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In most cities, an empty building is an eyesore, a sign of economic blight, possibly even a danger to the public. In Los Angeles and environs, however, it can be a source of capital to the owners and a boon to film producers.
Such is the case with an empty Sumitomo Bank branch in Gardena, whose vault is still, in a sense, protecting the building's assets. Studio crews would be foolish to try to replicate on a soundstage the size, weight, mechanical intricacy and sense of impregnability of the vault door. So they come to the real thing.
"Banks are always used in films, and it's hard to get operating banks to allow filming," says Joseph Darrell, owner of Film Friendly Locations, which represents the former Sumitomo Bank that has welcomed crews from, among other shows, "Robbery Homicide Division" and the recently axed "Push, Nevada." The massive vault, he says, is one of the only ones in the area open for filming.
Film Friendly Locations -- which lists everything from a downtown L.A. storefront to a castle with a moat -- is one of a small group of companies that represent properties in Southern California for use as film sets. Many remain inhabited, but for the so-called dead properties, those sitting unused, film location rent is owners' only source of income to offset the costs of mortgages, maintenance, taxes and utilities.
Although shooting on location is hardly a novelty, using empty commercial buildings for filming does address two ongoing, hot- button issues in L.A.: land use and building preservation and keeping production from leaving town to save a buck.
Just how much can be saved by filming in empty buildings, as opposed to renting soundstage facilities, is hard to say, because so many variables are involved, including the type of production and its budget. "Prices on the properties run in accordance with the size of the [building], the kind of use and the number of prep days," Darrell says. "If it's multiple shoot days and prep days, we discount it somewhat because we're getting many days' work."
On average, though, a commercial building might be rented out for $2,500 to $4,000 a day for the actual shoot, and less for prep and strike days,...