The show is filmed in Burbank on the Warner Brothers lot, seen above. I'd been there several times for auditions and when Christina and I saw the taping of The New Adventures of Old Christine, but it was fun to have the whole day there. The lot is HUGE and feels like its own little city. People ride bikes or take golf carts around, and in addition to the actual sets where shows and movies are filmed, many casting offices are located on the lot. There is also a WB souvenir shop, several coffee and snack places, and you'll see open-air tour trucks showing visitors around.
When I got there I went see Zach in his honeywagon. Series regulars and stars get a trailer to themselves, and everyone else gets a little room in a trailer known as a honeywagon. Zach's character is named "Rommel." Here is his door:
Zach had just finished a fight call with the stunt coordinator to go over the action sequence that was to take place later in the day. He gives the honeywagon a thumbs up.
This couch pulls out so you can take a nap. The room also had air-conditioning, a bathroom, and a TV.
Folks were breaking for lunch when I arrived so we headed over to the commissary, a cafeteria style place with lots of yummy options. We had a nice lunch outside before Zach had to go in for make-up.
Zach's tatoo for the show:
Zach got into costume and we headed over to the set. Each set is housed inside an enormous warehouse-looking building. Here is the view from his room to the Chuck set:
Outside the door to the set is a red light. If the light is on, that means that they are filming inside and you can't enter. When the light is off, it's safe to come and go. Zach waits for the red light to go off:
Inside we made our way to video village, which is an unused portion of the set where the director, script supervisor, and other production people can see two monitors of what is being filmed. For this particular show, they usually film each scene with two cameras simultaneously, so there are two monitors for the director to see. When they move on to another scene that takes place on another portion of the set, the cart with the monitors is moved and everyone hauls their directors chair to the new location.
I won't give away anything about Zach's scene, but it was great to see him work. Everything looked good on the monitor, and everyone had really nice things to say about him and his work.
We'll let you know when the episode airs!
