This was actually one of the very first topics we tackled in the week that Question of the Day debuted, back in May 2005, but the lay of the land has changed somewhat since then for a number of reasons. For one thing, there's been a resurgence of Las Vegas-based television shows in recent years, following something of a lull when Travel Channel and the like finally seemed to have filmed the city from every conceivable angle, but the new crop tends to be of the "reality" genre, à la "Pawn Stars," and "The Real World," or else food-based shows inspired by the city's new incarnation as a top dining destination ("Man vs. Food," "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," or the new Robert Irvine-fronted "Restaurant Express," which debuted on Food Network last night and features a contest to crown an Executive Chef for M Resort).
Another significant change is the discontinuation last year of film critic and entertainment writer Carol Cling's weekly "Shooting Stars" column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which was an ear-to-the-ground source for upcoming productions. (Carol still writes for the paper, but no longer on a weekly basis and the scope of her blog is more focused upon the performing and visual arts and cultural institutions these days).
As we wrote back in 2005, it's often hard to get wind of location information for movie and TV shoots too far in advance, since filming locations are confirmed only once the relevant permits have been issued, and this often takes place very close to the shooting date. Similarly, many productions are at pains to remain as low-key as possible, hoping to avoid disruption from crowds of onlookers hoping to spot a movie star, or to minimize the disruption caused to the "reality" they might be attempting to capture, for example. Many shoots take place behind closed doors and come and go with barely any word -- witness the recent shoot for Last Vegas, which brought a gang of A-List Hollywood stars to the Strip (primarily Caesars Palace), but barely earned any ink in the local press, with zero sightings of the cast that we were aware of until it was all over (see QoD 10/18/13).
Don't despair, however, since other productions seemingly crave the hype, as was increasingly the case with The Hangover trilogy, which made its presence very much felt both on the Strip and downtown, with frequent press notifications due to the implications for traffic of scenes like someone parachuting onto Fremont Street, not to mention daily sightings of cast members dining, clubbing, and so on.
Some projects actually require participation from the public, be it due to the need for contestants and live audience members for shows like "Wheel of Fortune" (a regular visitor to Venetian/Palazzo) or in terms of "extras" needed. Often the latter simply involves fleshing out various crowd scenes, although prior to Last Vegas arriving in town, the shout went out for all kinds of roles needing to be filled, including one for a specific (albeit brief) female role for a scene with Robert De Niro. For the heads up on actually getting to take part in a movie or TV show, check out casting sites like projectcasting.com, onlocationvacations.com, and even craigslist. Oh, and this column is another good source -- we'll always post about known shoots if we hear about them in time, but again these opportunities are often announced only a matter of days before the filming takes place, so you need to be on your toes and able to make yourself available at short notice if you want a shot at taking part.
One other source where you may find information about upcoming location shoots and casting calls is the Nevada Film Office website, where the "hotline" feature is currently advertising for families to take part in an MTV reality show. From experience, they tend to play their cards pretty close to their chest, however, and referred us to that now-defunct "Shooting Stars" column when we posed this question in the past.
Of course, many films and shows that are set in Las Vegas are actually filmed primarily on location on sound stages elsewhere, especially when it comes to scenes featuring the "talent," because this offers a much more controlled environment that can be specifically tailored to the script's requirements (which often defy reality) and bypasses the issue of crowd control and extraneous irrelevant/intruding activity at the location. One of the most famous recent examples is NBC's "Las Vegas," which everyone assumed was filmed at Mandalay Bay, but in fact rarely shot at all in Las Vegas. The same goes for "CSI," the majority of which is filmed elsewhere, although some scenes obviously are actually filmed in situ. These may just be scenic shots spliced in later for context, however, and shot by a one or two-man crew that offers nothing exciting to look at.
Further to this, we'd make one other point to bear in mind if you're hoping to get in on the action as an extra: If you've never been on a film or TV shoot, it's often not as glamorous as it's cracked up to be, involving hours on end of waiting around, followed by repeat after repeat of a certain scene, and once you've been seen in the shot, they might not let you leave for continuity reasons, so be prepared for long and often monotonous days, although hopefully you'll have some fun along the way too, not to mention the bragging rights.
As an aside, we sometimes juggle the QoD schedule for various reasons after a question has been previewed for the following day; those who were interested to know about the history of the U.S. Mint in Carson City, and the dissociation of MGM Grand from Foxwoods Casino, stay tuned! Those answers will be featured any day now, as will a couple of others that we switched out over the past few months. If you haven't already, be sure to sign up for the daily email alert, which will inform you if there's been a change to the advertised topic -- which can happen for several different reasons -- and what's running in its place.
