Verdugo Skate Park is a movie star
Hyundai, the TV drama “Bones” and others shooting commercials, magazine spreads and movies have all recently rented out the Verdugo Skate Park, which has seen a bump in its popularity among location scouts.
“Film permits are definitely going up,” said Gabrielle Goglia, the city’s community services supervisor. “We’ve been seeing a lot more requests coming in since July.”
The hope is that as word of mouth spreads within the filming community and Glendale parks get a good reputation, the extra money made through film permits can supplement the city’s operations. That’s especially important as Glendale continues to struggle with yawning budget gaps.
The city introduced a slew of new fees in August for skaters to use the park, located at 1621 Cañada Blvd.
In fiscal year 2011-12, the city made about $65,000 from film permits at parks, and about 42% of that came from renting the skate park, according to a city report released this week.
The next most popular park locations for film shoots are the fields at the Glendale Sports Complex and Stengel Field.
When the makers of Brad Pitt’s “Moneyball” rented Stengel Field to film the 2011 baseball biopic, they also paid to keep the nearby skate park closed so the area would be quiet.
While commercials and photo shoots are most common at the skate park, some professional and student filmmakers also pull permits for the venue.
In addition to Cosmopolitan shooting a magazine spread there recently, Hyundai filmed a Super Bowl commercial with skaters doing tricks at the park, which features bowls, a kidney pool and a street plaza with rails and ledges, Goglia said.
Glendale parks aren’t the only sites in the city benefiting from film revenues. The Montrose Shopping Park Assn. saw a huge filming boost last year.
In 2012, the business group that promotes the quaint shopping area along Honolulu Avenue made about $39,000 from film shoots, well above their original projection of $20,000 for that year.
Locations within the Glendale Unified School District and the former Glendale police headquarters have also been film-shoot sites recently.
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