Bluff City Studios

Bluff City Studios
Location	Bluffington Beach

Bluff City Studios was a movie and TV production company, located in Bluffington Beach. It was run by Julian H Bluff.

History

Although Julian initially pitched the company to the city as being a way to boost the local economy, in reality the majority of piers and locations around Bluffington Beach are now used entirely for filming locations. Also, in addition to the land owned by the Bluff family, Julian also brought out a large amount of government housing, with essentially the entire north-eastern end of Bluffington Beach becoming the Studio lot.

Despite being a fairly new production company, the Studio was very successful prior to the writer’s strike, with some big hits and outside investment coming in. The Studio briefly struggled after being hit by the writer’s strike, with negotiations between the writers and the studio dragging out much longer than expected (about a year at the time of The Moving Pictures). Despite this, the Studio continued to be suspiciously active during the strike period.

During the events of The Moving Pictures, it was discovered that Mr E Masque had kidnapped and taken the place of Julian H Bluff, and had begun The Tunnel Project in an attempt to weaken the borders between Blough City, Bluff City, and Bluffington.

The studio campus is on its own island connected to the mainland of Bluffington by sandbars. The studio lot is essentially a large rectangular shape positioned diagonally on the island. The road into the studio is positioned in the middle, leading to the Welcome Centre and Bluff City Studios Museum. The different buildings (listed below) are connected by covered walkways.

Uniforms for Bluff City Studios security are colour-coded, with Museum and Welcome Centre security in grey and blue, and Stage Security in black uniforms with white text. 

After the Studios closure, the area became reclaimed marshland, with few of the building remaining. One of the prop storage rooms continued to be maintained after that time, and was used by Frank, Ronny, Nolan, and CC as their secret clubhouse. Later, it became the site of The Bluffington Beach Coin and Slot, with many of the sound stages repurposed for manufacturing.

Sub-Brands

• New Atlantic Pictures: This is the horror sub-brand of Bluff City Studios, equivalent to something like Bloomhouse. The schlocky movies are cheaply produced, but the actors are paid well if the movies become successful. This sub-brand is known for taking risks on new directors.
• Blue Field Productions: The TV production sub-brand for Bluff City Studios. Their main product was cheap reality TV, with a plan to dip into prestige TV prior to the writer’s strike.

Locations

A map of Bluff City Studios can be found here (Patreon login required to view this).

• Stage One: The larger of the two sound stages, Stage One was used for the filming of ‘I’m AM, R U?’ and also contained the dressing rooms for the guests of this show.

• Stage Two: Prior to the strike, the majority of Bluff City Studios’ movies were shot on this sound stage.
• Craft Services: The main catering for production.
• Broadcast Operations: Bluff City Studios’ live broadcasts were sent out from here. The building has a big antennae on the top of it.
• Welcome Centre and Museum: As the studio has only been active for five years, the museum has more posters from their big hits and other, small, sci-fi movies than props. The props it does have are from the casino sets of Grand Opening, “weird on-location stuff” from movies set in the post-apocalypse, and Tippytoe, the puppet sidekick from the movie The Big Thing (the puppet’s back has rotted off due to poor storage, so it has to be displayed glued onto a bristol board).
• Executive Offices: Including CEO office, executive lounge, and other offices.
• Cafeteria and Recreation Area: The studio cafe is decorated with props from movies and TV shows (such as a model UFO, presumably from the show ‘Aliens in the Outfield’). Although the studio had originally promised to use local businesses as suppliers for the cafe, they eventually went with a chain supplier.
• Hughes Theatre: A screening theatre.
• Long Term Storage: The storage warehouse, used for props and sets that are not currently in use.
• Parking: The parking lot on the studio lot is two or three floors high.

Productions

• I’m AM, R U?
• Grand Opening
• The Vows of the Lions
• Aliens in the Outfield
• The Big Thing

Staff

• Julian H Bluff, owner and CEO
• Taber Laurence, executive producer of tv productions with focus on the reality tv and talk show sector
• Chris, assisting at the night shoot seen in The Moving Pictures
• Sheila, assisting with moving a backdrop out of long-term storage
• Gary, head of security
• Deshaun Williams, security guard at the Welcome Centre
• Barry, security guard at the Welcome Centre who traded shifts with Deshaun
• Jame, security officer
• Michael, security officer