Bohemian Rhapsodizing: Barrandov Studios

The girls school has an SCA (you know it as the PTA in the US) and they regularly schedule outings for us moms/dads to allow us to spend a bit of time together while getting to know this foreign city that we all live in. It is fantastic and I have tried to go on the trips before but have either had visitors in town, or had a sick child at home. This past Wednesday, I finally got to go along for the tour.

We visited the Barrandov Studios here in Prague. They are one of the largest film studios in all of Europe, and I was pretty excited to be along for the tour. Though I knew the tour would be nothing like the back lots at Universal, it was interesting to learn about the history of the studios and how they evolved into what they are today.

The studios were started in 1921 by brothers Miloš and Václav Havel (the latter was the father of the famous Czech president with the same name). Orignially started as the A-B Studio Company, the name was changed to the current Barrandov Studios in the mid-30's after Václav moved the location to the area on the outskirts of Prague that had been excavated and studied by the French geologist Joachim Barrnade. The studio quickly became the place to produce movies and at its peak it employed 300 full time employees, making over 80 films a year and attracting foreign producers. During the second World War, three interconnecting sound stages were built by the Nazi's and made Barrandov the owners of the largest sound stage in Europe. And what still attracts foreign productions to this day.

Once the war was over, the studios were nationalized and stayed that way until the 1990's. The studios continued to flourish and produced major films, including Yentl and the Acadamy Award winning Amedeus), But the studio ran into growing pains when it was once again privatized after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. No longer completely funded by the government, the number of film makers that could afford to shoot and produce movies dropped and unable to cope with the new free market reform, the studio almost shut its doors for good in 2000. It was saved by the sudden increase in foreign films once again being produced here in Prague in the new millennium including The Bourne Identity, Casino Royal, Mission: Impossible IV - Ghost Protocol, and currently the tv series, Borgia.

History lesson over. It was fun, if a bit muddy. I will definitely have to sign up for more outings.

Moms on their way into Studio 4. One of the soundstages where they shot Mission Impossible 4. Actually, quite a bit of that movie was shot here at their backlots, with our city standing in for Moscow (the Prague Castle is actually a stand in for the Kremlin).

Our guide for the day!

The inside of Studio 4. It is almost all wood and the sound is incredible inside.

The back lot. This is the back side of what stands in for St. Peters square on the show Borgia.

Nope, my color isn't off - the purple is part of the scenery. It is easier for the producers to add the background in post production than it is to build it.