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A tour of Paramount Studios, with a glimpse of Sta
The Paramount Studios Tour (or the best kept secret in Hollywood)
Paramount Studios has a low-key walking studio tour which lasts about two
hours. The cost is $10 with tours at 11 am and 2 pm weekdays.
Paramount is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, but the studio
tour entrance is along Gower Street on the west side of the lot (same
entrance used for Arsenio Hall and other shows taped in front of a live
audience). It is supposedly limited to 15 people, so it is best to get
there about a half hour early (my group was twelve people). There is a
parking garage on Gower a bit south of the entrance which is fairly
inexpensive. You can get on Gower from 101 a few miles to the north or
Melrose from 101 a mile or two to the East. The Paramount switchboard
has a recorded message for the tour at 213-956-5000 for any details I may
have missed. You can also get tickets for the Arsenio Hall show, which tapes
at 5 pm at the entrance and tickets for any other shows taping with an
audience as well. Now, on to the tour.
The first thing you see is the Arsenio set. They take you into the audience
seats and talk about the various parts of the stage. Its quite likely you
will see the stage being set up for the musical guests. A lot of what you
see depends on what is going on at the studios. In early May, the regular
series were all on hiatus, so we didn't get to see any sets or actors.
Other people who have taken the tour have seen the Cheers set or even got to
watch the cast rehearse. Our group got to watch the crew of Hard Copy getting
ready to tape a show. All during the tour, the guide will point out buildings
used for famous scenes or for TV shows (The high school in Happy Days, the
brewery for Laverne & Shirley, the water tank used for Star Trek IV, and many
other sites).
Other regular stops on the tour are a quick look in the wardrobe building
where costumes and various clothing are stored, a fairly long stop in the
prop building where all sorts of standing props and hand props are stored.
During the tour, no photos are allowed. The only exception is when you step
outside the lot at the original Paramount Pictures entry gate.
I've been told that when the regular series are in production, you can also
see the set for Cheers and maybe watch them rehearse a show they will be
taping later.
There is also a Paramount "Company Store" that you can buy merchandise at,
although the selection is not as good as I would have expected. Most of the
Star Trek items there you can find elsewhere, but if you want to pick up items
with Arsenio or Cheers logos on them, there is a lot of things you won't find
anywhere else. You may have to remind the tour guide about the store, though.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation sets are off-limits for the tour, but our
guide did show us some of the set pieces in storage for things like the shuttle
pods, Klingon bridge pieces, and the walls used for the holodeck when it is
turned off.
Currently filming is Star Trek VI and they may be filming on "closed sets",
but this means mostly that on the large sound stages, they still leave the
giant doors up such that you can look inside. There are signs right by the
doors proclaiming "CLOSED SET" and they go on to say there is supposed
to be a security guard on duty. On our tour, we were able to look through
the doors at several sets, including the bridge set, some corridoors, the
Klingon bridge (and other Klingon interior sets), an ice planet set (right
after they filmed, with mist still in the air), and what looked like a Vulcan
arena being assembled. To top things off, we got to see Leonard Nimoy,
DeForest Kelley, and Walter Koenig being dropped off at their trailers for
lunch (surprisingly, Shatner and Nimoy's trailers were the same size as the
trailers for the other cast members). We then saw Shatner and Nicholas Meyer
walking back to Shatner's trailer. Shatner had makeup on that made it look
like he had been out in very frigid air and all of the cast we saw had on
fuzzy animal skin boots for walking in the snow and ice. We also saw other
set pieces under construction in the fiberglass shop which were probably
being made for the movie.
All in all, it was definitely worth the $10 for the tour, letting you see
more of the actual studio at work than you would on the Universal Studios
tram ride.
-eof-
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