Trip to LA
Part One
A Visit to the
WB Studio Lot
in Burbank, CA.
Friday, January 14 2005

Pictures of the ER Backlot at the WB Studios Over 50 Pictures in this album.

Quick Background:
I had planned this trip 2 months in advance knowing that this trip would fit my schedule based on the Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Holiday. In addition, I have always wanted to know more about the television/film industry.
The day before, I took Amtrak from Davis to Los Angles…a long ride from 9:45 AM till 7 PM through an Amtrak bus to train to bus connection.
I stayed with a good friend of mine at UCLA over the MLK weekend whom was a fantastic host.
On Friday morning, I took a taxi from UCLA to the WB studios in Burbank. The taxi ride ($39.00) cost me more money than the one-way trip on Amtrak from Davis to UCLA ($37.50).

At the WB Studios lot
9 AM till 7:30 PM

Points that will be covered:
(The first 3 points will cover ER/Parminder Nagra).
(Then the rest of the points will be in sequential order).

Going to the WB Museum at 9 AM
Touring the ER “Back lot” at 11 AM
Roaming around the WB closed studios at 6:30 PM
Eating dinner at a restaurant at 9 PM

Going on the sets of “Everybody Loves Raymond
& “Gilmore Girls” at 10:30 AM
The “Joey” hassle at 1 PM
Being part of a taping of the show
“Joey” from 3:30 PM till 6:30 PM

Tour Background
I went on the 9 AM tour of the WB studio lot. There were three groups of tour guides taking about nine people each. However, I went on the tour (by myself) with a group of 24 teenage girls and three chaperones from a boarding school in North Carolina…It was an awkward feeling, but I didn’t really care.
The tour lasted about 2.5 hours.
By the way, I suggest that you should take the WB tour if you live or plan on visiting the LA area.

Let story time commence:

Going to the WB Museum at 9 AM
Along with the huge group, we all went to the WB museum. No photography of any kind was allowed inside the museum. However, I did get a picture of my self, using a green screen, of an old, red car going over my head from the “Dukes of Hazard.”
The museum had been divided into two floors: the second floor dedicated to “Harry Potter” and the 1st floor dedicated to everything else.
Some of the items from the 1st floor: “Friends” foosball table, the medieval costumes from “Charmed,” a WB cartoon (“Looney Toons”) exhibit, more outfits/costumes worn on shows including “Without a Trace,” “Cold Case,” and all those shows on the WB network like “Gilmore Girls.”
Most importantly, there was a small exhibit on the show “ER.” In display was an actual medical scrub worn by Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle) on the show “ER.” In addition, there was a display case of all the ID cards of all the main cast members from the show “ER” since its inception in 1994. All of the show’s eighteen main cast members had their “Chicago County General” ID card in display including George Clooney (Dr. Ross), Anthony Edwards (Dr. Greene), Laura Innes (Dr. Weaver), and Goran Visnjic (Dr. Kovac). Interesting side note, the ID cards expire June 06 (I think of it has foreshadowing).
Now, I am going to comment on a couple of ID Cards that seem quite peculiar to me.
Linda Cardellini (Nurse Sam Taggart): Her picture just looked like she got arrested from a DUI…That drunk & I don’t care look.
Shane West (Dr. Ray Barnett): On his picture, Shane looked like he was “high” on the “green stuff.”
Parminder Nagra (Dr. Neela Rasgotra): By far the best picture. She’s the only person that actually smiled in the pictures. The other 20 ID cards feature actors with either stone cold faces or goofy grins. I can tell that Mindi has fun in-between takes on “ER” by that picture.
Oh and then our group left for the rest of the tour.

Touring the ER “Back lot” at 11 AM
I took about 40 pictures while I toured the “ER” back lot in the Warner Bros studios. The scenes shot in the outside of the hospital occur in two situations: the show shoots somewhere on-location either in Chicago or Los Angeles (only 3% of the actually takes place) or where most of the outside shots take place in the “ER” back lot.
The “ER” back lot includes: the “Jumbo Mart” convenient store, the “El” Chicago metro train tracks, Chicago fire trucks and police cars, and the ambulance bay in which most of the outside shots take place.
The “ER” ambulance bay is where most of the action takes place including weather hazards such as rain and snow. There are two types of fake snow used: plastic particles are used for the scenery shots (that means no dialogue actors) and when the actors have to talk…the snow is made out of potato flakes in case the actors get some in their mouth they can actually eat it. As for the rain, sprinklers are placed on the roof of the ambulance bay and the rain starts to pour.
In addition, during two different episodes of “ER” in Season 10, an actual tank and a helicopter was used on the “ER” back lot. An actual helicopter fell down from the roof to the “ER” ambulance bay in order to kill off a beloved, hated character Dr. Romano (Paul McCrane).
After being at the “ER” back lot for about 10 minutes, our group continued on our tour.

Roaming around the WB closed studios at 6:30 PM
After watching a taping of the show “Joey” for about three hours, I had to “kill one hour” before a friend picked me up from the WB studios. As a result, I decided to roam around the WB studios. Lots of security members said “H!” to me (quite ironic for me).
Anyways, I decide to go around all of the “ER” closed/sound stages. “ER” uses a total of 9 out of the 26 soundstages available on the WB Studios lot. One soundstage is used as the hospital stage where most of the action on the show occurs. The other sound stages are used for different scenes that do not involve the hospital. New props and new inside location sets occur on the other soundstages.
All of the regular actors on the show have their own trailers. Each actor’s trailer is distinguished through a piece of tape that has written on it an actor’s initials such as M.T. for Maura Tierney. I passed by all the trailers used by all the regular actors including P.N. (That was so cool for me passing by, yet at the same time I knew it was wrong).

Eating dinner at a restaurant at 9 PM
Well, the friend who picked me up was “Victor.” He drove us from the WB studios in Burbank to a restaurant by the Sunset Strip. On the way over, we had a great conversation about Parminder Nagra’s acting career and what might come in the future. We went to “Le Corte de Mader,” a restaurant in which Keira Knightly and Parminder Nagra had dinner on one occasion.

As for the restaurant…since I am a college student who does not go to many sophisticated/fancy restaurants, I don’t really like going to them.
(This is just my opinion…A person can pay $5.00 at a fast food joint and get a meal with 5000 calories. However, a person may pay $100.00 at a fancy restaurant and get an “exquisite” piece of meat the size of one cracker.
I would rather go to “In-N-Out” and get a double-double burger for $2.50 than pay $25.00 for some rare slice of meat.)
I could barely swallow one of the meats because of its bitterness and/or saltiness.
At the end, I gave a nickname to the restaurant…”Le Somewhat Fancy Crap.”
Everyone has their own taste, and their own favorite foods. I am only just ranting on the difference between plebian and patrician restaurants.

After eating at the restaurant, “Victor” left me back at UCLA at my friend’s dorm.

Going on the sets of “Everybody Loves Raymond
& “Gilmore Girls” at 10:30 AM
On the tour, our huge group went to the “Everybody Loves Raymond” studio on a closed set. We sat down at the studio audience and our tour guide gave us some history behind the show.
By the way, the day before on Thursday, there was a taping of the show. This was the second to last episode ever filmed on “Raymond” since this is their last season on CBS.
This show is filmed with a spontaneous audience (REMEMBER THIS FACT FOR LATER ON). If the audience does not laugh at one of the funny sequences (this is a test audience), the writers/directors rewrite that entire script and the actors have to memorize new lines “on the fly/on the spot.”
In addition, I retrieved two bottle of waters with a sticker of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” and a program of the show. This episode will air on the first week of May.

Ten minutes later, our group went inside the “Gilmore Girls” set. Since I do not watch this show and do not care about this show, I just went on the set twiddling my thumbs; however, the big group of teenage girls loved it. I am not going to waste my time and effort about describing the set of a show I do not watch or care about.
The webmaster highly suggests that you don’t watch this show on the WB network.

The “Joey” hassle at 1 PM
After killing about an hour and a half of time at the WB studios store, I started overhearing that many people cancelled on being at the studio audience a taping of the “Joey” show at the “Friends” stage.
I asked one of the people at the front desk and she told me that producers of the show are willing to give tickets to people who already finished taking the tour.
I called the one of the producers of “Joey” and I got one ticket to the taping of the show, if and only if, I did not bring a cell phone and camera. One problem: I brought a back pack stuffed with some things including a digital camera (for the tour) and a cell phone.
This security problem took over an hour to resolve. None of the security guards at the Warner Bros store, the WB Studio tours, or at the front entrance could not reserve and hold my backpack.
After I got my ticket to the taping of “Joey,” I went to the front entrance and asked the WB security to resolve my problem. Ten minutes of waiting and talking with the friendly WB security, issue had been resolved.
When I arrived at the “Friends” stage where “Joey” was being shot, the security guard asked me to turn off my cell phone and to not take any pictures. I agreed and watched a quick 20 minute taping before there was a lunch break at 2:30 PM.

Being part of a taping of the show
“Joey” from 3:30 PM till 6:30 PM
After going to “Taco Bell” to get a quick and cheap bite to eat, I returned to the WB studios for the taping of Joey.
If anyone watches the show “Joey,” I attended the taping of the episode entitled “Joey and the Tonight Show” which aired on February 10 on NBC.
During the three hours of taping, I only watched about five scenes of actual taping because of set changes and lots of takes of different takes being done.
This show hires professional laughers in which the producers of the show pay people to laugh at the funny scenes. Since I had nothing better to do, I sort of became a laugher during that three hour period. In between one take, I had a good conversation with one of the elderly women who’s a professional laughter.
When I had to go to the bathroom, one of the production assistants (PA) accompanied me to the bathroom. In addition, I also got free candy, and energy drinks from the producers.
Matt LeBlanc (Joey) had some fun in between takes by cursing and “flipping the bird” at one of the actors. (It was all in good taste).
Luckily, in between takes (which lasted for a total of 2 hours), I brought a notebook to write down my observations from the WB studios.
I enjoyed myself at the taping of the “Joey” show. After that I roamed around the WB studios for an hour.

After Thoughts
As Parminder Nagra said once that being on the show “ER” is kind of like going to school all over again. Now, this is true…Let me explain.
The WB studio lot has a private security force, a firefighter department, a real hospital, a cafeteria, and a gymnasium…just like a major university would have.
All the actors have a schedule which changes on a day to day and week to week basis…kind of like the schedules college students have to make at a college especially when dropping/adding courses in a term.
At the Warner Bros studio people memorize their scripts, practice and practice, and go live in front of an audience and/or go live in front of a camera…just like in college.
However, in college there’s only a small audience that can reach up to the thousands.
The audience for productions made in the Warner Brothers studios is the world,.
And that’s why they have so much power in our world today.