L.A. Plays Itself — But Not All of It — In Comedies Like ‘Hacks,’ ‘Nobody Wants This,’ ‘The Studio’ and ‘Shrinking’

It’s a cheat, but one of my biggest applause lines these days while moderating an industry panel is when I point out that a show shoots in Los Angeles. It’s an easy way to get a cheer from a Hollywood crowd looking for any good news.

So here’s some positive spin. Despite the very real concerns about runaway production and the scarcity of Hollywood shoots, there actually have been quite a few right now on the comedy side: “Hacks,” “Shrinking,” “The Studio,” “Nobody Wants This,” “Platonic,” “I Love L.A.,” “Running Point” and others.

Not only have those series chosen to film in Los Angeles, but they’ve done an amazing job showcasing cool pockets in and around the city. L.A. used to almost always play itself, but lately it feels like Vancouver or Atlanta is scrubbing in as the City of Angels. Los Angeles is having a rough go of it, but at least on TV, it’s still looking shiny and vibrant.

But is that too much of a disconnect from the malaise we’re actually feeling here? I knew the right person to ask: TV writer-producer Hayes Davenport, who is also an activist, has worked in L.A. city government and recently co-founded the local news site L.A. Material.

“I think the tension in some of these shows is that, by definition, a TV show is about people doing things,” he tells me. “And one of the biggest concerns that people have in L.A. right now is a reduction in the amount of activity in the city. Vacant businesses, population decline, affordability issues sending people out of the city and state, the loss of entire neighborhoods from the fires — all of it has led to, I think, a sense in the last few years of just a less vibrant city.”

But the creators of the series mentioned above live and set their shows in Los Angeles neighborhoods that still feel dynamic: Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Atwater Village, Silver Lake. “These neighborhoods that they’re showing are neighborhoods that have retained their activity,” Davenport notes. “These are not shows that are necessarily reflecting the drawdown in activity that we’re seeing across the city.”

Other parts of the city haven’t been so lucky. The disastrous ICE raids have turned portions of downtown, like the Flower District or Santee Alley, into ghost towns. The fires, the housing crisis … why isn’t any of that depicted in TV’s L.A. stories? That’s partly due to the time it takes to get shows made in the streaming era, Davenport notes.

“They’re trying to do things that are a bit more evergreen, stories about people that live in the city, but maybe not stories about the city itself as much,” he says. “Because the city is changing so rapidly, you risk making an outdated show if you’re trying to reflect the city as it exists right now.”

It cuts both ways: Neighborhoods like Pacific Palisades and Altadena are chilling to see right now, unrecognizable after last year’s fires. But on the flip side, areas around Wilshire and Fairfax are gaining new life as the Metro’s D line starts service and the new LACMA building opens.

“You have activity increasing here in ways that it hasn't for decades, and like the nodes of activity in the city are shifting around pretty quickly,” he says. “It's hard to anticipate how that movement is going to happen.”

Davenport says shows about the entertainment biz, like “Hacks,” “The Comeback” and “The Studio,” are perhaps the most authentic in portraying Los Angeles at the moment, since they’re tackling some of the real issues that come with the industry’s downturn and how L.A. is changing because of it.

Also missing in Hollywood’s depiction of Los Angeles is a nonwhite perspective. A decade ago, shows like “Insecure,” “Black-ish” and “Vida” celebrated a diverse city — and that representation is strikingly missing from the current crop of L.A.-set series. Davenport blames it on the business’s contraction.

“If you have fewer people making shows and movies now, you are going to see fewer experiences reflected,” he says. “That applies to neighborhoods too. The coverage is going to shift to the places where people working in the entertainment industry live — and there are fewer people working in entertainment than there were just a few years ago.” No applause there.

A Glassell Park Star Is Born

Let's talk about that surprise cameo early in "A Star Is Born."

Of course, I'm referring to the Super-A Foods grocery store on Division in Glassell Park. (Quite a few gasps of recognition at the Highland Theatre last night when this scene began!)

Filmmaker Jay Duplass on Eagle Rock, "Where Hipsters Go To Die or Have Children"

"Togetherness," the new HBO comedy from brothers Mark and Jay Duplass, takes place in a neighborhood I know very well: Eagle Rock. Speaking at the recent TV Critics Association press tour, the Duplass brothers wanted to make it clear that, despite the usual cliche of calling a setting a "character" on a show, Eagle Rock is not a character on "Togetherness." It just happens to be where these characters live.

Nonetheless, Eagle Rock serves a major symbol for explaining where these couples currently stand in life:

“Eagle Rock is on the fringe of Los Angeles,” Jay Duplass said. “It’s often said that it’s a place where hipsters go to die or go to have children. It’s like a weigh station and our characters have one foot in Los Angeles and one foot out. They’re not sure if they fit in, not sure what they’re doing. It was important to set the show in that particular neighborhood.”

Added Mark Duplass, “The location is representative of how we see the world. How we strive to be closer to our family, kids and friends. But as soon as we get that, we want to eject and be on a trip by ourselves. It’s sad and funny. When we started cooking up the show, that’s the core of what we wanted to make.”

After the session, I asked Jay Duplass to expand on why he lives in Eagle Rock -- and where he tends to hang out.

"I'll just say this, Eagle Rock is perfect," he told me. "I walk a lot. I just listen to music and try to think about my stories, so I walk three or four miles a day. It is the best walking neighborhood ever. Ther are hills, there's flatland, it's urban, there are beautiful houses, it's got everything. It's maintained a little bit of a sense of a small town.

"It was a town, it was eaten up by Los Angeles, but it's maintained its character. It's in its own little valley and pocket, and that's what makes it special. I actually just moved Saturday, and I just moved four blocks from my old house. And I know five or six other families who, same as me, when their kids got bigger and they couldn't fit in their tiny little 2-bedroom Craftsman anymore, moved into a bigger house because they loved the neighborhood."

Fans of "Togetherness" from Eagle Rock will notice several familiar spots, including Peekaboo Playland and Cafe Beaujolais.

"Cafe Beaujolais is a French restaurant that is extremely reasonably priced," he says. "It is just unbelievable French food, and it's where a lot of French ex-pats actually come, drive out to Eagle Rock for French food. It's right next to Casa Bianca, the Italian place that everybody knows and half of LA think it has the best pizza."

Uh-oh, now things are getting real. I love Casa Bianca. I asked Duplass for his opinion. He was careful not to criticize.

"I don't want to diss a wonderful restaurant in my neighborhood but I actually like Brownstone down the street. It's more New York traditional street pizza. That's just my preference.

"It's all going to be about food. Spitz is Lebanese, Middle Eastern mix. And The Oinkster is an obvious one, where you get your pastrami and your half-pound burger and you're never going to beat it."

And what about famed coffee shop Swork?

"I'll write at Swork, sometimes I will drive up to the Eagle Rock and write in my car. I used to write at Le Petit Beaujolais but that closed down. I spend all my time there."

Sounds like a man after my own heart. "Togetherness," which was recently renewed for a second season, airs Sunday nights at 10 p.m. on HBO.

L.A. Cameo: Here Are the Actual Sites From "Mad Men's" Season 7 Premiere

On AMC's "Mad Men," not only does Los Angeles play New York, but it sometimes gets to play itself too. We've chronicled quite a few "Mad Men" shooting locations over the years, including the Victorian home in last season's finale that doubled for Don Draper's childhood whorehouse. Now "Mad Men" is back for its seventh and final season, and it looks like the show will rely even more on Los Angeles locales (now that some of the show's characters actually reside in the 1969 version of our city). Above, you can see Don Draper (Jon Hamm) in front of one of the 1960s-era tile mosaics found at LAX. Here are more sites from episode 1:



(Sorry for the bad coloring here... for some reason I had a difficult time taking screen shots last night.) Above and below, Megan Draper (Jessica Pare) picks up her hubby Don at the Trans World Airlines terminal at LAX.

Here's a pull back shot of LAX from the episode. BUT wait a sec... that's not LAX at all! It's actually the old terminal at Ontario International Airport. Yep, although the shot of Don on the people mover was indeed filmed at LAX, the outdoor scene between Megan and Don was filmed many miles away in Ontario.



Above and below, here's Terminal One now, which is used for offices and storage.



Film shoots at the Ontario airport are also a regular sight -- "Argo" filmed its airport scenes here.



Above and below, Don and Megan meet Megan's new Los Angeles agent at a fancy restaurant. It's never revealed where they're supposed to be. Maybe Scandia? Chasen's?



In real life, the scene was shot at the infamous Dresden Room on Los Feliz, made famous by "Swingers" and still the home of Marty and Elayne!



The Dresden has been around since 1954, so maybe that indeed is where Megan and Don were dining.



Above and below, Joan (Christina Hendricks) meets Wayne Barnes (Dan Byrd) for drinks at a New York restaurant.



Of course, most Angelenos could spot that it actually was the Biltmore Hotel's Gallery Bar (below).



"Few bars in Los Angeles enjoy the fame of the Biltmore's Gallery Bar," the hotel proudly states.



California Pete hits the famous Canter's on Fairfax.



Not much needed to be changed on this Canter's shoot; as seen below, the restaurant still looks like it's from a bygone era.



I'm bummed a young Rodney Bingenheimer didn't walk by. But other than that, a stellar week one for L.A. cameos in "Mad Men."

L.A. CAMEO: The Early Los Angeles of TNT's "Mob City"

You may remember last summer I posted some pics from the set of Frank Darabont's new Los Angeles noir-themed TNT drama "Mob City" (back then it was still being called "Lost Angels"), including the meticulously constructed re-creation of 1940s-era City Hall. At the time, I chatted with location manager Scott Poole (who also works on "Mad Men"), who lamented all of the renovation and gentrification taking place downtown. It's great for the city, but alas, not good for productions looking to re-create old L.A.

"The surge of money being put in downtown (is a problem for us)," he told me. "The places we've filmed over the part 20 years that had still been intact, they're all being renovated."

Still, Poole and his team did a good job utilizing the spots that can still double for 1940s L.A. And the show also managed to balance a mix of real and faux locations. See below for images from the second episode of "Mob City."


This is 1947 Los Angeles, so here's a Red Car from the Sunset line.


Alexa Davalos (as Jasmine Fontaine) steps off the Red Car.


The Hollywood outpost of Miceli's (where interiors were also filmed for a scene).


This may be my favorite detail of the whole episode: A newspaper stand with the "Los Angeles Examiner" logo on it. (The Examiner, of course, was famous for emphasizing its Black Dahlia coverage during the year that "Mob City" is set.)


Here's some creative license. Obviously the seedy Bunker Hill of that era is long gone, so it's all up to the producers to create something. "Bunker Hill Bill's" never existed, but for the purpose of "Mob City" it did.


You can't do a period Los Angeles drama without a Union Station scene! And it looks great here.


Davalos, as Jasmine, strolls inside. Luckily, there's still plenty of Union Station that looks authentically straight out of the 1940s.


A flashback in the episode takes us back to a re-creation of how 1920s downtown L.A. must have felt like.


My other favorite shot from this episode: In the 1927 flashback, you catch a glimpse of City Hall (completed in 1928) under construction.

A Peek Inside the 1940s Los Angeles of TNT's "Lost Angels"

The era of Mickey Cohen, Police Chief William Parker and LA Mayor Fletcher Bowron comes alive in Frank Darabont's upcoming drama "Lost Angels." Based on the John Buntin book "L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City," Jon Bernthal ("The Walking Dead") stars as the fictional character Joe Teague, a police investigator who encounters a part real/ part fictionalized version of 1940s Los Angeles.

Earlier this week at the Television Critics Association press tour, we got a chance to tour the "Lost Angels" set at Red Studios in Hollywood. The show's production designer, costume director and location manager took pride in how they re-created that era of Los Angeles history. We got a look at a remade version of City Hall, where some of the LAPD resided back then. And we also got a look at a fictional club (a composite of some real clubs of the era), where the good guys and the bad guys mingled.

The show's outfits and design were influenced by Malibu tile -- in particular the color you see at Union Station. Some of the show's outdoor scenes were shot there, along with usual suspects like the Biltmore Hotel.

I got a chance to chat with location manager Scott Poole, who also works on "Mad Men" -- a show that, as you know, we love to watch in part to see how L.A. doubles as midcentury New York. Poole lamented all of the renovation and gentrification taking place downtown. It's great for the city, but alas, not good for productions looking to re-create old L.A. He remembers visiting the Original Pantry when "Mad Men" first started, expecting to shoot there. But as he arrived, workers had just started turning part of the Pantry into Riordan's Tavern -- so alas, the Pantry is no longer a go-to place for period pieces. Now that Clifton's Cafeteria is being redone, that's "also off the books now," he says. "The surge of money being put in downtown (is a problem for us). The places we've filmed over the part 20 years that had still been intact, they're all being renovated."

Here are more scenes from the set of "Lost Angels," including that actual copy of inside City Hall:

Los Angeles Ad Town: Super Bowl Edition

Watching so many back-to-back automotive ads during Sunday night's Super Bowl, I began playing the game "Spot the Downtown Los Angeles image." Downtown Los Angeles has long been a frequent setting for car ads, but this brought it home.

Here's a sampling of last night's Super Bowl car ads, all of which below were shot in downtown:



Kia Optima ad ("One Epic Ride")



Chevy Camaro ad ("Miss Evelyn")



Mercedes Benz ad ("Welcome") In case you miss it: There's a scene where the cars go through a tunnel, with neon on the right-side wall. That's in downtown.



BMW Advanced Diesel ad ("Changes")



Chevy Cruze ad ("Status")



Hyundai Sonata Hybrid ad ("Anachronistic City")

L.A. Doesn't Play Itself: Downtown Eateries on 'Mad Men'

Funny enough, at the same moment Maria and I were attending an Emmy party at downtown's Cicada restaurant (in the famed Oviatt building, of course), AMC's "Mad Men" featured Don Draper and company at the Clio Awards -- in a scene shot at Cicada.

Here's what Cicada -- a favorite spot for weddings and other events -- normally looks like inside:



Like we've mentioned in the past, "Mad Men" does a great job of turning Los Angeles locales, particularly downtown, into 1960s New York. This week's episode also included scenes shot at legendary French dip eatery P.E. Cole's:


What's cool here: You can even see the name "Cole's" in the window.

Cole's from the outside:



Below, more shots from Cicada and Cole's from Sunday night's "Mad Men" episode, "Waldorf Stories."