I had my first on set experience. It was a short that was being made for The Producer's Guild Weekend Shorts Contest. This means the entire production and post-production needs to be completed in 2 days. It was a take on Little Red Riding Hood and we shot in the abandoned Linda Vista Hospital in Downtown LA and it is supposedly haunted. I wore ALL of my lucky talismans.
It was definitely a creepy location especially at 6am before the sun was up. In the afternoon it wasn't so bad. The hospital actually has an interesting history and it was kind of cool to be there. The hospital was originally built for employees of the Santa Fe Railroad and opened in 1904. It had its own cows, chickens and vegetable garden to feed its patients. By the 1970's as more employees had conventional health insurance railroad association facilities became used less. The hospital was sold to managed care in the 1980's and as the neighborhood surrounding the hospital declined so did the hospital's funding and consequently the quality of care received. It officially closed in 1991 and has been used mainly as a filming location. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and its paranormal activity has been explored by Ghost Adventures though none of it was exhibited during our one day shoot last week.
