Visit the Set of "The Shining"

For anyone who loves Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" as much as I do, this is a must-see video.

Here's the lede from the Guardian story:

"Channel 4 has painstakingly recreated the set of Stanley Kubrick horror film The Shining, complete with look-a-likes of the crew and cast members including Shelley Duvall, for a TV ad to promote a More 4 season of the director's films."

The shot, a single tracking shot we used to call "fluid masters" back in film school, is meant to suggest a purposefully-striding Stanley Kubrick visiting all corners of his vast "Shining" set. The shot isn't visually stunning (fluid masters rarely are), but what is astonishing is how much attention to detail the creators of this short film paid to every aspect of the recreation. Even the crew members shown in the famed behind-the-scenes documentary of "The Shining" (filmed by Kubrick's daughter), are represented here with look-alikes. An appearance by a convincing double of Diane Johnson, Kubrick's co-screenwriter on the film, ends the film, right down to the big glasses and loud, wide-collared shirt she wore. After watching it and the good geek-vibes wore off, I wondered what had happened to the painstakingly-created set they'd built. Was it really intended solely for this 30-second shot? Would other stuff shot on that set turn up when Channel 4 aired the movie during the "Stanley Kubrick Season?"

I guess it's goofy to fret about the destruction of movie sets -- they tore down the set for the original "Shining," after all. But in the back of my mind I just marvel at the uses for such a set that are soooo much better than a dumpster.

Interested parties could ship parts of it to the hotel in Oregon where they shot the exteriors of the Overlook, making the hotel into a "Shining" museum, which would of course become a mecca for movie nerds all over the world. Or some enterprising Grogg-types could ship it to a fledgling film school. How much more hyped would we would be-matriculators have been if, in addition to a really loud screening of the T-Rec scene from "Jurassic Park," we'd also gotten to tour a recreated "Shining" set. And then they'd said, "Your first projects will all be filmed here." Old NCSA SoF would have had to bat film wannabes away with sticks.

Anyway, check it out. It's good stuff.