A Buffy Fan's Guide to Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery
In the spring of 2008, I realized that my new apartment was just a mile south of Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery. With poor health keeping me from doing useful things and inspired by attending the recent Buffy reunion, I ended up taking hundreds of photos documenting the Buffy scenes shot at the cemetery – and having a unconscionable amount of fun doing it. I also put together a downloadable guide for fans who visit the cemetery and who don't have massive amounts of free time can quickly find all of the scenes.
Since I had plenty of time, I tried to duplicate the scenes, though of course there were limitations – my crappy camera, having to shot during the day, etc. Though I usually had my laptop with me, I occasionally worked from memory (especially when I shot video). In addition, many scenes shot at A-R use props – tombstones, bushes, trees, walls or fences, etc. Examples include the sarcophagus on which Buffy rests while Holden psychoanalyzes her (that’s what I looked for on my first visit to A-R, since I figured it would be easy to find), the tree stuck with the
stake
thrown by the Loan Shark’s minion in "Tabula Rasa,"
and the iron fence in "Bargaining." Usually when
there’s a tombstone with shrubbery around the base,
it’s a prop. Props were used to cover up in-ground
tombstones, fill up an empty area or make a location
which has been used before look a little different.
Shrubbery is also used to hide lawn sprinklers, and to
just make things look more interesting. The point is
that scenes in the series sometimes look a little
different than what’s actually at A-R.
With a few exceptions, the cemetery scenes in Seasons 2-5 were shot in the parking lot cemetery set (PLCS) at the Mutant Enemy warehouses. Some scenes from Seasons 6-7 were done there as well. These are usually easy to recognize. They are fairly tight, there’s a wall in the middle ground, things are very green and bushy, and there’s often a crypt named “Alpert.” Some of the props used in the PLCS are also used in Angelus-Rosedale scenes (for example, the “Alpert” crypt pops up in Grave and elsewhere). PLCS shots are sometimes intercut with scenes done at A-R – examples
include
the first scene from "Some Assembly Required" and when
the Trio chases the two vamps in "Entropy." All
interior crypt scenes were shot on sets – the crypts
in BtVS are like the dorm rooms at UC
Sunnydale, impossibly large. Even the biggest crypts
at A-R barely have enough room to lie
down.I’m certain that I covered every BtVS scene shot at A-R. If it’s not here, the scene was shot somewhere else. Unfortunately two of those scenes are “Going Through the Motions” and “Rest in Peace” from "Once More With Feeling." After much traipsing around, I’m certain they were not shot at A-R, which sucks
as I was
really looking forward to photographing them. My best
guess is that they were shot at Griffith Park using
props to create an entirely fake cemetery (it’s
obvious that the majority at least are props). This
was also done for Willow’s visit to Tara’s grave in
"Help," though this was at a different park.
Download print-quality version of the guide (8.7 mb): ARCemeteryBig
Download
web-quality guide (2.6 mb): ARCemeterySmallLocation: 1831 W. Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90007-1151, between Normandie and Vermont.
How to get there: From the 10 Freeway, get off at Normandie, then head north a short block to Washingto and turn right. The cemetery is on the left-hand side. I have seen things which say that A-R is in a “bad” neighborhood. This is nonsense. It’s a working-class, primarily Latino neighborhood and it’s perfectly safe.
Mapquest here
Google Earth Co-ordinates: 34 02' 24.89" N, 118 17' 53.56" W