Crisis - Filming Locations

Seeing Stars: Where the Movies Were Shot (on Location)

The actual locations where the NBC series "CRISIS" was filmed.

This 2014 show takes place in Washington D.C.

But that's not where it was filmed.

The first episode was filmed in Los Angeles.
Subsequent episodes were shot in Chicago.

This page lists the locations from that first/pilot episode, shot in L.A.

00:45: First, we see a line of rich parents dropping off their kids at school.
The caption reads "Ballard High School, Washington D.C."

Actually, what we're really looking at is Haines Hall, on the campus of UCLA, in Westwood.

In the screencap above, the camera is looking southwest, at the northeast corner of the Hall.

(Here's a matching Google StreetView of the building.)

03:49: In a later scene (below), we see the kids getting on the bus at the school.

Looks like UCLA again, doesn't it? Look closer. and guess again.

In reality, we have left UCLA, and are now at a high school 15 miles away,
with buildings that only look like those of UCLA.

We are actually behind El Segundo High School,
at 640 Main Street, in El Segundo, CA.

(That's just south of LAX, and north of Manhattan Beach.)

In the screenshot above, the camera is looking northwest,
from the basketball court in the back.

(Here's a Google StreetView of the front of the school.)

05:04: We then see the bus traveling away from Washington D.C., heading into the countryside.

In the screencap below, it passes a large, gnarled oak tree, near white ranch-style fences.

What we're actually looking at is Southern California, of course. Just outside of L.A.

In the screencap above, the bus is headed north on West Potrero Road. That gnarled oak tree
is just south of the gate to Royal Oaks Farm, a horse ranch, at 933 W. Potrero Road,
in Thousand Oaks, CA.

( It's just after Potrero Road makes a 90-degree turn from west to north. )

That horse ranch is part of the larger Ventura Farms. More about that later...

Thousand Oaks is located beyond the far west end of the San Fernando Valley (in Ventura County),
less than 20 miles west of Woodland Hills, and six miles west of Westlake Village.

If you're looking for a long stretch of rural land in the Greater Los Angeles area,
with no city buildings in sight, you need travel no farther than Thousand Oaks.

(Here's a matching Google StreetView.)

06:13: In a rural area, 90 miles outside of D.C., the bus is stopped by a fake police road block,
which turns out to be an ambush. When the Secret Service agents gets suspicious,
one of them is shot & killed.

The high school students aboard the bus, all children of rich & powerful families,
are kidnapped and taken hostage by armed masked men.

As you might have guessed from those rows of gnarled oak trees lining the road, this is also
in Thousand Oaks. To be more specific, it's on the property of Ventura Farms, a sprawling
1,800-acre ranch, with the general address of 555 W. Potrero Road, in Thousand Oaks, CA.

That's almost three square miles of beautiful, rolling land, filled with Arabian horses, mansions,
farm houses, and a plethora of green meadows, country roads, ponds, and yes, oak trees,
all backdropped by the Santa Monica Mountains.

Not surprisingly, although Ventura Farms isn't really a movie ranch,
they do see a lot of filming here. Recently, a scene from
"Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." was shot here.

They call this particular part of the property
(where this road is) "China Flats".

(Here's a Google StreetView of the Farms' main gate.)

09:45: Then we see the outside of FBI headquarters, in Washington, D.C,
where the Feds are investigating the mass kidnapping.

Not only is this not the actual FBI building in DC, this is one location in the pilot that
isn't even in Los Angeles. It's in Chicago, where the remaining episodes were shot.

We're looking at the west-facing side of McCormick Place West, the convention center in Chicago.

The camera is looking southwest, from approximately 2299 Indiana Ave, in Chicago, Illinois.

[Thanks to Chas of ItsFilmedThere.com for identifying this one.]

(Here's a matching Google StreetView.)

11:14: The high school kids wake up to find themselves being held prisoner inside a mansion.

This is the Doheny Mansion, at 8 Chester Place, in Los Angeles.

Built in 1899, this was the turn-of-the-Century home of oil tycoon Edward Doheny,
and is now part of the downtown campus of Mount St. Mary's college.

Chester Place is a private street filled with Victorian mansions, located north of USC.

This round, ornate room, with its dome & marble columns, is known as the Pompeian Room.

The mansion has appeared on screen before - often - including in movies such as
"Princess Diaries", "Spider-Man 3", "Catch Me If You Can", "The Notebook"
and "The Three Amigos", as well as in a host of TV shows including
"The Gilmore Girls", "Angel", "Sliders", "Murder She Wrote" and "Alias".

Here's a photo of the outside of the Doheny mansion:

and the Pompeian Room:

(You can read more about the Doheny mansion here.)

16:00: We see another scene set back at the high school, where the press has gathered
to cover the story of the President's son being kidnapped.

And once again, we see a view of Haines Hall, on the campus of UCLA, in Westwood.

Only this time, we're looking northeast, at the southwest corner of the building.
(The tall building, seen in the background to the right, is UCLA's Bunche Hall.)

(Here's a matching Google StreetView of the same view.)

16:25: But then they pull a sudden switch on us.

FBI agent 'Susie Dunn' attends a meeting of the kids' parents at the school, but we are no longer
at UCLA. The actual location suddenly switches back to Mount St. Mary's Doheny campus.

Only this time we're not inside the Doheny mansion, but rather outside, in a grassy quad
between the McCarthy Library and the Heath Education Building - just northwest
of the Doheny mansion - and part of the college campus on Chester Place.

17:15: The actual meeting with the angry parents (below) takes place inside the McCarthy Library.

23:59: One of the Secret Service agents ('Marcus Finley') manages to survive the school bus ambush.

He escapes into the woods, bringing with him one of the younger students ('Anton').

They eventually take refuge in a cabin (or shack), where they are confronted by a gunman.

As you may have guessed, we're back at Ventura Farms, in Thousand Oaks.

This cabin is one of many outbuildings on the estate.

It's located in the same China Flats area as the ambush road:

32:17: The final location from the episode is a brief one.

The kidnappers cause an unmanned surveillance drone (looking for the missing kids) to
shut down, and in this scene, the unmanned drone crashes down into a parking lot
and explodes in a ball of flame, shocking patrons in a nearby diner.

There was a bit of Hollywood trickery going on here.

The parking lot is real. You'll find it in downtown Los Angeles, at 1200 S. Grand Ave,
at 12th Street. However, the camera is actually looking south/southwest, from near 12th St.,
across the large parking lot, towards the brick rear wall of a row of mostly vacant
storefronts on Pico (including Jo's Liquor, at 333 W Pico).

(That's four blocks west of the L.A. Convention Center.)

The diner? There is no diner there - just a parking lot.

They either built a facade of a diner at the east end of the parking lot, or more likely,
they just used green-screen to insert the parking lot scene into a studio set.

(Here is a Google StreetView of the lot & the brick building.)

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