What did we see in Chicago this morning?

August 9, 2012 6:44 PM

What did we see in downtown Chicago this morning - was it a very strange and awful accident, or a TV/movie film location?

We were leaving the valet parking at the Hotel Sax on Dearborn this morning sometime between 8:30 and 9. There was some bad traffic coming out of the lot, and traffic was moving very slow. Once we finally got out onto the street, we saw this, snapped hastily by a backseat passenger on a cellphone.

At first we saw it for what it appeared to be and were horrified. Then we got a little closer and wondered why there were no police or fire trucks, and why nobody seemed concerned - people were watching and pointing from a distance, but there was no urgency. We think we might have seen cameras set up from one direction, but we couldn't be sure. So that made us think that we were seeing a film scene in progress. Cool! Even as we drove past, it looked like the girl in the driver's seat was smiling, and someone (director?) appeared to be talking to her calmly.

But tonight I got to looking at the picture and thinking about it, and I'm not so sure what happened. When a production company films a scene in a metro area, don't they clear the area and all that? There's no way we could have just accidentally driven through a film set, is there? Are there any other clues in that photo that could indicate what was going on? And if (god, please, I hope this is the case) it was just a film set and nobody was hurt, is there any way of figuring out what movie/TV show this was?

posted by jbickers to Grab Bag (11 answers total)

It's totally possible. I drove through a Transformers set when they were filming here, and was horrified until I realized OH WAIT there would probably be emergency personnel everywhere if this were real. And then I turned the corner and saw two dozen dudes eating sandwiches and getting fitted with riot gear by a lady with a clip board.

I don't know what they're filming, but I do know for sure that they're filming something. My building got an email yesterday about street closures for it.
posted by phunniemee at 6:53 PM on August 9, 2012

Some googling suggests it might be something called Dhoom 3 or perhaps an episode of Chicago Fire.
posted by phunniemee at 6:55 PM on August 9, 2012

Worked in film production for years, and Mr. BlahLaLa does pros and set dressing. And those guys in shorts on your photo look like film crew to me. It's totally possible that they were getting ready to shoot something and weren't going to block any traffic till they were ready to go.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:55 PM on August 9, 2012

Dhoom 3 is filming in Chicago right now, but I'm not sure if that's it.
posted by stopgap at 6:55 PM on August 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Props, not pros.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:56 PM on August 9, 2012

I saw some signs about filming (set this way, lunch that way, etc) when I got off the train going to work this morning. I'm voting movie.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:04 PM on August 9, 2012

Yeah it was Dhoom 3 which has been filming over at least two days. (Source: I asked yesterday.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:15 PM on August 9, 2012

This is the basket for a window cleaner. It is staged. Nobody would just be sitting in the driver's seat chatting after this and people wouldn't be five yards back appraising it. I'm no expert, but it doesn't look like it has dropped from very high, either.
posted by MuffinMan at 1:46 AM on August 10, 2012

Best answer: It was for an episode of Chicago Fire.
posted by misskaz at 7:32 AM on August 10, 2012

It was Chicago Fire. There were NBC Universal trucks around there as well.
posted by emkelley at 7:35 AM on August 10, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks, all!
posted by jbickers at 9:04 AM on August 10, 2012