California Doubling: Difference between revisions

Any exotic foreign locale in a TV series is, due to budget or danger to the cast, likely to actually be somewhere in [[California]], such as [[Kirk's Rock]]. For British sci-fi shows, it's "Quarry Doubling" -- any desolate alien planet is usually a quarry (usually the [[BBC Quarry]]) within a couple of hours' drive from London -- or [[Doubling for London]].

 

 

There is also [[Stargate City|Vancouver Doubling]] that is helpful with vast mountain forests, dry deserts and oceans nearby, Toronto has doubled for urban areas such as [[New York City]] and [[Chicago]] more times than it has actually represented itself, and Utah has been Vulcan, Mars, and the Old West.

 

== Film ==

* 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.

* In ''[[Knowing]]'', Melbourne serves as a stand-in for both [[Useful Notes/Boston|Boston]] and parts of [[New York City]].

* The 2005 remake of ''[[House of Wax]]'' was shot in Queensland, with areas around the Gold Coast doubling rather unconvincingly for Louisiana.

* The 1989 ''[[Punisher]]'' movie had the title character pulling up on his motorcycle outside a CES sign, which any Australian of the time would recognize as the Commonwealth Employment Service (the govt organization that handed out dole payments). Ironically the service was privatized some time ago, so anyone watching it on DVD now would likely not recognize it.

== Live-Action TV ==

* The 1988 TV revival of ''[[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!)

** Specifically: IASA's HQ shown in "Won't Get Fooled Again" was shot in and around Sydney Olympic Park, in Homebush (a 5min drive from the studio where seasons 2-4 were shot) - ANZ stadium doubles as a launch pad (CGI rocket stuck in the middle of it) and the distinct spiral building seen several times in the background is actually part of the car park near the Acer Arena. The gardens in the "Look At The Princess" trilogy were actually the Japanese gardens in Auburn. The beach in "Scratch & Sniff" was in Maroubra. The dock often seen in Crichton's dream sequences was actually right outside the industrial park in Homebush where seasons 2-4 were shot. The old gun emplacement at Middle Head doubled for several alien military encampments and ancient ruins.

* 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.

* New Zealand doubled for Japan in ''[[The Last Samurai]]''; the reason being is that there wasn't any wide spaces for the battles in Japan.

** Particularly jarring for anyone watching the first battle scene in the forest if they have lived in NZ for some time. There were just too many silver ferns around that have been taught since primary school were ''native'' to New Zealand.

* ''[[Bridge to Terabithia]]'': New Zealand as [[The Deep South]].

** [[Peter Jackson]] also had New Zealand play California (''The Frighteners'') and New York (''[[King Kong]]'').

* ''Boogeyman'' had the US be played by New Zealand.

* 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").

** 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.

 

* ''[[The Cannonball Run]]'' was about an illegal cross-country race that started in Connecticut, ended in [[Los Angeles]], and never, ever left California.

* The map from 1927 pictured at the top of this page shows the concept is [[Older Than Television]].

* Some Gothic films, supposedly set in Europe, actually had their church exteriors filmed in Perris, California.

* The little-seen [[Vietnam War]] [[Mockumentary]] (played seriously) ''84 Charlie MoPic'' was clearly shot in California, as the budget was so small they couldn't afford to go overseas.

* 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 Action TV ==

 

* 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.

* ''[[Buck Rogers in The 25th Century]]'': 500 years in the future, Buck is supposed to be in New Chicago, but the background is downtown Los Angeles.

* ''[[Combat]]''''!'', while set in WWII France, did most of its non-backlot shooting in Griffith Park, specifically Bronson Canyon.

** Some insert shots from a few season 4 episodes actually were shot around [http://www.jodavidsmeyer.com/combat/personnel/france.html Loire, France], but they're very much the exception.

* ''[[Cougar Town]]'' is set in Florida. Some of suburban Florida superficially resembles the Southern California, but the palm trees are actually quite different. Remember, there are two mountain ranges, multiple river valleys, a few hundred miles of ocean, and a ''desert'' between Florida and LA.

** Another failure occurs when a corpse is being exhumed from under a bridge by the LVPD, while a clearly-marked [http://www.metrolinktrains.com Metrolink] train passes over the bridge.

** Another episode featured a gun range in the episode... this gun range is in Burbank near the Empire Center.

* ''[[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]]''. 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.

* 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.

* A ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'' episode in which Lorelai and Rory visit Harvard includes scenes of the "campus" which are actually filmed at UCLA and Berkeley. Also, USC was Yale for Rory's graduation.

* ''[[Greek]]'': Set in central Ohio. Filmed in Southern California. You can tell because [[It's Always Spring]], and winters in Ohio have been known to ''kill people''.

* A multiple part episode of ''[[Growing Pains]]'' had the Seavers traveling to a Europe that at one point conspicuously resembled Catalina Island.

** According to Maura Tierney (who was on the show at the time) they were actually due to film in Europe, but Kirk Cameron ([[Sarcasm Mode|there's a shocker]]) vetoed it. (In his defence, he cited a fear of flying, but it can't have helped his popularity with the cast and crew.)

** Though it is worth noting that anyone who actually lives in Odessa, TX, will laugh hysterically at the idea that said city is anywhere near as green and hilly as it's seen on Heroes.

* ''[[JAG]]'' A series about the Judge Advocate General Corp, takes place in the greater DC area, but most of the location shooting is done in LA. The episodes show the cast wearing proper seasonal uniforms (at the time of airing) and does a remarkable job at averting this trope. Most ship scenes are filmed aboard actual US Navy ships or museum ships.

* In the original ''[[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.]]

** So I guess that would be California doubling for...California.

{{quote| '''Mike''': Guys, this is so ''not'' Illinois. }}

* ''[[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:

* ''[[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.

* Another case of California doubling for California in ''[[Zeke and Luther]]'', where Torrence, CA doubles for Gilroy, CA. The fact that the show is set in Gilroy is mentioned at least every other episode, but anyone who has ever actually been there will spot the lie right away.

 

== Film ==

* Shoot'em'up is also clearly shot in Toronto: They don't even try to hide the CN tower

* In the remake of ''[[Hairspray]]'' the movie was set in Baltimore, but was filmed in Toronto.

* You'd think a movie named ''[[Chicago]]'' would be shot in the eponymous city, wouldn't you? Nope, it's mostly Ontario.

* An interesting side-effect of Toronto doubling is that there's a certain amount of spill-over to Hamilton. Various scenes in, for example, ''The Incredible Hulk'' movie mentioned above, were actually filmed there instead of Toronto. Basically, Hamilton is doubling (tripling?) for Toronto in these cases.

* Toronto stands in for Boston a few times in ''[[Good Will Hunting]]'', but it was shot primarily in Massachusetts, and most of the Toronto scenes were interiors (U of T dorm rooms, local bars, the novelty shop etc).

* In ''Score! A Hockey Musical'', the establishing shot of the Brampton Blades' home arena is actually a shot of the Port Credit Arena in Mississauga, Ontario (which makes this a case of [[California Doubling]] between two Canadian municipalities!).

* ''[[The Boondock Saints]]'': Both films were made in Toronto, with the exception of overhead establishing shots in Boston. The CN Tower can be seen, as well as a Toronto Dominion bank.

** Stanton's speech and the {{spoiler|ensuing raid}} are all shot in various parts of the Royal York Hotel in Toronto; Victoria's limo even lets her out in front of Toronto's Union Station.

* ''[[Suck]]'', the vampire rock band road trip comedy had Toronto double for Buffalo, Chicago and 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.

* Though supposedly set in the US, the fact that ''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 American version of ''[[Skins]]'' was filmed in Toronto with the setting left ambiguous so American viewers could imagine it in their city. Unfortunately, they didn't bother to cover up some local signage on bus stops.

* Warehouse13 is filmed in Toronto and the surrounding area, and they barely attempt to hide it. In the 3rd season finale, there is a Valu-Mart which is supposed to be in Elk Ridge, South Dakota. Valu-Mart is a grocery store that doesn't exist outside of Canada, at all. Union Station in Toronto doubled for Geneva, Switzerland in the 2nd season premier as well.

** Not to mention the first season episode set in Chicago, even though streetcar tracks and a streetsign for York Avenue (neither of which exist in Chicago) are visible.

* In ''[[Wonderfalls]]'' Toronto and environs double for upstate New York. Scenes in which the falls are actually visible are shot on the Canadian side - in some scenes the American Falls are clearly visible on the ''opposite'' bank, while the Horseshoe (Canadian) Falls are on the right, not the left.

 

=== 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...

** The exterior of the school and most of the more "normal" corridors above ground were filmed at Hatley Castle in Victoria, British Columbia - at least for the second and third movies. There was a common joke on set about the "magic elevator" that took you from Victoria to Vancouver (Which in the movie took characters to the labs below - filmed in Vancouver).

** Jean Grey's childhood home is in the Vancouver suburb of Tsawwassen.

** 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.

** That's not the only thing that didn't make sense in the movie...

* ''[[Blade]]: Trinity'' is very obviously set in Vancouver, to the extent of not changing signage, using major and distinctive features, etc.

* ''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!

 

** For the second X-Files movie, they trucked in huge amounts of real snow to decorate several blocks of Vancouver, which was highly surreal.

** Some locals have a "Don't go into STANLEY PARK!" gag because before the move to LA, almost every single forest scene on the show was filmed inside said city park (which is big enough to have a rather sizable community of Park People). For many years, the white X that Mulder spray paints on the side of the road in the pilot was still visible, too.

** Lampshaded in "Hollywood Babylon", an episode set in Hollywood. One character complains, "Does this seem like swimming pool weather to you? Man, it's practically Canadian."

** Spoofed when an archangel's spell sends the Winchesters into ''our'' world, where their adventures are the TV show we all know and love. They tell a guy to drive them into town, and are surprised when they end up in Vancouver.

** Averted in one episode of ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', which had a scene actually set in Vancouver.

** And justified in many cases, as most of the planets the Atlantis crew visit were originally terraformed by the Ancients, who probably just set everything up the way they liked it. On every planet.

** The highway motorcycle scene in the episode "Memento" cuts a frame or two too late to avoid showing a road sign indicating how far it is before you reach Surrey.

* Lampshaded in ''[[The L Word]]'', (a show which films Vancouver for LA), when one character proclaims "It's no use, Vancouver just can't look like LA."

** ''[[The 4400]]''

** ''[[Kyle XY]]''

* ''[[Fringe]]'' is set in Boston, and has shot there for the first season (as Boston is trying to make the city more hospitable to film and TV shoots). However, the creators have admitted that filming had to move to Vancouver in season 2 for budget reasons.

** After moving there, it resulted in moments that could inspire massive rage in Bostonians, like a evergreen-filled suburban neighborhood being identified as [[wikipedia:File:Acorn Street Beacon Hill Boston Massachusetts.JPG|Beacon Hill]]

* ''[[Terms of Endearment]]:'' Some scenes set in Texas were actually filmed in Lincoln, Nebraska where the bulk of the film is set.

** In addition, the scene where the station wagon crosses the "Texas State Line" was actually filmed just outside Cortland, NE.

** Really, only the overhead shots were filmed in Chicago - most of the rest was CGI. Loved the Chicago "L" stock with fake New York line names/terminals, though.

** The Sandman Chase in ''Spider-Man 3'' was done in [[Cleveland Rocks|Cleveland]].

* ''Defiance'' (the Daniel Craig Holocaust movie) is mostly shot in Eastern Europe relatively close to the area of Belarus where its set. However parts of the movie are also set in rural Manitoba, Canada and local plant life like red willow and Manitoba hardy roses are visible in many shots. Interestingly one of the reason the region was initially settled by a lot of Eastern European immigrants is that it apparently looked a lot like home to them as well.

* In ''A Perfect Getaway'', Hawaii is played by Puerto Rico. The nutty part is that the area of Hawaii being replicated ''is the above area that doubles for everywhere else''.

* ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'' has Vietnam played by the (then derelict) London Docklands.

** 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|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.

** Not to mention the bizarre detour through [[wikipedia:Yosemite|Yosemite National Park]]. Seriously, the scene takes place right under Half Dome.

* The Philippines doubled for Vietnam in ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' and a biker film called ''The Losers''.

* In a reversal of the trope's namesake, ''Revenge of the Ninja's'' story takes place in Los Angeles, but is filmed in Salt Lake City, Utah and looks nothing like Los Angeles.

* For rather [[Commie Land|obvious reasons]], Moscow has often been California Doubled, for example by Vienna in ''[[Firefox]]''.

** 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].

** ''[[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 first ''[[Conan]]'' movie.

** 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.

** ''[[Highlander III the Sorcerer]]'' has a scene set in a New York airport. One of the signs visible in the background reads "Bienvenue à Montreal".

* ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'' was shot almost entirely in Hawaii, despite being set in Vietnam (or, at least, around the South-East Asian area).

** Substitutions within substitutions...

* ''[[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.

* [[Spaghetti Western|Spaghetti Westerns]] were filmed with a variety of European locations doubling for the American West. The semidesertic province of Almería in Spain, with its wide-open spaces that evoked an untamed frontier (and extras who could more or less pass for Mexican), was probably the most common.

** Seeing typical [[Misplaced Vegetation|Mediterranean vegetation]] on typical [[wikipedia:Karst|karst]] rocks in what is supposed to be wild west or Mexico is quite amusing (''"Wait a minute! This could actually be that hill where we use to go to weekend trips."'')

** ''[[Lawrence of Arabia]]'' was also partially filmed in Spain, in addition to Morocco and Jordan. Only Jordan lies in the region the film is depicting.

* One of the most egregious examples was ''[[Battle of the Bulge]]'' being filmed in Spain - in particular, the flat, arid, sunny, relatively tree-free part. Note that the actual Battle occurred in the Ardennes - which is hilly and heavily forested - during winter.

* ''[[The Departed]]'' is an odd example. It's set in Boston, but was shot primarily in New York (only two weeks of shooting actually took place in Boston), as the state of New York offers tax credits to filmmakers, and (at the time) Massachusetts did not. Thanks to the film, Massachusetts has a similar program.

* An odd [[Inversion]]: ''[[What a Girl Wants]]'' was filmed entirely in Britain, except for the flashback in Morocco. Yes, Britain stood in for America in the [[Book Ends|bookend scenes]]. Amanda Bynes' home in Chinatown, New York was really Borough Market in London.

* ''[[The Searchers]]'' made spectacular use of Utah's Monument Valley. These scenes were supposed to be set in Texas.

* ''[[Me Myself and Irene]]'', set in Rhode Island, was at least partially filmed in Vermont.

* ''[[Doomsday]]'' uses mostly South Africa to stand in for post-apocalyptic Scotland.

* ''Did You Hear About The Morgans?'' is about a couple who are put into the Witness Protection Program and sent to Wyoming, which is actually New Mexico subbing for Wyoming. I guess they didn't want to be accused of [[In Plain Sight|copying]].

* Winnipeg has found itself to be an excellent substitute locale for a number of other places, frequently Chicago.

** [[Shall We Dance]] was filmed here, going so far as using the legislative building's ''bathrooms'' for a scene. (Hey, they look nice)

** ''[[The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford]]'', despite being from [[The Old West]], was filmed in Winnipeg's Exchange district (which looks sufficiently old, for that matter)

** On the other hand, Hamilton and Brantford doubled for Winnipeg in ''[[The Tracey Fragments]]''.

* ''[[Cold Mountain]]'', set in the South during the [[American Civil War]] was mostly shot in Romania.

* Speaking of Malta, it was used for Rome (well, the Colosseum) in ''[[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.

** Elements of Gotham City from both films (and presumably the third) were also built in the massive disused airship hangars at [[wikipedia:RAF Cardington#Film and Television|RAF Cardington, Bedfordshire, England,]] in a weird case of this trope.

* The Universal Studios Backlot tour has a corner of buildings that can stand for any old city in Europe with just the wave of a flag.

* ''[[The Wind and The Lion]]'' was filmed in Spain, with Spanish locations being used to portray the Moroccan desert, Tangier, [[Washington DC]], Oyster Bay, Long island, and Yellowstone National Park. Railroad buffs will notice some obviously European railroad cars in the background when [[Theodore Roosevelt]] is giving a whistle-stop speech; otherwise, it's a pretty convincing job.

* All ''Wrong Turn'' films are set in West Virginia, but first two movies were shot in Canada and the third one was shot in Bulgaria.

* Quite bizarrely, ''Youth In Revolt'' is set in various California locations (Oakland, Ukiah, Berkeley, Santa Cruz) but filmed entirely in Michigan! Of course, it doesn't look remotely like California. With California so easy to film in already, one wonders why Michigan was chosen...tax credit, perhaps?

* In ''[[Airport]]'', Lincoln International Airport is supposed to be located in Chicago. Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is redressed to be used (probably due to excessive air traffic). The first sequel ''Airport 1975'' uses an entirely real airport and location.

* [[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.

* Averted and played straight in ''[[The Mechanic]]''. Averted that some scenes were filmed on location in New Orleans. Played straight when New Orleans also happened to double for Chicago, Houston and Colombia.

* ''[[Doctor Zhivago]]'', set in Russia at the beginning of the Revolution, was filmed in Spain.

* ''[[The Blind Side]]'' is set in Memphis, Tennessee but was filmed in [[Atlanta]], Georgia.

* ''[[Racing Stripes]]'' has South Africa playing Kentucky. (In the 1980s quite a few movies shot in South Africa omitted to mention this on the credits, [[The Apartheid Era|for obvious reasons]].)

* ''Adrift'', the in-name-only sequel to ''[[Open Water]]'', is a real hodge-podge - a German production filmed in English with an almost completely American cast, set off the coast of Mexico... and filmed in ''Malta.''

* Romania stands in for Merrie Old England in ''[[Princess of Thieves]]''.

** 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.

* Although the 1983 film ''The Lords Of Discipline'', about elite military cadets and racism in their ranks, is set in the Southern US, most of the film was shot in England.

* ''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.

* Most of the exterior shots of the first [[Mortal Kombat]] movie were filmed in Thailand, and [[The Mountains of Illinois|it really shows]], particularly when it's doubling for China. [[wikipedia:List of Buddhist temples in Thailand|Thai Buddhist temples]] look ''waaaay'' different from [[wikipedia:List of Buddhist architecture in China#Buddhist temples|Chinese ones]].

* Several scenes in [[Home Alone|Home Alone 2]] that take place in New York were actually shot in Chicago.

 

 

** Ironically, in the third episode, Victorian Cardiff was California Doubled by Swansea, a smaller city nearby - this was due to Cardiff being heavily bombed in [[World War II]], so not many Victorian buildings survived.

** In ''The Vampires Of Venice'', the titular [[City of Canals]] was doubled by the Croatian city of Trogir.

** Alan Dale's scenes in the season 4 finale were actually filmed in London. He was appearing in ''Spamalot'' at the time, so he couldn't make it to Hawaii. This was the first time the show filmed outside the US.

** 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 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'').

* ''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 joure) and that any part of the Europen countryside (where all the battles are fought) looks so similar it makes no odds, it makes a LOT more sense to move the production to the stuntmen, rather than transporting and accommodating 200+ psychopathic men and horses to wherever they were needed.

* Outside of a few exterior shots, the bulk of ''[[Memphis Beat]]'' was shot in New Orleans.

* ''Tropical Heat/Sweating Bullets'' was a primarily Canadian production; the three seasons were shot in Mexico (for tax reasons), Israel, and South Africa. It was set in the fictional Florida Keys town of Key Mariah.

* The TV movie ''Spring Break Shark Attack'', set in Miami, was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa. Which explains why Florida suddenly has mountains...

* In the first episode of ''[[The Event]]'', Sean and Leila's "Caribbean" cruise actually took place off the coast of Hawaii.

** Not to mention that Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless, in real life, don't sound anything like they do on the show.

* Gemenc forest (Hungary) doubles frequently for other forests (such as in the ''Robin Hood'' series or in [[Krod Mandoon and The Flaming Sword of Fire]])

* In ''[[Robin of Sherwood]]'' England doubled for England, just not the same bits of it. Sherwood Forest was mostly represented by a wood outside Bristol, Nottingham Castle by various northern castles and Wells Cathedral, and other locations were scattered across the country, mostly in the north and west.

* Aylesbury Young Offenders Institute (prison for 18-21 year olds) gets work as Generic Prison Gate, with the orginal Victorian gatehouse, complete with wicket gate in the huge double doors.

* ''The Highwayman'' (a Glen A. Larson series) was set around America but filmed in Arizona; [[Monk|Lee]] [[Diagnosis Murder|Goldberg]] wrote of the episode "Send in the Clones," "Phoenix badly, and obviously, stood in for New York locations (with [[The Mountains of Illinois|palm trees in Central Park!]]) in this sloppily shot [[Poorly-Disguised Pilot|pilot]]."

* The pilot for ''[[The Lying Game]]'' was filmed on location in New Mexico; production for the series shifted to Texas. The series is set mainly in Phoenix and Las Vegas (with stops in Los Angeles).

* 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.

 

* An odd web comic exists in ''[[Ansem Retort]]''. For some background, it's a sprite comic based off ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]: Chain of Memories''. For the most part, backgrounds for that game are used for scenery. There are two instances of a background being repeated:

** The Destiny Islands background has been used as both the scenery for Mexico and the scenery for Hawaii.

 

 

* 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 "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.

* ''[[Blade]] 2'' is the first/only movie filmed in Prague that doesn't substitute it for another city.

* ''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.

* Averted in ''[[Paper Moon]]'' - Both interior and exterior shots were filmed on location in central Kansas and western Missouri

* Averted in the film ''[[Ronin]]''; the director, John Frankenheimer, spent a number of years in France. Shot on location, even the license plates are right.

* Most of [[Tyler Perry]]'s movies avert this (they all take place mostly in Atlanta), probably because he himself is from Atlanta and owns a studio there. In fact, Madea's house in the films is an actual house that he owns in Atlanta.

* Averted with the [[Direct to DVD]] sequel to ''Blue Crush'', which was both shot and set in South Africa.

** ''[[Film/The Amazing Spider|The Amazing Spider]]-Man'' downplays this, but doesn't fully avert it in that a lot of scenes are filmed in Los Angeles, though some scenes were filmed in New York.

 

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** In some cases, things were filmed in New Jersey like some scenes at a train station that were actually filmed in Hoboken. After 9-11 some exteriors were filmed in Downtown Brooklyn filling in for the court and government buildings in Lower Manhattan which were inaccessible.

* ''[[The Wire]]'' was actually filmed in Baltimore, but used different sections of East Baltimore exclusively (obvious non-inclusions would be when they needed to film the ports or other locales not found in the inner city).

** Most of the high-rise housing projects in which the Barksdale crew operates in the early seasons were actually torn down before the start of the series (this is eventually shown in Season 3). During the first season digital fakery is used to put some high rises up in the background of scenes set in The Pit.

** Their next project ''[[Treme]]'' is set and filmed in [[New Orleans]].

** However, see under the California heading - a lot of the interiors and some exteriors are filmed in California.

* ''[[Burn Notice]]'' is set in Miami and filmed in Miami. [[Scenery Porn|They do everything they can to remind us of that]]. They often use the Miami area to double for various other locales, including West Africa in the pilot using careful camera shots and an orange "heat" filter.

* ''The Streets of San Francisco'' was set and filmed in that city, and [[Scenery Porn|the opening credits did everything they could to remind us of ''that'']].

* ''[[Third Watch]]'' is set and filmed in New York.

** The fictional 55th precinct on the show was supposedly "uptown" Manhattan, but they filmed extensively in the outer boroughs with the exteriors for the firehouse and precinct house being in Long Island City, Queens.

* ''[[The Sopranos]]'' was set and filmed mostly in New Jersey. According to the creator, when he was trying to pitch the show to networks, various executives would often lose interest when he said that he wanted it filmed in New Jersey. He was later contacted by a producer from HBO, who was interested in the show specifically because the creator wanted it set in Jersey.

* Averted in ''Flashpoint'' which is set, for once in a generic ''Canadian'' city. Although all the Toronto scenery and extras wearing Toronto police uniforms and driving Toronto police cars and Toronto EMT vehicles and reading a fictional newspaper called the ''Toronto Interpreter'' sort of ruin the whole "generic" bit.

** Internal scenes set at NBC Studios on the titular 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan are actually filmed at Silvercup Studios in Queens.

* ''[[Sons of Anarchy]]'' is filmed in central California, and actually takes place there.

* 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 On the Sunset Strip]]''. In the pilot episode Danny fails a drug test and cannot make a movie in California, and Matt suggests filming in Vancouver. Danny refuses, saying that "Vancouver doesn't look like anything, it doesn't even look like Vancouver. It looks like Boston, California."

* 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. "[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.

** The original averted it so much so that those episodes which weren't "Filmed entirely on location in Hawaii" (like the two-parter "Once Upon A Time") don't carry that credit.

** Double subverted in the opening scene of the remake's first episode, which is set in South Korea, but filmed in Hawaii.

* ''[[Gossip Girl]]'' is the master... er, mistress of averting this trope; the series is set and filmed in New York, the episode/backdoor pilot "Valley Girls," mostly set in LA, was actually filmed in LA, and when [[Fan Service|Serena van der Fanservice]] and Co. went to Paris those episodes were also filmed in the City of Lights. Miss van der Fanser-''Woodsen'' spends the end of season four and beginning of season five in La-La Land, and her storyline's filmed there as well.

* ''The Beast'' and ''[[The Chicago Code]]'' were both set and filmed in Chicago. The former used some of the lesser-known Chicago landmarks to interesting effect, and both took full advantage of the 'L' train tracks that run through downtown.

* The [[Disney]] [[Made for TV Movie]] of ''[[Lemonade Mouth]]'' was filmed in Albuquerque, and the setting was [[Adaptation Displacement|changed to that]] from the book's [[Hollywood New England|Rhode Island]], complete with the [[High School]]'s name being changed from "Opaquansett" to "Mesa".

* The Paris half of ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' was filmed in and set in Paris.

* The scenes in the pilot for ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' that were set in New Mexico were actually filmed in New Mexico. The rest of the series was set and filmed in [[Los Angeles]].

* Doubling has been aggressively averted on [[Breaking Bad]], which is filmed almost entirely in the Albuquerque area. However, they turn around and approach the trope from the other end, because scenes set in Mexico are usually filmed in New Mexico [[Color Wash|with a yellow filter slapped over the lens]].

* The sitcom ''The Ugliest Girl In Town'' (an American production) was both filmed and set in London.