"La La Land"

Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) mourns that his favorite jazz club, Van Beek, has been turned into a samba and tapas joint in Damien Chazelle's "La La Land" (Lionsgate, 2016).  "Just pick ONE!" he says. "Do it right."

He's done a drive-by and at the time of this shot is sitting at a drive-in restaurant across the street looking at the building. It's the former Magnolia Theatre, 4403 Magnolia Blvd. in Burbank. In the years since its film house life has been over it's been a recording studio, once owned by Barbra Streisand. See the Magnolia Theatre page on the Los Angeles Theatres site for more on the venue. Thanks to Donavan S. Moye for this screenshot.

Sebastian keeps running into Mia (Emma Stone), an aspiring actress. When they finally start clicking after a number of mis-steps, their first date is to be at the Rialto in South Pasadena to see "Rebel Without a Cause."  Here she's driving by earlier in the day and sees the show on the marquee.

She's late and he's waiting.

He gives up and goes in.

Not able to find him in the darkened theatre she steps out on stage to look into the house.  

The credits are rolling for "Rebel Without a Cause." 

Watching the film at the Rialto.

Projection problems as they're ready to kiss.

 

A "What do we do now?" look. Mia has an idea: they go to the Griffith Observatory.

Wandering by the former jazz club one afternoon. Thanks to Donavan S. Moye for the screenshot.

 Mia holds the doors while Sebastian does a bit of vandalism to their sign.

Mia rents a theatre for her one-woman show. The theatre is the Hayworth at 2511 Wilshire Blvd. Well, the interior is anyway. The exteriors were done at the Variety Theatre on W. Adams Blvd. See the page about the Hayworth Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site for more about the venue.

Mia does another drive-by of the location of their first date. Things have changed. See the Los Angeles Theatres pages on the Rialto Theatre for more about this historic venue. The "closed" marquee we see in this shot was accurate until mid-2017. It's now been leased to a church group.

Sebastian, without funding to open his own jazz club, takes a gig with a group called The Messengers, headed by Keith (John Legend). Mia goes to see their first show -- it's at the El Rey Theatre on Wilshire Blvd. 

Sebastian playing at the show at the El Rey. We don't get any exterior shots or see much of the interior. The Los Angeles Theatres El Rey Theatre page has more about this 1937 vintage theatre, now used as a music club.

Sebastian at the keyboard for a photo shoot at the Regent Theatre, 448 S. Main St. The scene starts with Gosling nervously pacing outside in a driveway on the west side of EastWest Studios, 6000 Sunset Blvd., a location whose interior is used for several other scenes. But for this scene, when we go inside we're in the Regent.

The Egyptian columns aren't part of the Regent's normal decor -- they're just in for the shoot. The giveaway is that bit of light fixture we see above the photo on the wall. It's the day of Mia's one-woman show and he's worried that he'll be late for the show. He ends up missing it entirely.

Our obnoxious photographer getting another camera from his assistant. You know, one that works. That purplish glow to the right of the guitar player is part of the Regent's proscenium.

Another view of the photo shoot scene with Keith (John Legend) at the center and Sebastian on the left. Again a bit of the Regent's proscenium is seen as a purple glow in the background. The wizard who does the site Seeing Stars figured the Regent location out. He's got it detailed on a page as Location #43 - the Photo Shoot.

Thanks to Mike Hume for digging through the many well documented pages about the film's locations on the Stars site to find the details about this scene. Mike has a fine page about the Regent on his Historic Theatre Photography site.

Check out the pages about the Regent Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site for more about this 1914 vintage film house, now repurposed as a music venue. 

Mia heads into the theatre the afternoon of her show. The exterior of the theatre she rents for the production is the Variety, 5253 W. Adams Blvd. See the page about the Variety Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site for more about the building. In recent years it's been used as a music club and events space.

Onstage at the Hayworth before the one night run of her show.

Onstage during Mia's one-woman show. Thanks to theatre detective Mike Hume for this screenshot. And also thanks to Mike for figuring out where these interior scenes were filmed. Visit his great Historic Theatre Photography website for hundreds of photos of theatres he's explored in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Sebastian at the Variety Theatre after Mia's show. Few people came. Sebastian misses it because of his photo shoot. Mia is depressed and tells Sebastian it's over. "What is?" he asks. "Everything" she says -- and goes home to Boulder City, Nevada. He'll have to drive to Boulder City to get her when that magical phone call from a casting director comes that makes her a star.

Other locations seen include the freeway interchange between the 105 and the 110 for the opening number, the Smokehouse Restaurant in Burbank (where Sebastian plays Christmas music), the Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach, the Hermosa beach pier, Angel's Flight, the Watts Towers, Griffith Observatory, and the Blind Donkey in Long Beach (Seb's nightclub at the end).


More information: 

Architectural Digest weighed in with "La La Land Set Design" profiling designers David Wasco and Sandy Reynolds-Wasco. E Online has "The Official La la Land Guide To Los Angeles." There's a page about the film on the website for Elle.

 
"La La Land" director Damien Chazelle talks with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone during filming at the Rialto in South Pasadena. Thanks to Escott O. Norton for posting an album of sixteen photos of the 2015 shoot on the Friends of the Rialto Facebook page. The photos appear courtesy of David Wasco, production designer for the film.

On Curbed L.A. see "LA's Starring Role in 'La La Land'" and "The Ultimate 'La La Land' Filming location Map."

 Discover L.A. put together the "La La Land Virtual Location Tour," a lovely hour-long Zoom Webinar presentation hosted by acclaimed location managers from the film, Robert Foulkes and Tristan Daoussis. Thanks to Mike Hume for spotting the presentation.

The N.Y. Times had a fine story "L.A. Trancendental: How 'La La land' Chases the Sublime" that included several shots from the film. David Ng's December 25, 2016 L.A. Times story "'La La Land' looks beautiful but..." talks about the difficulties of location shooting for this film (and others) with so many historic locations vanishing.

The site Seeing Stars says they have the "world's most comprehensive guide" to the film's shooting locations and it's certainly hard to disagree with that. Pages and pages of well documented information. The photo is from their page about the scene shot at the Regent. Thanks to Mike Hume of Historic Theatre Photography fame for spotting it on the Stars site. 

USA Today has "Your La La Land Cheat Sheet."  The trailer is on YouTube, as is a four minute making-of featurette. 

On IMDb: "La La Land"