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  1. Interesting article but not all these things are "secrets". Why would anybody want to keep Ed O'Neill secret? There's a couple of other things, just to be nitpicky. That pic of DJ with MG is hilarious btw. Tubbs' home, as we know, actually was brought up (Heart of Darkness?) and may have actually been seen at least once in Amen, Send Money. Also, there's no guarantee that Denzel would've become what he became in feature film if he had starred on a 5 season TV series. I'm sure he's just fine with how things turned out. Yes, Big Booty Trudy would be sexual harassment now, somebody would be fired and even if Trudy herself wasn't offended, she'd be shamed by others for allowing herself to be called that. We're still not 100% on what branch of the military Sonny was in. Last but not least-Fast Eddie Felcher. I'm not going to say here what "Felching" is, but I think it may be worse than "three eyed turtle". You can google it but I suggest you just search the definition and not images.
    3 points
  2. I wish I had a big poster of that photo!
    2 points
  3. Both of these are very well stated! Calderone was also a “bad guy” that both Crockett and Tubbs were after and had personal vendettas to settle with—the reasons stated above, and I’m adding trying to kill Crockett and his family! As far as the personal revenge idea went...it didn’t matter which one got Calderone! It definitely was a very chaotic & unpredictable situation at the end and as far as Sonny shooting Calderone...I don’t think it was about Crockett being the star (both he & Tubbs were the stars), but it ended up Sonny had the shot & had to take it to save Rico & himself! If Tubbs had been the one that had the opportunity, I’m sure he would have taken the shot...but agreed, it definitely would have been too much of a TV cliche! And MV was not about always doing the obvious or the predictable.
    2 points
  4. Hi all, as we have been very successful in the last few weeks (this weekend alone I found 3 major missing landlocked locations!), I thought it would be interesting to start a thread about best practice in location hunting as we have been doing this quite a while now and have improved our skills considerably - we have only around 32 locations left in the whole series if my count is right. The aim of this thread: further improve our techniques to find the rest and give other interested members some insight, so that they can give it a try and help identifying the remaining ones.. I start with the best practice I have developed over the years and that turned particularly useful for finding locations with less clues (e.g. landlocked houses). Pre-context: I was specialized on MV music finding before the internet time and I am working in the IT industry in the area of analytics, so I have some disposition for that cause. Also, I am a very visual type of person. It´s easier for me to go for something that I can see, compare and store in my mind. This also gives the huge advantage that even if I don´t look for a specific location and search for something else: if I see something familiar, it´s most likely another unknown locations. Other people might be different and have to adapt their MO accordingly. My MO (modus operandi): I work in three stages. The first is the most important one. Stage 1: Location Analysis (Accurate Sketch drawing) - 80% of success depends on it Before I even start searching anything, I spend lot of time analysing the scenes with the location. Often, still by still, because any single frame (24/25 frames per second on TV) can have useful information like a number or glimpse of background. Usually I spend 30-60 minutes on one location, sometimes more. While doing that I make a sketch of the whole perceived location and its surroundings and specifically include description of unique clues, e.g. is it a modern house with flat-roof with roof color most likely white, because this is easy to spot from above and helps to disregard 80% of other houses. Is the distance to neighbors or the waterway 10, 100 or rather 1000 meters? Is the roof tilted, indented? Is there a unique chimney? Change factor: bear in mind that things can change in over 30 years! in best case it’s just the color or it could be the whole structure. Don’t restrict yourself too much by applying too narrow search criteria for change prone factors! colors may have changed over time, so I do not write down the exact color of a roof or facade but rather if it is dark or white. That will not change. MV used filters. Grey facades turn out white in other scenes. The Soliz villa in Jack of all trades came across strongly beige but is pure white in reality). A mediterranean pink house will not be repainted to white (but a modern Bauhaus villa could change from pink to white or the Crockett house was repainted from dark grey to white) but the roof material could lighten up or been changed eg from reddish to brown. That helps to avoid wrong „mental programming“ during the search! IMPORTANT: As I have not decided on the search method yet (see stage 3), I note every clue, not just those you can use for Google satellite search! Below you see pictures of current sketches I use for major locations, including the ones for the locations I found this weekend and others I haven´t found yet, e.g. the Burnett house in Redemption in blood (picture 3). I cannot emphasize enough how important this analysis stage is. If you don´t know what exactly you are looking for, you don´t need to start - you will be doomed! If I feel that all clues are depleted, i.e. included in my sketch drawing, I go over to stage 2. Stage 2: Search Strategy definition (20% of success depends on it) - select your tools Possible strategies (not to be mixed up with methods in stage 3) I select depending on the location(s) in question: Key questios to start with: what do I look for? a modern house (e.g. Bauhaus style with flat roof), a mediterranean house (normal tile roof with ordinary roof color)?, a plant?, is it landlocked or waterfront? is view blocked from above? can I assume how the roof looks like? Can it be abandoned by now? Aerial search, e.g. Google Earth, historic aerials, etc.: Look from above. One remark to historicaerials.com: some abandoned location we would not have been found or verified without it, but it has major drawbacks, like the damed logo everywhere and its quite blurry for 1986, thus my take is: it is only useful if you have a concrete suspect address or area. Otherwise it´s useless (my personal opinion only!) Pro: Very helpful for houses where you can see or assume how they look like from above (modern houses have usally flat white roofs or at least roofs that are not brick-colored/structured, which can be seen easily on Google or Bing). Con: Not so helpful if the view is blocked from above. Street search: look for a facade or a pattern from the street level, e.g. by Google Street view. Pro: only chance when bird view is blocked Con: very slow and not available everywhere, especially in gated communities where many of our locations are. Exclusion criteria: are there any criteria that can be excluded or that restrict the search, e.g. waterfront, dead end street (within the dead end street also the exact pattern, e.g. T-shaped dead end?), etc. special search tool techniques: eg keyword search on google for pictures or special real estate agency sites that allow special search functions by prize, year built or area. That’s how I found the consulate in Rites if Passage for example. I googled for bauhaus style in Pinecrest and found a picture of the consulate. Extremely important, as Miami location area covers hundreds of square miles and includes millions of houses, intersections and canals. Stage 3: search method (can be 10-30% of success) - select your mental focus point Single location search: what I have found extremely useful especially with tough nut locations, is changing the strategy when you get stuck and try something new. Earlier, I was always going for one location at the time, but it has its pros/cons as well. Pro: very focused Con: if the locations on your list have very different criteria, e.g. mixed bag of landlocked and waterfront homes, it can take ages until you find something. "Binge search": I look for many locations at the same time. I did not use that method earlier because I thought I can only concentrate on one location at the time, but here is where my sketch drawings release its power. I have the sketch lying next to me and can look at it every time I see something familiar and reassure myself about the 3,5,7 different location patterns I have on my list. Pro: saves lots of time and uses search capability efficiently, I have to go over each search area only once for all locations. Miami is a huge area. Con: some time is also wasted as a waterfront home will not be in deepest Pinecrest area for example. Where to start this time? Try something new? Very important. The longer you search and dont´ find something the more sloppy and annoyed you get. Thus, having successes early is key. Avoid searching with the same method over the same area several times BEWARE of false assumptions! especially “location logistics” assumption often turned out wrong. Just because other locations of the same episode are near does not mean a location Seen only briefly cannot be far away or it has to be near the studio. Also forget about daylight - not all night scenes are close each other as they cannot film too much in one night. Rather useful is considering WHO is appearing in that scene and other scenes of the same episode? eg they will not probably travel 10 miles for only one short scene where PMT and EJO are present. In Love at first sight we have three smaller Unknown locations with DJ, PMT and FBI’s Russell. These three could be close to each other. But I would not assume that the dead end street is near Crockett’s home because they filmed a lot there and this would have meant that PMT had to sit around The whole day for nothing. The teaser scene in North bay village involves no stars at all and could be filmed by second unit, so unlikely that other locations with DJ/PMT are near. These are the right considerations to take to restrict the search area. Last stage: Verification (If you have found a candidate, you need to verify it´s the right. Match with the unique clues seen in the episode. Best Method to do that: find current pictures (e.g. realtors have thousands of houses offered or sold at some point) by searching for addresses. Practical example: The Crockett& Caitlin house in Rising sun of death, Love at first sight and Rock and a hard place I found in 5 minutes. First, I ensured that it is the same house in all three episodes. Key was starting with a new method ("focus on and start with bushy/heavy green scenery dead end streets"). I identified the most greenish areas and started with the one west of Dixie instead of the typical Pinecrest area east of Dixie. of course I realized the risk that the dead end street is gone and the street extended but I was willing to take that risk as it was my strongest exclusion criteria to reduce area searches. My original search criteria key list for that location was: dead end street, heavy vegetation canopy (but not over the house), unique modern near white roof-line with separate side buildings. The third turned out as useless in hindsight, as the roofline does not really come across well on Google satellite! Verification was difficult as there was no Good Google street view available. I nearly dumped it and wanted to continue with other places but luckily I had my notes with the unique half-high wall with glass bricks part in front of the house (that wall was also on half blocked street view!) and the front structure plus a single Front pic from a real estate agent. So, sorry for the long post but I thought that could be interesting and stimulate others plus is not easy to describe in short. I am looking forward to other members sharing their experiences or best practices, so that I can learn from them as well? @airtommy @Matt5@C Glide @miamijimf? ENJOY! Best, Tom
    1 point
  5. I’ve no idea about the location of these scenes but those First two appear to be different cranes if you look closely at the trusses on each. Of course, there are two different crane arms in the third picture. I’d also point out that there was a significant West Indian population in England in the 1960’s particularly in industrial Manchester and Birmingham. They were Jamaican, Bahamian, etc... as these were all part of the British Commonwealth. Just providing some more information.
    1 point
  6. Disregard that looked very carefully and can see it was on 14th looking to Collins it was just the camera angle clumping the buildings together. But here’s beautiful Trudy again.
    1 point
  7. After Tom’s great work on the new locations recently - I found this interesting and trying to picture the buildings seen behind Trudy. We know the shootout was filmed on Washington and 14th but can’t seem to match up what we see behind Trudy. Thanks to @RedDragon86 for the picture.
    1 point
  8. man...Gina was so pretty... "Viking Bikers from Hell?"
    1 point
  9. Yes, he also produced a live album for Frank Sinatra in 1984.
    1 point
  10. Bob Balaban was great here and in Stones War @RedDragon86
    1 point
  11. Yeah. He’s actually all over Tubbs in “Amen...Send Money”.
    1 point
  12. Absolutely! We are in agreement on how awesome Trudy is!!
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  13. As to the Video dating club: it has an exit sign above the door meaning that it is a public place with customers it has a big park or similar around and in front of the entrance. No Highrises visible. the building is a modern Bauhaus style with big windows, small window dividers, whitish color and most likely a flat roof the hallway ceiling has the same reversed V shape pattern as the logo on the front desk the hallway seems to have doors to the side and looks elusive No signs or names anywhere there are lots of monitors behind the front desk (huge front desk area!) and these do not appear as decorated by the production crew which kind of business has such monitors and such spacy elusive premises with customer traffic and private rooms? I am suspecting this could have been a beauty clinic or similar with a reverse V as the logo. Anyone with other or better ideas? PS needless to say I already searched for it with clues above but no find.
    1 point
  14. A great read and details - Thankyou.
    1 point
  15. New album released in February this year! After years and years of no releases Russ Ballard (“In the Night”, “Voices” and “Your Time is Gonna Come”) is back. I do like this one.
    1 point
  16. Great details @summer84
    1 point
  17. Amazing work @Tom on this location and the colored office building\ party house seen in “Rites of Passage”, Well done and Thankyou.
    1 point
  18. What a photo! Taken in Key Biscayne.
    1 point
  19. Love how you took this apart and made us aware of how this sounds in todays politically correct, Me Too atmosphere. No way would this be accepted today,
    1 point
  20. If Larry Wilcox would have gotten the Crockett gig they would have had to teach him how to actually draw and fire his gun. He had no experience doing so on CHiPs. Baricza was the only one to actually draw but stopped short of waxing Billy’s Azz as he very cleverly stopped when he was staring down the barrel.
    1 point
  21. Hackman didn't really take anything from Rico, but Calderone did take Eddie Rivera from Sonny, as well as Scottie Wheeler in a way. And there's also Lou, who Sonny has known longer than Rico, as well as Sonny 's house getting shot up. Not the same as a brother, I know, but it is something that motivates Sonny shooting him storywise. There is also the irony of Sonny pulling the trigger after his little speech to Rico about getting Calderone the right way. Sonny doing it also alleviates any moral choice Rico may have had to make in the heat of the moment, especially with Angelina standing next to him. I would have more of an issue with Rico not getting Calderone himself if Tubbs had never gotten involved with Angelina or if she had simply never been created as a character at all. There could also have been some anxiety on the writing/production end about how Tubbs would be viewed after killing Calderone himself. Some may have construed him as simply a revenge-fueled cop who just got what he wanted.
    1 point
  22. They were both armed, Sonny killing Calderone was realistic in my opinion. I just got the impression that it didn't really matter who killed him just as long as he was dead. It wasn't really set in stone who was going to kill him and the whole sequence was chaotic & unpredictable. Rico killing him what would have been too much of a TV, cliched moment. If Rico & Sonny were both fighting it out with Hackman, let say in a large building and Rico shot him dead, I would accept it.
    1 point
  23. One of the greatest songs ever, and absolutely the greatest advice ever
    1 point