Cinecittà

So if you didn't know, I'm taking a Film & Mafia class. It's interesting, except watching mafia movies that take place in Italy, while you're in Italy, just has gotten me a little paranoid.

For our class visit we took a field trip to the Cinecittà Film Studios here in Rome. In English it translates as Film City. It was nothing compared to Universal Studios or anything, but it was a cool trip.

It's pretty small, and there were maybe 5 or 6 actual studio stages. We didn't get to go inside any of them, but we went to the backlot movie sets. The first "street" we walked through was supposed to be New York. One side was and old New York, and the other side was a modern New York.

Old New York

Modern New York

As we kept walking the buildings would change to those supposed to be in Paris, Rome, and even Los Angeles. Apparently HBO had a television show called Rome, which they filmed at Cinecittà. That was a big set with a bunch of fake buildings, including the Pantheon. But the show only lasted one season.

It was crazy because everything looked so real! We were allowed to touch the sets and it was so fake! Everything was hollow, and most things were made of some type of foam, but it seriously looked like solid marble. Even the bricks that looked so real fooled you.

Fake bricks

They also filmed Gangs of New York there. So I basically walked in Leonardo DiCaprio's footsteps. It's a popular place, but I just wonder what makes them decide what to film at this studio in Italy compared to LA. Buildings that were right next to each other would be completely different places. On one side would be Florence, and Verona on the other.

Florence

Federico Fellini who was a famous Italian director filmed all of his movies in Cinecittà, and we saw the stage that he filmed in. Then there was a museum dedicated to him that had props, costumes, and a video telling his story.

Another building was more of an exhibit, but it went through the whole film making process. There were different rooms for different things in pre-production or post-production like sound editing, costumes, dialogue, and props. I've always been intrigued by the film making process, not that I could ever direct or anything, but I don't know why it's just so fascinating to me. And it amazes me how much work goes in to one movie.

It's kind of cool how even though movies are produced in different countries the whole process is the same. It's almost like a universal language. Ok I won't get too deep in to this. But I'm really glad I got to go to the studios! Now I need to go to the big ones in Hollywood that for some reason I've never been to.