The magic of Hollywood right here
On a hot, steamy Coconut Grove summer afternoon, this empty shell comes alive. It's Carlito's Restaurant where the "Burn Notice" characters hang out in many scenes on the show.
The colorful place appears to be in a busy area on Ocean Drive in South Beach when seen on tv, but it is actually behind the decrepit, soon to be demolished Expo Center in the Grove.
As the camera men film and actors act, Grove life goes on all around them. On one side is City Hall and Scotty's Landing, on the other side the boat ramp where folks are setting out to fish and the shrimp boats are just coming in. Behind them is the marina and around the front is South Bayshore Drive, with hundreds of cars passing, oblivious to the magic that is going on just a few feet away.
When you see the old rusty Expo Center, on tv, it appears glossy, colorful and glamorous, like some place you would like to sit and have a Mojito and watch the world pass by like the tv characters do each week. All this will soon be gone when the City kills it to make way for a park, yet is is all fake, so it can be recreated elsewhere.
Above and below is the Expo Center on screen, with cars and people passing by as Carlito's Restaurant appears out of nothing.
Right behind the restaurant set, inside the Expo Center are all the other sets. Sharon Gless plays the mother. Her house (interior and exterior) is inside here with lots of other sets all around, of course Michael Westen (played by Jeffrey Donovan) has his loft interior in there, too.
This is the exterior to Michael's loft -- the green door. It is only a few feet to the left of the bar/restaurant set. Yesterday a small crew with a hand held camera was filming something there, probably a close up of someone opening the door or something easy. There were there and gone within minutes, back inside the Expo Center, where all the interiors were being filmed.
This scene was filmed in the Sandbar Grill. It ended up being an old-fashioned bar brawl with broken tables and chairs.
Outside the lighting trucks, make-up trailers and dressing rooms all buzz with activity.
You can see it all Thursday nights at 10 pm on the USA network.
posted by Tom Falco at 10:30 AM
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4 Comments:
Too bad our brilliant politicians think its so important to get rid of Miami's best international sales brochure.
And if anyone really thinks that it can be moved elsewhere you would be dead wrong. Once they leave they are not coming back, It just doesnt make economc sense.
But hey, at least we have all those empty condos everywhere.
Good stuff - love the photos. I love trying to guess locations from the show.
Have a friend working on the set who said a tourist sat down at the "cafe" waiting to be served - it was several minutes before someone told them it's a set.
In todays Herald,
Burn Notice is noticed by more viewers
Burn notice, South Florida's only home-grown scripted television series, drew a record audience during Thursday's season premier, with 5.3 million viewers watching ex-spy Michael Westen's ongoing Miami adventures, according to new Nielsen data.
That's a 30 percent spike from the first season's average audience and boosts the chances that USA will renew the cable series for a third season.
But Westen may head elsewhere, Burn Notice wants to continnue to rent the Coconut Grove Convention Center for studio space at a discount rate, but Miami planrs to tear it down early next year to make room for a park.
-Louis
Sandbar with broken tables and chairs? Hahaha ... go figure. The show is realistic!
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