8:13 AM
El DiPablo
That's right, you read that title correctly. I spent most of the afternoon yesterday milling about the set of the NBC hit television series "Chuck." I knew a lady who knew her husband who works on the set. Since it was also my birthday, he invited us up to Warner Brothers Studios up in Burbank California to take a personal tour of the set, and also let us watch a scene be filmed. It is easily one of the coolest experiences of my life!
If you haven't heard of the show, or you just haven't caught an episode, here is the basic premise from IMDB:
When a twenty-something computer geek inadvertently downloads critical government secrets into his brain, his former college friend turned CIA recruits him as a secret agent, all while keeping him out of evil hands.
I didn't get a picture of it (Mainly because I didn't want to seem like a douche bag who just wants to get pictures of TV stars) but I got to meet the star of the show Zachary "Zack" Levi who was a really cool guy and very down to earth. I also bumped into Adam Baldwin, which besides Chuck, has also been in such films as Independence Day and Full Metal Jacket!
One of the first places on the set I visited was the "Nerd Herd" work room which is supposed to be in the back of the warehouse at "Buy More". If you watch the show you know "Buy More" is a take off on Best Buy, and Nerd herd is a take off of Geek Squad. According to my inside source, the beginning of the new seasons contains a mock "cage match" in this workroom.
Shortly after, and right down the hall is the set of Chuck's apartment. I didn't get any good pictures of that but it was really cool. The set itself is way bigger than my real apartment. I even got to go into his bedroom where the character of Chuck downloads all of the government's secrets into his brain from his Mac.
After the apartment set we walked across the way to the set of "Sarah Walker's" (Played by Yvonne Strahovski) hotel room. That is where the filming was taking place. Here I actually got to sit and work the camera:
Just down the hall from the hotel room, I got to see the set of the new "Command Center." According to my guide, this set is supposed to be in the basement of the Orange shop "Sarah Walker's" character works at as her cover. In here I got my picture taken in front of the command center computer monitors, as well as the server room (No doubt filled with Dell Server props)
The final place on our tour lead us to the set of "Buy More" which was really cool. Inside the set it looks like a real best buy store, and is almost as big. I was assured that all props on the set were fully functioning electronics from the big screen TV's to the guitar hero guitars. Here is a picture of me behind the "Nerd Herd" counter:
After finishing up at Buy More, we had to head back to where they were filming a scene in "Sarah Walker's" room. It wasn't long after that that I had to take off for the day because they were getting ready for a "closed set" scene involving possible nudity. Before I left though, I did get to take one last picture (Did someone say Action?):
If you have never watched Chuck, you don't know what you are missing. It really is a pretty funny show with lots of cool geeky action in it. Chuck can be seen on NBC on Monday nights starting again this fall. In fact Chuck returns on September 29th! Don't miss it!
If you are interested in a preview of the up coming season, I grabbed this off of Youtube:
P.S. In case you were wondering, yes that is a Bauer-Power cap I was sporting. Oddly enough, though the show is about a computer geek, nobody on the set recognized the Linux penguin "Tux" on my hat ;-)
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