Day 122: Visiting Film Locations of Lovable Movies

Robert Gibb
My Van Year
Published in
2 min readMay 3, 2022

I want to be in Southern California by the end of the year. For a cousin’s wedding and my career. I’ve decided to pursue a career in the movie industry. Many of my friends are also there so it will be nice to see them again.

To provide a sense of direction on this journey, I’ve decided to follow a route that follows the filming locations of movies I love.

Here are the movies and locations I’ve decided on thus far:

Yesterday and today I visited the first place on my list: Weirton, West Virginia. This is where Super 8 was filmed.

I loved this movie when I first saw it, especially the ending. And now I love it even more having recently visited Weirton.

This scene is everything. I’ll rewatch the entire movie for it.

I rewatched the movie in the van last night and, after waking, visited the house of the main character, Joel. I also visited the main street where he lets go of his mother’s locket and other key filming locations.

Extraordinary people live in ordinary homes.

It was surreal to drive through the areas where the characters bonded and the alien sabotaged. I totally nerded out. I’m glad I found this fun direction of following the movies I love.

Next up? A quick stop at Ralphie’s house from A Christmas Story near Cleveland, Ohio. Then Mansfield, Ohio, where The Shawshank Redemption was filmed. Wow.

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