Lights! Camera! Action!

Everyone knows that all the big movies are made in Hollywood! Or are they? Perhaps you didn't know that Robocop, JFK, and Problem Child were all produced in Irving, Texas. The Studios at Los Colinas, the largest motion picture complex in the South, boasts such blockbuster movies as Silkwood, Benji and Leap of Faith along with national commercials for Frito Lay, Taco Bell, and Microsoft, and music videos by big name performers such as Garth Brooks, ZZ Top and Amy Grant, to name only a few. The Studios are also home to Barney, the popular children's show.

Chris Christian, a native Texan and internationally recognized performer, songwriter, and production executive, owns the studios where daily tours offer visitors an opportunity to see Julie Andrew's wardrobe from The Sound of Music, Dorothy's dress from The Wizard of Oz and other costumes from Star Wars, Forrest Gump, Superman, and Batman, as well as a set from JFK which cost $70,000 to perfectly replicate drapes and furnishings of the Oval Office, for a 90 second appearance in the movie. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of tourists have marveled at the impressive memorabilia collection while a professional tour guide revealed the tricks of movie magic.

Superman achieves the illusion of flight by lying on a table and using color and lighting to accomplish a special effect. Special audio techniques and the sound of a spinning wheel mounted on a wooden base mimic a rumbling jet. This, and shots of a model airplane, creates the illusion of a plane in flight. Sky scenes can be filmed indoors in a room with curved walls and floor which appear, on camera, as a far-reaching horizon. Special lighting and the use of cover cloths the same color as background creates the illusion of a headless character in a horror flick, and the slam of a hinged wooden lid duplicates the sound of a bowling ball striking pins. Producers are full of tricks to accomplish any effect a movie may need. If a scene calls for a stadium full of people, it's much easier to cast the image of a miniature model than to shoot the real thing.

Visitors have the opportunity to act out a scene in a short movie clip. In one particular tour they stood behind a plywood prop against a green wall and made swaying motions. Slide pictures and sounds of the ocean were dubbed in later to create an amazingly believable scene, when viewed on TV monitors, of passengers riding in a boat. Tourists also stood against that same green wall and made ducking motions. When sound effects and slides of falling rocks were dubbed in later it appeared on the monitors as hikers caught in an avalanche.

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