Orange County
Neighboring Los Angeles, Orange County is quintessential Southern California. From sleek suburban housing down to lazy, trendy Beach Cities.
An expensive area in which to live and play, this is very definitely California. Ideal warm, sunny weather (most of the time, excepting occasional winter rains and mudslides) and truly a place to dream about when you're living in cooler, wetter climes. Orange County is also the home to The Happiest Place on Earth - DisneyLand in Anaheim.
Orange County is also a great location to stay, being geared up for tourism and ideally situated for exploring Los Angeles, San Diego and the deserts.
Orange County in the Movies
Although Los Angeles County claimed more than 44,000 production days in 2004 compared with a mere 750 days in Orange County , there are still some impressive 'claim to fame' locations.
For example, the $33.8 million headquarters of Health & Nutrition company Nikken in Irvine has served as a trendy gym in the 2004 movie Dodgeball and as the FBI's Las Vegas headquarters in Miss Congeniality II . In return, Nikken not only charge fees but also often require their products to appear in the scenes being filmed.
Downtown Orange is around 100 years old with many brick-built shops and restaurants. It can serve as a typical American town in the Midwest or even the East Coast with the addition of fir branches to the palm trees!
The benefits to the county are in hotel reservations by production crews, meals, building materials as well as fees for filming rights. This amounts to around $335 million per year currently.
Other locations in Orange County :
- Old County Courthouse , Santa Ana - Harvard University in Legally Blonde
- Orange Plaza - That Thing You Do, The Man Who Wasn't There, First Daughter, Surviving Christmas
- Tustin Marine Base - JAG
- UC Irvine - used as a computer company premises in Ocean's Eleven
- Dana Point & Laguna Beach - MTV's Laguna Beach : The Real Orange County
Ironically, the Fox television program The OC is filmed primarily in Los Angeles County .
