Spring Street can claim credit as the birthplace of the motion picture business in Los Angeles. In 1898, Thomas Edison filmed a 60-second film titled “South Spring Street Los Angeles California”, mounting a giant camera on a wagon to film the bustling action along South Spring Street with scenes of streetcars, bicycles and horse-drawn wagons.

Spring Arts Tower’s long history of filming began back in 1920 with Harold Lloyd’s thrill comedy High and Dizzy. This short film, the second installment in Harold’s blockbuster series of skyscraper acrobatic adventure films starts with Lloyd’s friend showing off his collection of then-illegal liquor. A few bottles start popping their corks and, to keep the stockpile secret, Lloyd and his friend are forced to drink up the runoff. Thoroughly under the influence, a none-too-steady Harold is sent out onto the ledge to save a pretty sleepwalker. The results are literally hair-raising, as performed by Lloyd in a wonderful special effect using an exact duplication of the exterior of our building and the ledge on our eleventh floor. They also shot an office on the eleventh floor.

Many films have been shot here since. In more recent years, He’s Just Not That Into You, Made of Honor, Spiderman 3, Meet the Fockers, Phonebooth, Rush Hour, and Conspiracy Theory were shot in or in front of the building–many in our standing film sets on the second and third floors at Spring Arts Studios. Hit television programs such as 24, Heroes, Criminal Minds, Without a Trace, Crossing Jordan, Eli Stone, Numb3rs, Project Runway, Top Chef, America’s Top Model, NCIS, The Practice, and NYPD Blue have all shot here. John Legend and Kelly Clarkson are the more recent artists who have chosen Spring Arts as a location to shoot their videos. Countless companies have used the background of Spring Arts to advertise numerous goods and services from financial institutions to fast food, from chain stores to cars to video games.