Boston air base used to film Patriots Day
The infamous Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 was recreated on a former airfield in the city for Mark Wahlberg’s new film Patriots Day.
By Nick Goundry 23 Dec 2016
The infamous Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 was recreated on a former airfield in the city for Mark Wahlberg’s new film Patriots Day.
The movie tells the story of the bombing that took place near the Marathon’s finish line on Boston’s Boylston Street in April 2013 and the subsequent police manhunt for the perpetrators.
For the purposes of the shoot an 850-foot-long replica of Boylston Street was built at Union Point, a former air base just south of Boston, reports GateHouse Media.
The set was surrounded by a green screen so that the visual effects team could add Boston as a digital background in post-production.
“I knew they'd be filming down to the ground a lot because of all the wounded people, so we wanted to match the concrete and the bricks and the granite pavers exactly to the way it was in front of Marathon Sports and the Forum restaurant,” said Tom Duffield, the film’s production designer, in comments to GateHouse Media.
“We really spent the money and got that to match exactly. We even matched the gum spots. We went to Boylston Street prior to construction and measured and photographed all the areas that we intended to build.
“It was really windy there – that was a worry. But it was the only place where we could find that had 1,000 clear feet of distance that the visual effects company wanted.”
Union Point also hosted scenes for the recent Ghostbusters movie, which used the facility to build a Times Square set.
Massachusetts offers a 25% filming incentive to productions that spend at least $50,000 locally and schedule half of their filming days to take place within the state.
For more on filming in Massachusetts see our production guide.
Image: Karen Ballard/CBS Films/Lionsgate Films
For the purposes of the shoot an 850-foot-long replica of Boylston Street was built at Union Point, a former air base just south of Boston, reports GateHouse Media.
The set was surrounded by a green screen so that the visual effects team could add Boston as a digital background in post-production.
“I knew they'd be filming down to the ground a lot because of all the wounded people, so we wanted to match the concrete and the bricks and the granite pavers exactly to the way it was in front of Marathon Sports and the Forum restaurant,” said Tom Duffield, the film’s production designer, in comments to GateHouse Media.
“We really spent the money and got that to match exactly. We even matched the gum spots. We went to Boylston Street prior to construction and measured and photographed all the areas that we intended to build.
“It was really windy there – that was a worry. But it was the only place where we could find that had 1,000 clear feet of distance that the visual effects company wanted.”
Union Point also hosted scenes for the recent Ghostbusters movie, which used the facility to build a Times Square set.
Massachusetts offers a 25% filming incentive to productions that spend at least $50,000 locally and schedule half of their filming days to take place within the state.
For more on filming in Massachusetts see our production guide.
Image: Karen Ballard/CBS Films/Lionsgate Films
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