#fairchildfilms

[simnotes]

The stages are big enough to accommodate all sorts of sets, from castles to spaceships. In a controlled environment, specific lighting and sound conditions help the crew create the worlds we see on the screen.

[simnotes]

Fairchild Film Studios

This screenshot has been sitting on my computer for almost four months now. I might get back to my Angel City save and make a full tour at some point, I really like this lot. Things were strange in my life when I was building it, but I remember showing it to my mom and she was so proud of me. Well, it is a game but she was happy for my accomplishments and has always been - whether they're academic, professional, or personal. It reminded me personal projects do matter, and I have the most loving and supportive parents.

Anyway, I thought it would be nice to create a film studio. Never been the biggest fan of the Plumbob Pictures Backlot in Bridgeport. Originally, I was gonna do it on one 64x64 lot but I eventually redesigned it to annex the lot beside it, so it's basically a 64x128 now - there's a North Gate and a South Gate. It's also built so you could dismember it and pick a stand-alone part you rather place in your town, without having it feel incomplete.

I decided to go more in the TS1 Superstar direction of Old Hollywood glamour and that kind of vibe. While I was doing the research, I learned that the little shuttle sims took to Studio Town was based on Universal Studios' GlamorTrams, in operation from 1964 to 1983. They have a few entries on IMCDB also on IGCD as minibusses.

Naturally, I was obsessed with this ad. One of the goals was to capture some of that essence with the lot lol I was also very entertained by this 1984 studio tour, Yesterworld's video on Universal's Abandoned Tram Tour Attractions, and Warner Bros.'s Virtual Tour.

I was also happy to come across You Must Remember This, which does an awesome job on going through the history of the US movie industry. One of the founders of Paramount Pictures ended being a source of inspiration for my version of Fairchild Films. I imagine W.W. Fairchild as a big name W. W. Hodkinson type.

That sorta ties in with the story I came up with to pay homage to the original TS1 Fairchild Film Studios. That building looks more like a mansion and is said to contain their "primary studios and corporate headquarters" and I don't really buy that. So in my head, there is a house by the soundstages, which was part of their corporate activities at some point, and that is now a museum.

"He held so many meetings at the Villa he ended up converting it into studio offices when the Fairchilds moved to Rockford Hills. And so it remained our corporate headquarters for decades." (I had scrapped this out of my original post because I thought it was already too long but who cares, there's people that are dying Kim)

I decided to go with a Spanish colonial revival style instead of being completely faithful to the source material.

So yeah. Shoutout to 00s meta Hollywood flicks

[simnotes]

I tend to come up with meticulously coordinated plans for sharing stuff on here but that usually just leaves me with huge guidelines docs for myself (which tbh I find quite fun to formulate) and not much actual content online

So I guess I'll just post whatever/whenever/however I feel like now, which might include lengthy texts, very specific references, and personal feelings about the game and my memories around it.

It felt a bit weird to use the word game to refer to The Sims. I know I'm not alone on this, the game mechanics have always been closer to a tool to decode, recode, process the world around me and and interact with it.

It played a part in how I would explore my sexuality - whether it was through the projection of my fears and desires onto male characters when I was a kid or through the social conformity in the ideas of family, happiness, and worth I would reproduce in my stories.

I also saw in it a way to add levels and experiences to topics that would interest me. Maybe I couldn't be a white 20-something in Manhattan, but I could build the F.R.I.E.N.D.S apartment in-game and create a universe in which I could immerse myself while having "total" control of its developments. I saw its sandbox premise as a space to celebrate pop culture as well as to make things make sense. Life's loose ends (used to?) bother me sometimes, wouldn't it be nice if things went as scripted?

As I got older, part of that sense of linearity in a way remained present in how I would use The Sims, but now with irony. It is about narrative, about characterization, about plasticity, it's about camp. So it's also about myself and the appropriation, resignification, and contextualization of symbols, stories, and ideals.

[simnotes]

Welcome to the Fairchild Films studio tour! My name is Devin and I’ll be your guide this morning. Please remain seated, keeping your arms inside the tram at all times.

As we’re leaving the Fairchild Villa, we can have a wide view of the property grounds. The house was built in 1929 by real estate mogul Kermit Landgraab and was bought by our founder, W.W. Fairchild shortly after that. Today it’s the home for the Fairchild Museum and the base for our tour!

Be sure to check out the new exhibition Scream: Legends of Fairchild Horror as you get back. It features original costumes of some of our most beloved characters, from Darkula to the Groom of Gothenstein.

Now first stop: Sim City Street. It was our first-ever permanent outdoor set, and you see it in shows like R.O.O.M.I.E.S. and movies like Spider-Sim. Productions can shoot exteriors here and build the interiors on soundstages. Cool, right?

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