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Throughout the first season of the Apple TV+ series “The Studio,” directors Evan Goldberg and Seth Goldberg have risen to a number of elaborate challenges, from shooting every scene as one unbroken take and restaging The Golden Globes to using the production design as a sort of ongoing Hollywood history lesson.

On the season finale, they faced one of their trickiest filmmaking problems yet: filming Bryan Cranston as a studio executive high on mushrooms as he ran wild through a working casino.

“It was insane,” Goldberg told IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast of the effort to shoot Cranston and celebrity co-stars including Rogen, Catherine O’Hara, and Dave Franco (playing himself) while just five feet off camera, patrons of the Venetian casino were watching the filming in between spins at the slot machines. “Usually there were three to four famous people per shot. So the odds of someone bothering us were pretty high the whole time.

The stress on display in The Studio isn’t always artifice. Just off camera from the chaos of cringe into which Seth Rogen’s beleaguered film executive is thrown, the creative team undertook some borderline masochistic shoots — while juggling a circus of A-list cameos.

“The most pressure I felt was that we’d convinced all of these people to come on our show,” says Rogen, the Apple TV+ comedy’s star and co-creator. “Some of them we know very, very well. Some of them we didn’t know at all. I just wanted them to be happy with this experience.”

Adding to that pressure, most of the guest stars showed up to the first season of the Hollywood satire to play themselves under heightened circumstances. Zoë Kravitz overdosed on psychedelic mushrooms. A weeping Martin Scorsese collapsed into Steve Buscemi’s arms. Ron Howard being a dick. Netflix co-ceo Ted Sarandos...

Let’s first get this out of the way. Episode 8 of “The Studio,” aptly named “The Golden Globes,” was not filmed during the real Golden Globes, nor did the Apple TV+ series strike a deal with the yearly awards ceremony to shoot the entire 31-minute episode on its set. Instead, they rented out the Beverly Hilton ballroom, where the Globes are hosted, and built their own awards ceremony from scratch.

“We were adamant that it had to be shot at the Beverly Hilton in the actual room where the Golden Globes were,” said series co-creator, co-director, and star Seth Rogen, when he was on an upcoming episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “I’d say rightfully, a lot of our producers and partners, and the studio, were like, ‘Why? Who will know the difference?’ And we were like, ’It just has to.’ I thought a cool part of the show is to really give people,...

You know The Prince even if you’ve never been to Los Angeles.

The beloved Koreatown bar has been a filming location staple of film and TV since at least Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown,” where Evelyn Mulwray and Jake Gittes sit together at a red leather banquette. Or maybe you recognize it from “Mad Men.” Most people likely know The Prince as The Griffin, the bar that features so heavily in “New Girl” as Nick’s place of employment.

Most recently, The Prince stood in as a dive bar in the first episode of Apple TV+’s new series “Palm Royale,” where Maxine (Kristen Wiig) and Dinah (Leslie Bibb) go for a private chat, far away from their neighbors’ prying eyes.

Kristen Wiig and Leslie Bibb in a scene filmed at The Prince for ‘Palm Royale’Courtesy of Apple

Taylor’s been to The Prince many times in the past...

Film Liaisons in California Statewide (Flics) has announced winners for the 28th annual California on Location Awards (COLAs), presented Friday at the Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City.

More than 650 supporters of California-based productions attended this year’s awards ceremony, which recognizes exceptional location managers and teams, public employees, and production companies that help facilitate on-location filming across the Golden State.

Netflix’s upcoming Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley took home Location Manager of the Year (Dan Cooley) and Location Team of the Year awards in the Studio Feature category.

The Independent Feature category was similarly swept by The Greatest Hits, which clinched awards for Location Manager (Justin Hill) and Location Team.

For the Television Episodic 1-Hour category, top honors went to Daisy Jones & The Six for Location Manager (Jay Traynor) and Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty for Location Team.

Episodic ½-Hour Location Manager honors went to...

The forthcoming Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley, independent film The Greatest Hits and limited series Daisy Jones & The Six were among the top winners at the 2023 California On Location Awards, presented Friday.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley received awards for location manager of the year (Dan Cooley) and location team of the year in the studio feature category. In the independent feature category, The Greatest Hits received awards for location manager (Justin Hill) and location team. Daisy Jones & The Six location manager Jay Traynor won in the television episodic one-hour category. In the same category, Winning Time won for location team. Daisy Jones‘ second award went to assistant location manager Courtney Ochoa.

Other noteworthy projects represented among the winners include High Desert (Stacey Brashear) and Minx (location team), both in the episodic half-hour location manager category. And Joker: Folie à Deux‘s Sheila Ryan-Cruz was named assistant location manager of the year – feature.