For many decades the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Santa Anita Park in Arcadia have been favorite locations for shooting movies and TV shows. Santa Anita Park is famous for everything from the Marx Bros. “A Day at the Races” and “A Star is Born” to “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and the more recent “Secretariat.” The Arboretum is most noted as the home of the original Tarzan movies and later the TV series “Murder, She Wrote.”
by Scott Hettrick
Presently shooting at Santa Anita Park is the upcoming high-profile HBO series “Luck,” starring Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte. Last year series such as “The Mentalist,” “Bones,” and “Brothers and Sisters” filmed scenes at the track. In 2009 the TV series “90210” filmed nearly an entire episode at Santa Anita.
Meanwhile, last year saw movies such as “The Little Fockers” and “Marmaduke” being shot at the Arboretum, along with the SyFy Channel movie “Mega Python vs Gatoroid” with Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, and episodes of TV series such as “Criminal Minds.”
Santa Anita doesn’t show up on the Los Angeles Times’ weekly listings of productions shooting on location around L.A. or its recent year-end report of the most popular locations (Griffith Park was #1) because it is a private company and only needs permits from the City of Arcadia, not L.A. County. The (source of the Times’ data is FilmL.A., a non-profit organization that is the contracted film permit office for the City and County of Los Angeles, including five County-owned airports, and the cities of Palmdale, Lancaster, Diamond Bar, City of Industry, La Habra Heights, South Gate, as well as six school districts.
Recent episode of "The Mentalist" filmed at Santa Anita Park. Click on link in story at left to see video.
Film companies need permits from both the County and the City of Arcadia to shoot at the County-owned Arboretum, but only from the City for shooting at Santa Anita.
The City of Arcadia told Arcadia’s Best that the City issued 34 permits for the Arboretum last year for 43 days of filming, and 16 permits to Santa Anita for 64 days of shooting.
FilmL.A. had the Arboretum ranked as 27th on a list of most popular locations in the County last year with 41 different productions shooting a collective 54 permit production days, according to Todd Lindgren at FilmL.A. But a year earlier in 2009 the Arboretum ranked ten notches higher at 17th with only one more day of production – 55.
Comparing those numbers from year-to-year and with other locations can be very misleading. FilmL.A. uses a unit of measure called a Permitted Production Day (PPD) — permission for one crew to film at one location in any given 24-hour period. A FilmL.A. permit is good for up to 2 weeks and can have up to 10 locations on a single permit. A permit may mean 1 PPD or up to 140.
Arboretum special events coordinator Nadia Balaz said 2010 was a relatively very slow year for productions at the Arboretum. She provided Arcadia’s Best the following data for comparison by her breakdown according to days spent setting up and striking the sets, as well as actual filming and shooting photos:
2009: Prep Days 5 Filming Days 35 Strike Days 4 Photo Shoots 17
2010: Prep. Days 24 Filming Days 39 Strike Days 9 Photo Shoots 8
Productions have already been picking up this year, Balaz said, noting the following comparative numbers after only six weeks so far:
2011: Prep Days 6 Filming Day 8 Strike Days 3 Photo Shoots 5
Pete Siberell, Director of Community Service & Special Projects at Santa Anita, says there were 10 different TV and commercial productions at the track in 2010, shooting for a total of 47 days, not counting set-up and break-down. Film companies also like to rent Santa Anita’s massive parking lot even if they are not shooting there, as happened last year with productions shooting at the Arboretum and other nearby locations such as “Glee,” “Little Fockers,” “Chuck,” and “Iron Man.”
The Arboretum was also used last year for numerous photo shoots for Chevy Corvette, PF Flyers, and Target.com, among many others, as for TV commercials for products ranging from Activia, Claritin, and Audi to Wal-mart, Tylenol, and Mott’s. Santa Anita also gets its share of TV commercial production, with Geico and General Motors shooting at the track last year, according to Siberell.
— By Scott Hettrick