Post-apocalyptic locations for MiniDV movie

[Jan van den Hemel]

I want to shoot a movie on DV set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Instead of using a lot of CGI, the idea is to use real locations (and enhance them only where necessary with CGI).

I know some movies do this, like the Japanese scifi movie Dragon Head which was shot in Uzbekistan.

However, I am not sure where to start or who to call etc for more information on these kind of locations. I live in Belgium and will shoot interior scenes here.

Hope somebody here can help me.

Thanks!

[Chris Hurd]

When I was a kid in high school, we made our own little Super 8 movies, it was a great way to spend the summer. We shot this one story my buddy wrote, a science fiction piece, which involved a guy stranded on a barren planet totally devoid of features, a concrete wasteland.

Out at a nearby lake there was an immense spillway below a large earthen dam. Floodgates would channel water overflow into a valley for flood control. Most of the time, year after year, this place was empty and dry. There was a gigantic concrete apron at the base of the spillway, it had to be several acres in area. That was our set. We shot it in such a way that our hero appeared to be completely surrounded by a huge concrete desert. Worked out pretty well.

Of course we had discovered the location first and then wrote a story around it as an excuse to use it. If there's a spillway at a lake in your area, maybe it would work for you.

[Jan van den Hemel]

Ah, super-8 memories... :-)

Actually, editing together numerous more nearby locations into a "post-apocalyptic world" is an option i do consider. There are interesting abandoned places in Belgium.

But my favorite location is this one... however it is forbidden to film there, i believe.

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/saiga/yuji/gallary/gunsu/gunsu-html/01.html

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Clevelander filmmaker Jason Tomaric's postapocalyptic DV movie One featured a scene shot in a barren wasteland that was actually, if I recall, a flattened landfill in Ohio that went on for acres. He also shot inside futuristic-looking locations--white tubes and tunnels lined with pipes--in a NASA facility.

Those pictures of Gunkanjima remind me of the pictures of Chernobyl linked to in this thread. Thanks for posting the link.

[Jan van den Hemel]

The Chernobyl link does not work. (Not that I would be able to convince a crew to shoot there...)

"The One" seems interesting, I had not heard of it before. Thank you in turn for posting that link.

[Keith Loh]

Industrial places. Parks. Buildings that might be torn down.

It seems like the series Stargate:SG1 has filmed in every abandoned quarry in British Columbia.

Of course, you have to worry about permissions and safety.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

The official website is at whoistheone.com. The movie has never received a release or even a screening since it was reshot and reworked over a year ago.

A shame that the Chernobyl photo essay is MIA. Haunting images, poetic captions. Not even a Google cache remains. I wonder if she got in trouble for her incursion.

[Keith Loh]

Actually, it turned out that she doesn't regularly take motorcycle trips into Chernobyl. That was fiction. She took those photos on a supervised tour (some were from other sources). No one is allowed into that area without permission.

[Michael Wisniewski]

Rock quarries, decrepit piers, docks, abandoned buildings, factories, cement mills etc. are good places for that post-apocalyptic look - of course here in New York it's easy to find those things.

Since you're in Belgium, you might be able to find some abandoned castles and keeps. Or maybe take a road trip into East Germany or Poland.

I've always wanted to shoot a post-apocalyptic scene with Stonehenge in the background - as a nice "reminder" of lost civilizations.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Keith: Oh. How did you come to know that?

Here's a mirror, anyway, for Jan.

[Keith Loh]

I think it was debunked on BoingBoing.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Indeed.

[Josh Brusin]

Gunkanjima is freakin on my list now behind Petra...

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

I thought Petra was destroyed when they tried to take that cup past the seal.

[Josh Brusin]

I think the climate would be tough on any seals...