Heroes in Montreal
December 6th, 2007 by ErinIt’s always entertaining when a popular television show takes its main characters to your home town. The writers of Heroes (season 2) have decided to use Montreal as a backdrop for one of their many intertwining story lines. Early on in the season the character Peter Petrelli finds himself on the corner of Saint Jacques and Saint Laurent, right beside the internationally renowned Notre Dame Cathedral. (See photo below).
The actors are not in Montreal - they are standing in front of a green screen on a sound stage. The green screen is later replaced by a matte painting of the desired location - which is much more cost effective. Just for kicks, I decided to take a photo of the exact spot the characters find themselves in - or tried to be in the exact spot. It was a little difficult because there are several buildings where the characters are in fact supposed to be. It’s interesting to see what aspects of the area the artist decided to use for the matte painting.
The painting of the cathedral is pretty accurate, as is the colour of the street signs in Old Montreal, but I’m curious to know why they changed the name of the streets. The Cathedral is actually located on Place d’Armes - not Saint Laurent (my guess is that most people who know Montreal are much more familiar with Saint Laurent than Place d’Armes - that or they got lazy and didn’t do their research and thought no one would notice).
I’m obsessed with details and background information in movies and tv shows. You can tell immediately when some thought was put into a product. When the details are there, you feel that the people involved care.
Posted in Film |
December 7th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
It’s always fun to see your home town on TV. I wonder if people in New York or Los Angeles feel the same, given how often their cities are represented on television and film.
Speaking of details, however, Notre-Dame de Montréal is not a cathedral (the seat of a(n) (arch)bishop, which in the case of our city is Mary Queen of the World on René-Lévesque) but rather a minor basilica (a church appointed by a Pope as important).
December 8th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
In an earlier episode, when they show Peter doing a painting of the location, you can see in the close-up of the street signs that they’ve even mispelled Saint Jacques (as something like Saint-Jaque IIRC).