Question: I watched Stepmom for the 2,000th time this weekend and then read up on the Internet about where it was filmed. I love the house they live in and found that the real house and land are in upstate New York, but that the filmmakers only used it for exterior shots. For everything inside, they built this huge, elaborate soundstage. My question is, why spend all that time and money to make a soundstage that looks like a house when you could just use the inside of the house? Do they just love spending money? And why are scenes shot out of sequence?
Answer: First question first: It may seem as though, having found an attractive house whose exterior says what you want it to say about the lives of the people who live in it, that it would be cheaper and easier to use the real interiors as locations, rather than building a soundstage. But on a big-budget Hollywood movie, it generally isn't, for one of two reasons or a combination
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Question: I'm an animal fan and wondered about a scene in the miniseries Into the West in which a herd of buffalo go over a cliff. Did the filmmakers really drive animals off a cliff and, if not, how did they make it look real? Isn't there a law to keep animals from being harmed while making movies?
Answer: As far as laws go, there's the multipart federal Animal Welfare Act (you can read it all at www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislat/awicregs.htm), and there are lots of state-level laws pertaining to cruel treatments of pets, livestock, and lab, circus and zoo animals. At the state level there are various laws pertaining to animal cruelty as well. But when it comes to the way animals are treated in movies, the American Humane Association's Film and Television Unit (http://www.ahafilm.org) is the front line. The AHA monitors t
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