HBO’s hit Big Little Lies is set in affluent Monterey, where much of the show’s action takes place in glamorous vehicles. The lawyers in The Good Wife glide through traffic-free Chicago in shiny new cars. And the leading ladies of Sex in the City famously underuse New York’s plethora of transit options.
When public transportation makes a rare silver-screen appearance, it’s often the butt of a joke. (Think about the scene in The Office when Michael attempts to ride the New York City subway only to find “a man pooping in a box.”)
What gives? Cars aren’t the only way – or the best way – to get around, especially in cities. And even though things are starting to change, TV shows and movies are overwhelmingly car-centric, just like our culture. So why does Hollywood insist that the car is king?
Two reasons: product placement and the difficulty of filming on transit.
Product placement is no laughing matter, and car manufacturers are the field’s deft masters. With almost half of millennials opting out of traditional TV in favor of streaming, product placement within a TV show itself is becoming more viable than commercials.
Not only is it an easy way for studios to earn some extra dough (2013’s Man of Steel earned $160 million from promotions alone), but big brands – especially carmakers – often help pay for production costs. Mercedes-Benz recreated Fashion Week for the Sex in the City movie in exchange for a few shots of characters using their cars. Other car companies give free cars to studios for production use.
And if a car company is sponsoring a production, you’ll be hard-pressed to find the characters stuck in traffic or filling the tank with gas (the exact same can be said for TV car commercials, which always show a brainwashing look about life will be like with that expensive new purchase).
Not all TV shows can pull off product placement seamlessly, though. Black-ish and Designated Survivor have been criticized for their blatant plugs of Buick and Ford, respectively.
We can’t necessarily know if product placements from carmakers are the determining factor in whether a show will feature other transportation options. But can transit agencies offer these kinds of sweet perks to studios? Nope.
This scene from Designated Survivor demonstrates Ford’s product placement.
The other reason cars are featured more than public transportation is simple: filming on transit is logistically difficult.
“You have to be careful to not create tripping hazards for the Metro riders, for instance with light stands and tripods,” said Kelly Sheehan of Rainlake Media – a veteran of filming on transit and Mobility Lab partner. “We filmed entirely handheld with gyro stabilized cameras and body mounts so that we did not put any equipment down on the platform.”
Another logistical hurdle: most transit agencies limit filmmaking to between 9:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., when productions will create the least disruption for riders.
But physical obstacles and time constraints aren’t the only challenges. Most transit agencies require permits and insurance in order to film in their facilities.
New York City MTA is at the extreme end of this, requiring filmmakers to purchase a minimum $2 million general insurance policy. Other agencies simply require filmmakers to apply for permits a few weeks before filmmaking.
But these permits have limits: transit agencies don’t want to be shown in a bad light. WMATA in Washington D.C. rejected House of Cards’ permit request to film the scene in which (spoiler) Frank pushes Zoe in front of an incoming Metro train because it was “immoral,” according to a WMATA spokesperson. House of Cards then built a set for the non-existent “Cathedral Heights” Metro station in Baltimore.
Given these limitations, is there even demand to film on transit? For some systems, yes.
While WMATA doesn’t receive many requests (when they do, it’s mostly commercials for businesses showing off their proximity to Metro), New York and Chicago are inundated with them. Just this month, New York City transit has accommodated 13 filmmakers, according to a spokesperson at MTA. Most of these are TV shows. And the film project coordinator at Chicago Transit Authority told me that, in 2017, CTA received 210 requests and executed 152.
“We like that the system can be marketed,” said Cody Lowe, the CTA coordinator. “And it’s good for the local economy.”
CTA makes an extra effort to accommodate low-budget and student productions. And given that many hit shows start off as web series – think Broad City, Insecure, and Brown Girls, which takes place in Chicago – this seems like a smart move.
Featuring public transportation on TV shows and movies normalizes it. Characters riding public transportation makes transit another setting – a place where life happens. Seeing it on screen makes it easier to envision it in your life.
“Infrastructure is aspirational,” Alex Marshall wrote in an op-ed for Governing magazine. “Popular culture can show where we want to go.”
As non-drive-alone modes of transportation grow in prominence – biking, ride-hailing, and carsharing, to name a few – maybe we’ll soon see this reflected in Hollywood.
Photos of Jane the Virgin by the CW and Designated Survivor by Ben Mark Holzberg and ABC.