Why do directors fake film locations

A.� Producers often�simply can't get�permission to use a specific location for a film.�Or the landmarks or look of a particular period may have disappeared altogether, so�the crew just have to try and make the best�of what they've got.
In the case of the new $20 million Jack The Ripper film, From Hell,�the producers simply couldn't recreate the East End of London in the 1880s -�so turned instead to Prague in the Czech Republic.
The atmosphere of the movie, starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham, depends a lot on recapturing the atmosphere of grimy Whitechapel in the Victorian capital, with its gas lights and�heavily cobbled streets. So the makers, 20th Century Fox, upped sticks to the Czech�capital to avoid London's modern high-rise buildings. It also helped them save on high labour costs.

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Q.� Which others films have been 'adapted' this way

A� London frequently doubles for Moscow, New York or Washington DC, while Toronto stands in for New York. Malta has imitated Rome and, for California, even Egypt has been used .
The shocking D-Day battles in the epic Saving Private Ryan were not shot in Normandy, France; instead director Steven Spielberg built a set on an airfield in Hatfield in Hertfordshire. Many of the other scenes were shot in Ireland.

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Q.� Why do directors fake it

A.� It can be very expensive to transport big name stars, crews and equipment to a location on the other side of the world for a few minutes of filming. It's often cheaper to recreate the location near the studios or in countries with low labour costs. Countries like Ireland and the Czech Republic offer tax incentives for working there.
Some film-makers use an establishing landmark such as Big Ben in London, �then�then patch in footage shot�elsewhere.�The�real problem�with From Hell was�that the�Ripper's stalking-ground,�Victorian Whitechapel,�was demolished years ago
There can be other, slightly more eccentric, reasons too. It's said that�though�Full Metal Jacket was supposed to be set in Vietnam, UK-based director Stanley Kubrick simply refused to fly�-�so the main set was�was�an East London gasworks.

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Q.� Did Kubrick�film Eyes Wide Shut in New York

A.� No. Most of the action ostensibly took place in Greenwich Village, or in the well-to-do suburbs within a taxi ride of the city. But, as is now well-known, to make his�last film Kubrick brought�Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to the UK - to film either at�Pinewood Studios, in Buckinghamshire, or at Luton Hoo, a�ten-minute drive from his own home.
Roman Polanski filmed much of Tess, Thomas Hardy's British West Country�epic, in France. That was to avoid possible extradition to the States on a sex-assault charge.
The 1968 film Carry On Up The Khyber, supposedly set in Asia, was actually� was filmed in Wales, in Snowdonia. Bulgaria was used for scenes in From Russia With Love, and again in Rancid Aluminium, Time Bandits and First Knight.

The Isle of Man, as mentioned previously in The AnswerBank,�is a popular location.�Ireland,�too. It�doubles as London in the new film, Peaches - and Dublin stood in for Liverpool in Educating Rita in 1983.
In Gladiator, many of the Roman Forum and Coliseum scenes were shot in Malta.

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by Katharine MacColl