Pittsburgh and Fiddler's Green

[Mortis]

I talked to George at Horrorfind before the movie came out. I wanted to know if there would be any Pittsburgh references in Land since it was being filmed in Toronto. He said he'd see what he could do. I'm happy that he delivered, including a Uniontown reference, which is pretty much right down the road from me.

Another thing that was cool was my trip to Toronto last August. I went there for various reasons, but one of them was to see the HHoF. I didn't realize it at the time, but the top level of the mall that the HHoF is in is the main hall of Fiddler's Green. I even remember commenting on the sweet looking ceiling, but never put two and two together until I saw Land again on DVD.

[HLS]

I talked to George at Horrorfind before the movie came out. I wanted to know if there would be any Pittsburgh references in Land since it was being filmed in Toronto. He said he'd see what he could do. I'm happy that he delivered, including a Uniontown reference, which is pretty much right down the road from me.

Another thing that was cool was my trip to Toronto last August. I went there for various reasons, but one of them was to see the HHoF. I didn't realize it at the time, but the top level of the mall that the HHoF is in is the main hall of Fiddler's Green. I even remember commenting on the sweet looking ceiling, but never put two and two together until I saw Land again on DVD.

I been to uniontown before back in the 80's

[glsjaw]

they did have a couple of close town referances and some parts of pittsburgs suburbs names thrown a couple of times but that was about it, which kinda peeved me off alittle, hell cleveland even got a shout out for petes sake

[Guido]

it's a shame he didn't actually film it in Pittsburgh...what's the reason again? costs are more in the U.S. due to union stuff or something or another?

[LoneCrusader]

The movie is actually based in Pittsburg, but whether it was filmed there, I do not know. You can look it up on Wikipedia.

[Guido]

it was actually filmed in Toronto, we know this. I was just wondering why GAR, along with many other directors take their filming outside of the U.S. It has something to do with costing more in the states b/c of unions, i think.

[soulsyfn]

I believe the reason for not filming in Pittsburgh was the taxes as well. The city was going to tax the hell out of GAR and the production company for filming in Pittsburgh.

:mad:

[Monrozombi]

It all comes down to costs. The PA legislature passed a tax break for film crews to film in teh state but it was still cheaper to go to Toronto. It's eventually going to coem back to bite the film industry in the ass if they keep pushing filmmakers to go out of the country to make their movies.

[Apocryphism]

There was a tremendous effort to get the thing made at home... but as others have said, it just didn't happen. This issue was something of a sad, subtle point in the letter to his father that Cameron Romero published in the Post-Gazette (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05174/526913.stm) at Land's release last year:


In closing, I'd like to say thank-you to my father. Thank you for doing something nobody had ever done before, and thank you for becoming such an icon in Pittsburgh's already rich history. Thank you for being a champion of bringing filmmaking back to this city (even if it didn't work out this time).

A shame. But Romero and company did what they did, and nicely so, and the official shot-callers back home made Pittsburgh the unfortunate loser in the long run, a phenomena that is happening way too often in the U.S. these days.