Youngstown.

Youngstown, Ohio is a standing set of a city.  Built for 200,000 and home to 60,000, it would remind you of the cliche facade towns of the old westerns, if it weren't so desolate as to be distracting. I've spent a couple of weeks there shooting movies - specifically My Soul To Take (a religious horror) and My Soul To Take 2 (a buffy-esque martial arts actioner).  Neither is the Wes Craven version, and neither has seen the light of day, as far as I know.

The films shot nights, meaning the crew woke up around 5pm and went to work as the sun was setting, and by the time the sun was rising again, those of us who weren't headed over to a third-shifters' bar for a few hours were headed back to the hotel for the free hot breakfast.  Ordinarily, you've got a handful of guests and patrons wandering downstairs over the course of a couple hours, stumbling towards coffee and perhaps sustaining some powdered eggs as a kind of collateral damage, but for a few weeks five years ago, one Holiday Inn (or something) was beset by two dozen filmmakers cleaning out the breakfast buffet as fast as the staff could refill it.

Today, I'm on set in a real Hollywood soundstage, and there's no make-your-own-waffle station.  What gives?