Filming In Brooklyn

Sometimes, if I don’t get spectacular pictures of a shoot I don’t get around to posting them, which happened a couple of times last week.  But this seems like a good time to catch up.

A week ago Friday was a busy day in Brooklyn, with two different 30 Rock shoots as well as a small Fringe shoot.  I got some great pictures of the 30 Rock shoot in Cadman Plaza Park, but was less successful with the nighttime shoot in Brooklyn Heights, despite the fact that I was very close to the action.

Tina Fey and Peter Dinklage were filming a scene on a street in Brooklyn Heights that I now can’t remember.  I wasn’t going to post the pictures because the quality was so terrible, so I didn’t make a note of where they had been taken.  And now that I’ve changed my mind, the best I can remember is that it was somewhere in the area of Pineapple and Henry.  I’m sure someone who lives in the area will be able to tell the exact location by the pictures.

When I arrived on the scene I was kept back by a P.A. saying that nobody could get any closer, but I noticed that there were tons of people standing closer watching.  So I said “What about if I’m going to one of those restaurants?”  And he said just to make sure my flash was off.

I sat down at a table outside of a restaurant very close to where the scene was taking place, and was warned by the other people at the table that we were in the shot and had to make sure not to watch the scene as it was being filmed.  So while I did get to watch while they reset for each take, I couldn’t take any pictures while the scene was actually being shot.  Which sucked, because Tina Fey ended each take walking right towards me and it would have been a great picture.

This would be a great time to mention (again) that my camera sucks.  It actually takes decent nighttime pictures with a tripod, but I don’t carry one with me, so every picture I tried to take in the dark was totally blurry.  I had to take all of these shots with my cell phone, which has much better image stabilization (but doesn’t zoom).

Here’s Tina Fey, barely visible in the center of the frame, wearing a black coat, standing to the right of a bald man.

Here’s a blurry picture of Tina Fey getting her make-up touched up between takes.

Here are Peter Dinklage (on the left) and Tina Fey (on the right, back to the camera) about to shoot another take.

And here’s the crew resetting for another scene.

That’s when I took off, and ran into Peter Dinklage, on a break, walking his dog.  I asked him if I could take a picture of him, and at first he said yes but then changed his mind when I told him it was for my blog.  I can respect that, although it would have been a great picture.  So once again I lost out on a great picture by being nice and doing the right thing, despite the fact that there were at least half a dozen cameras flashing away behind me as we were having our little exchange.

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Earlier that same day I found a small Fringe crew filming scenes inside a moving limo in Prospect Park.

The staging area was at the Center Drive entrance off of Prospect Park Southwest in Windsor Terrace.  I didn’t actually get to see any filming, because the limo would drive up, cameras and lights would be reset, and it would take off again into the park.

Since I was the only one there not with the crew, I stood out like a sore thumb.  But when I introduced myself to Anna Torv she was very nice.

There was also an actor in the limo with Anna Torv named Billy Burke, playing a character named Lucas.

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And last, another “production” was filmed in my house, but this one was much smaller than the TV show that filmed there.  My son and I were interviewed for a piece on MSN.com about kids and money.  You can read more about it here.

Originally posted on Filming In Brooklyn