]]'' has the good city of Vancouver playing ''Memphis''.
* In the [[Doctor Who]] [[Made for TV Movie]], Vancouver plays [[San Francisco]], but they might as well have acknowledged they were in Vancouver for all the difference it would have made. It only seems like San Francisco in that there's a [[Friendly Local Chinatown]] and a guy almost went to a costume party dressed as [[Oscar Wilde]] (but then the Doctor [[Sticky Fingers|stole his costume]]). In the [[Chase Scene]], there aren't even any hills to speak of.
* This trope is [[Lampshaded]] in [[Studio 60
* ''[[Pretty Little Liars]]'' has the rare distinction of getting two entries in this trope (see also California Doubling: Live-Action TV above), as the pilot was filmed in Vancouver.
=== Tabletop Games ===
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{{quote|'''Harry:''' I don't buy it. [[Lampshade Hanging|They couldn't do a TV show based around Chicago in Vancouver.]]
'''Billy:''' You'd be surprised. }}
== Other Doubling ==
=== Film ===
* ''[[Field of Dreams]]'' has Dubuque, Iowa filling in for most of Non-Fenway Park Boston, and Galena, Illinois filling in for Chisholm, Minnesota, both of which being
* ''[[Spy Game]]'' had segments set in Beirut and Vietnam which were both filmed in Morocco. Likewise, Budapest stood in for Berlin, and Oxford, England became Suzhou, China.
* ''[[Some Like It Hot]]'' had its two musician protagonists run away to Florida to perform with their mutual [[Love Interest]]'s band; the actual beach and hotel they were at was really on Mission Beach in San Diego. In fact, if one were to visit the hotel there, you could find photos of the cast and parts of the movie in the hotel's lobby.
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** The Sandman Chase in ''Spider-Man 3'' was done in [[Cleveland Rocks|Cleveland]].
* The ''[[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]'' series has several "Other country doubling":
** In ''[[
** In ''[[Casino Royale]]'', Madagascar is the Bahamas, and Montenegro is the Czech Republic.
** Most subaquatic scenes since ''[[Thunderball]]'' were shot in the Bahamas (doubling for the Adriatic, Mediterranean and Caspian Seas).
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** Maybe the movie was filmed with German money. ''The Machinist'' was set in LA, but filmed in Barcelona, because it was made with Spanish money.
*** This, by the way, is why the film's title is in Spanish on [[IMDb]]
* ''[[The Bourne Series (film)|The Bourne Ultimatum]]'' had a scene set in Moscow during the events of ''The Bourne Supremacy'' (which was filmed in Moscow during that film). To avoid having to get an entire crew to Moscow again, they created a snowy Moscow in East Berlin, which was mostly rebuilt by Stalin and so looked much like the architecture of Moscow.
* In ''[[Maverick (film)|Maverick]]'', the climactic poker game is set on a riverboat steaming the Mississippi River south of St. Louis. Anyone familiar with the area knows that the exterior scenes of the riverboat were shot somewhere very, very different from the Mississippi River south of St. Louis (probably on a river in the Pacific Northwest).
** Not to mention the bizarre detour through [[wikipedia:Yosemite|Yosemite National Park]]. Seriously, the scene takes place right under Half Dome.
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** Helsinki, Finland also has a reputation as standing in for Moscow in many American films, such as [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082979/ Reds] and [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085615/ Gorky Park].
*** Sort of averted in ''[[Red Heat]]'' - Budapest (another one!) played Moscow for most of the movie, but the footage behind the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf_3QeDwDS0 opening (contains nudity and violence; credits start at 4:39)] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYAuJlS-vM closing credits (from the 4:21 mark)] really was shot there.
** ''[[Doctor Zhivago]]'' was shot with different Spanish locations (especially in the province of Soria) standing for Siberia. Soria has also doubled as Cimmeria in
** The producers of ''Fiddler on the Roof'' scouted locations across Eastern Europe but finally settled on Yugoslavia (largely because they couldn't get permission to film in other countries.)
** ''[[The Kite Runner]]'' filmed in Kashgar, China for Afghanistan; ''The Power of One'' filmed in Zimbabwe for South Africa (this was before the fall of apartheid); Thailand has been used for Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam; Malaysia was used for Thailand in ''Anna and the King''. And movies set in Tibet have been filmed in the mountains of Argentina and Morocco.
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* ''[[For Richer or Poorer]]'' was the first in a growing number of Baltimore Doubling. Notably outrageous though as the much of the movie takes place in Lancaster PA, which is not that far from where the film was actually shot.
* Parts of the Czech Republic and Poland often double for parts of Austria or Germany. They stick up German language street and shop signs.
** Prague and some other parts of the Czech Republic apparently also stood in for Paris and France in general in the 1998 version of ''[[Les Misérables (1998 film)|Les Misérables]]'' with [[Liam Neeson]].
** The first two live action ''[[Chronicles of Narnia]]'' films were filmed in predominately Czech Republic and Poland, with some work being done in Slovenia and New Zealand as well.
** Nearly all scenes of ''Eurotrip'' were filmed in or near Prague. No scene was set in the Czech Republic itself, though Slovakia, which was unified with it as Czechoslovakia until 1993, is featured.
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* ''[[Cold Mountain]]'', set in the South during the [[American Civil War]] was mostly shot in Romania.
* [[Steven Spielberg]]'s ''[[Munich]]'', scenes set in Tel Aviv, Beirut, Cyprus, Athens and Rome where filmed at Malta, and scenes set in London, Rome, Paris, New York City and a German airport were filmed in Budapest.
* Speaking of Malta, it was used for Rome (well, the Colosseum) in ''[[Gladiator (film)|Gladiator]]''. Additionally, a forest in England was used for the opening battle in Germania and Maximus' first gladiator battles were fought in Morocco.
* Practically any movie set in the Middle East is filmed in Morocco for political and security reasons.
* Virginia has done its of doubling as well, both for itself and for other parts of the Eastern US:
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** Wasn't due to excessive air traffic - the producers just didn't want to risk a lack of snow in Chicago.
* [[Bollywood]] film ''Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna'' is supposed to be set in New York City. However, the trains are prominently labeled as SEPTA trains; the regional rail system of Philadelphia.
* The battle scenes in ''[[Braveheart]]'' were largely filmed in Ireland (a literal [[Scotireland]], no less), possibly because rural Ireland is less heavily developed than the rural Scottish Lowlands, or as inaccessible and impractical as the Scottish Highlands. The Scottish filming took place in Glen Coe and Glen Nevis, which, depending on how strictly you hold the film to history, can be taken as doubling for other parts of Scotland.
* ''[[Prophecy (film)|Prophecy]]'' is based on Maine, when it was actually shot in New Columbia of Canada.{{verify}}<!-- Where's that supposed to be? Newfoundland? New Brunswick? All the way on the opposite side of the continent in British Columbia? --> It also popularized the Canada Doubling.
* St. Louis doubled for several cities in ''[[Up in the Air]]'' (including Milwaukee, where most of the third act takes place). Oddly enough, Missouri does not have a tax-incentive program (an exception was made for the production though).
* St. Louis also doubled for New York on ''[[Escape from New York]]'' as parts of the area had suffered enough damage to make for a convincing post-apocalyptic setting. A number of the shooting locations have since been restored or rebuilt.
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* In ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (film)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III]]'', though the film takes place in New York and Ancient Japan, many scenes are actually filmed in China's Hong Kong and in Astoria, Oregon. Back in the previous two movies before the third one, many scenes were shot in both New York ''and'' North Carolina (a fact not missed in ''[[Mad]]'''s satire "Teenrage Moolah Nitwit Turtles," the first panel of which mentions "The North Carolina State Building" - guess which city ''MAD'' calls home!), though both films take place in much of New York, anyway.
* Romania stands in for Merrie Old England in ''[[Princess of Thieves]]''.
* The snowy scenes in ''[[Harry Potter and
** Hogwarts is meant to be located in Scotland, but the series was filmed almost entirely in England. Hogwarts environs were sometimes filmed on location in Scotland and sometimes not. The Forbidden Forest and the Black Lake are located within short distances of each other in-universe, but they were filmed in Buckinghamshire and Highland respectively.
* Whereas ''Boogeyman'' was set in the US but filmed in New Zealand, the sequels were set in the US and filmed in Bulgaria.
* Despite being set in New York and showing Toronto's skyline much of [[Kick-Ass (film)|Kick-Ass]] is filmed in Hamilton.
* The two German-produced ''[[The Three Investigators]]'' movies, ''The Three Investigators and the Secret of Skeleton Island'' and ''The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle'', had California be played by South Africa. This trope was partially averted in the first movie, however, most of which is indeed set in or off the coast of South Africa.
* Although the 1983 film ''The Lords
* ''Away We Go'' depicts a sort of road trip across the United States, but was almost wholly filmed in Connecticut—which doubled for Colorado; Madison, Wisconsin; and Montreal.
* ''[[A Knight's Tale]]'' had the Czech Republic double for France and London.
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* ''[[The Avengers (film)|The Avengers]]''' final battle scenes set in New York were shot in Cleveland.
▲=== Live Action TV ===
* In ''[[The Tomorrow People]]'': "Worlds Away", on arriving for the first time on an alien planet, one character warns the others, "This isn't just some wood in Surrey," which is [[Lampshade Hanging]] by the writers—the scene was indeed filmed in a wood in the British county of Surrey.
* As the new series of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' is being produced by BBC Wales, Cardiff has California doubled for London several times. Cardiff quayside is nearly always the setting for any urban filming.
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** And a real relief they actually had to film Alan Dale's scenes in London, as a previous episode with Desmond in 'London' had to have had some of the shoddiest backgrounds and doubling ever. Even more bemusing considering the 'Sydney' and 'Korea' scenes have always looked fine.
* [[The BBC]] have been using Ireland for the UK in a couple of productions recently, clearly for the tax breaks.
** Dublin, which has neither skyscrapers nor (surviving) Tudor buildings, has pretended to be New York for the recent{{when}} film version of ''The Honeymooners'' and 16th century England for numerous episodes of ''[[The Tudors]]''. In films Dublin has also doubled for Liverpool (''Educating Rita'' and ''An Awfully Big Adventure''), London (''Peaches'') and Boston (''Far and Away'').
* "St. Louis, Missouri" in the ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' episode "Skin" looks very Canadian, with pine trees along the highway that is supposedly outside St. Louis (which does have some pine trees, but the deciduous trees dominate them, since their numbers are far more vast). Also, with "Home," Kansas isn't nearly that leafy, and Cape Girardeau is not the racist small town that "Route 666" would have you believe—it's actually a college town, since Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO) is in Cape Girardeau.
* ''Sharpe's Rifles'' had Ukraine doubling as Spain. In fact pretty much all the Sharpe series were filmed in either Ukraine or Turkey. Presumably labour is cheaper there.
** That's actually pretty much true. In a mostly unknown 'making of' documentary for the series, they talk about the awesome Ukranian stunt men who are cheap, plentiful and absolutely insane. Given that the core cast is actually pretty small (6 riflemen, 2 wives, Wellington, Hogan plus a handful of speaking villains ''du
* The NBC Sitcom ''[[Ed]]'' was set in Ohio. All outdoor scenes were filmed in Westfield, New Jersey.
* The Volusia County Courthouse and environs, during the [[Nineties Adventure Show|90s]], was frequently used as a courthouse or other corporate/municipal building in futuristic shows.
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* ''[[The Good Wife]]'' is set in Chicago and filmed in New York. It's hid pretty well by the fact that much of the filming is in done the outer boroughs. The writers clearly didn't do much research regarding Chicago geography, but that's a whole other trope.
** They did find out the executions of Death Row prisoners are often carried out in Indiana, though, because Terre Haute, IN has a Federal execution chamber, and so Death Penalty appeals lawyers pleading cases in Illinois are often from Indiana. That was a nice touch of Doing the Research.
* Due to the major German television broadcasters producing most of their stuff in Cologne, there is certainly much Cologne Doubling to be found in German
* The pilot episode of ''[[Justified]]'' was shot in Western Pennsylvania, doubling for Kentucky. Subsequent episodes have the more common Southern California doubling, though this was averted for one episode that actually took place in Southern California.
* Season 2 of ''[[Leverage]]'' is set in Boston and filmed in Portland, Oregon. (Season 1 averts the trope for the most part, being set and filmed in Los Angeles.)
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* The ''[[Girls (TV series)|Girls]]'' episode "The Return" has Hannah go back to her family in what purports to be East Lansing, [[Michigan]]. It appears to be one of the more suburban areas around [[New York City]]; it certainly looks like nothing like East Lansing.
* Like the other movies in the series (well, not so much the second), ''[[Home Alone|Home Alone 4]]'' was set in Chicago. Unlike the other movies in the series, it was filmed in Cape Town.
=== Web Comics ===
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** The Destiny Islands background has been used as both the scenery for Mexico and the scenery for Hawaii.
** The background for a room in ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' was used for both an undisclosed location in Eastern Europe and a hotel room in London, England.
== Aversions ==
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* Averted in David Cronenberg's version of ''[[The Fly]]'', which really is set in Toronto, and makes no effort to hide the CN Tower.
** This is the case for most (if not all) of Cronenberg's films. See also ''[[Videodrome]]'' and ''Crash''.
** The same for Atom Egoyan, most egregiously in the film ''[[Chloe]]'', where practically every scene is set at a famous Toronto landmark or another.
*
* When ''The Whole Nine Yards'' started production in [[Montreal]], the script was rewritten to have the story take place in Montreal too.
* The [[Coen Brothers]] movie ''Burn After Reading'' is both set and filmed in and around [[Washington DC|Washington, D.C.]] and its suburbs in Virginia and Maryland, including many parts of the city (such as Georgetown) not often seen in movies.
** Although some of the Georgetown scenes were filmed in Brooklyn.
* Averted in the 1960s film ''[[The Great Escape]]'' after they initially tried to plan filming in California. After being frustrated finding remotely acceptable grove of appropriate-looking trees (let alone appropriate-looking forests), they decided to film the entire movie in Germany because "[[Shaped Like Itself|Germany looks like Germany]]," resulting in a film with visuals so rich it at times bordered on [[Scenery Porn]].
* Averted in ''The Jackal'', which had an extended portion filmed, and somewhat arbitrarily set, in Montreal. However, in the climactic chase scene at the end, the Montreal metro stood in for the Washington metro.
* ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]'' has scenes set at the Great Pyramids in Giza, Egypt. It is the first production in decades to get permission to actually film on-site, thanks to the official in charge of that decision being a fan of the series.
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* ''[[Ocean's Eleven]]'' and its sequels, for the most part, were filmed in Las Vegas, Italy, and France at least for all the major locations.
* ''[[Blade]] 2'' is the first/only movie filmed in Prague that doesn't substitute it for another city.
** The first apart from countless Czech films, of course. And the first ''[[Mission: Impossible (film)||Mission Impossible]]'' film.
* ''Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever'' was filmed in Vancouver and acknowledges its setting as Vancouver, yet all of the characters are American and it [[Tropes Are Tools|makes little sense for them all to be in Canada]].
* ''What Lies Beneath'' was both set and filmed in Vermont.
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* Averted on the 60s spy show ''[[I Spy]]'' which actually filmed the real locations an episode was set in: Hong Kong, Rome, Greece, Mexico, etc (although studio work was also done in Hollywood).
* Both ''[[The Cosby Show]]'' and ''The Cosby Mysteries'' were set and filmed in New York ([[Bill Cosby]] hates working in Hollywood).
* Lampshaded fictional aversion in ''[[Studio 60
* The Fox cop series ''[[The Good Guys]]'' is both set and filmed in Dallas, also using local talent in small roles.
* The UK/Canada co-production [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1105836/ Burn Up]. Filmed on-location in Calgary and London - and actually set in both cities. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20080614093512/http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/reallife/greenguide/story.html?id=d213ebcd-6192-49a3-a6c6-1b25dc82e36b While filming in the city is hardly unique, it's rare for a high-profile project to feature Calgary as Calgary]."
* Almost all of ''[[Degrassi]]'' is set in Toronto; however, when characters travel away from home, most of ''those'' scenes are shot in Toronto as well.
* Averted by both the original ''and'' the remake of ''[[Hawaii Five-O]]'', which meant in the case of the latter that [[Lost|Danial Dae Kim]] didn't have to move.
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:The Wild West]]
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[[Category:Stand-In Setting]]
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