Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Why theme parks tint their walkways red
Corporate synergy extends all the way down to the dirt you walk on. Theme parks intentionally tint their concrete pathways with a specific reddish hue because…
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Why film crews destroy brand-new clothes
You can't film a gritty survival story if everyone looks like they just left a luxury mall. Wardrobe departments routinely take thousands of dollars of brand…
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Why films shoot in freezing locations
Governments will essentially bribe productions to suffer in terrible locations. In order to receive massive, multi-million dollar local tax rebates, studios…
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Why movie reels once traveled under armed guard
Before digital hard drives, paranoia dictated global distribution. To prevent piracy before a major worldwide release, studios routinely handcuffed massive,…
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Some theme parks paint concrete to look like grass
Maintaining a perfectly manicured lawn takes too much water and pays zero dividends. To cut massive landscaping costs, certain highly trafficked park zones…
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Covering muddy fields in woodchips to prevent sinking
Shooting in natural wetlands is a great way to lose a heavy equipment truck to the earth. To battle rapidly sinking mud pits, logistics coordinators are…
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Heating outdoor sidewalks to melt winter snow
Closing a corporate mega-park for a blizzard is an unacceptable loss of revenue. To completely ignore winter, engineers embed extensive networks of hot water…
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Why movie horses get their eyelashes brushed
Equestrian close-ups demand absolute, pristine perfection. Between violent battle takes, frantic makeup assistants are sent rushing into the muddy fray armed…
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Movie extras can swelter in real wool uniforms
Ah, the glamour of cinema, where background crowds get to experience historical authenticity via heatstroke. To save money, productions source massive lots of…
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How trainers make lions look in the right direction
The most terrifying beasts on earth are ultimately still just big cats. When a director desperately needs a massive lion or tiger to look menacingly in a…
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Why movies sometimes need six identical dogs
A dog's work ethic is tragically fragile. Because shooting a single running scene takes fifty exhausting takes from various angles, productions are forced to…
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Why some resorts ban chewing gum
Corporate hospitality has a strict limit, and it ends right at the bottom of your shoe. Certain massive park resorts outright refuse to sell chewing gum on…
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The filmmakers who maxed out credit cards
The indie spirit is mostly just a euphemism for catastrophic personal debt. Driven by pure desperation, many legendary low-budget horror directors simply…
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Paying towns to turn off their streetlights
When you have a multi-million dollar budget, you can literally buy the darkness. To shoot historical dramas set before electricity, production managers will…
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Why film crews pay farmers after night shoots
Cows do not appreciate late-night action sequences. When blowing up massive structures during night shoots in rural areas, production accountants are forced…
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Feeding a film army can cost more than cameras
Feeding an army of tired, cranky artists is the fastest way to bleed a budget dry. On massive fantasy epics featuring thousands of heavily armored extras in…
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How resorts hide their mosquito control
A magical vacation shouldn't end in horrific itchy welts. Massive tropical resort parks disguise industrial exhaust vents directly inside their artificial…
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Why Hollywood destroys million-dollar sets
Hollywood runs on a bizarre throwaway economy. After spending millions of dollars perfectly recreating an intricate historical city block, studios will…
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Allocating specific budget bonuses for miserable weather
Making people suffer for art requires a highly specific financial incentive. Union rules heavily dictate that if a production intentionally blasts its…
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Changing international titles due to accidental insults
Global localization is a linguistic minefield. Studios constantly have to completely rename major releases for overseas markets at the last second, purely…
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A fantasy army can drive up fake-hair prices
When you need to wig an entire fictional army, supply chains simply collapse. The sudden demand for ten thousand high-quality synthetic braids for background…
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Why fantasy dwarves wear yak hair
If you want a dwarf to look majestic, you apparently need to shave a bovine from the Himalayas. High-end fantasy productions actively avoid synthetic hair,…
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Why period costumes sometimes make performers faint
Historical accuracy is great until the medics have to be called. Costume departments insisting on period-accurate undergarments frequently strap workers into…
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How filmmakers make animals stare on cue
Capturing deep, soulful animal intelligence is mostly just exploiting their stomachs. When a script demands a beast stare intently just past the camera with…
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