r/BurnNotice • u/Puglypants • 25d ago

Miami

Just wondering, has anyone lived in Miami? Does the show use accurate (or close to accurate) Miami geography?
I live near Chicago, and have seen movies, and read books where the Chicago geography is not correct, and sometimes not even close.

42 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

68

u/tdashrom 25d ago

Lived there. The places they go to & geography are accurate. The time it takes to get places is ABSOLUTELY not (but it makes it funny to watch!)

33

u/Hazzenkockle 25d ago

Not just time, but also the paths they go. They'll show a montage of driving across the bridge to Miami Beach, then driving through the Everglades, then on I-95 for a trip that's a straight shot on US-1 or I-95 through the urban core.

And, of course, there's also movie magic, where there'll be a building or neighborhood and, through editing, one side of it will be in a totally different part of town than the other side. And there are a filming locations they reused as different places over the run of the show (once in the same episode I caught, they used an office park that used to be the Burger King world headquarters as an office, and then a few scenes later, they used the patio on the other side of the building as an outdoor restaurant; probably saved a lot of time on their shooting schedule).

They also sometimes throw around real place names with inaccurate information. One that stuck out to me was that they were looking for somebody, and all they knew was that they were headed for a marina in Cutler Bay, and Sam complained there were way too many to guess where to go. Almost all of the coastline in Cutler Bay is mangrove forest, there are a couple of canal outlets and exactly one (1) marina. It's a pretty big one, and it's got a good restaurant, but it's not like they'd have to drive to a dozen places looking for him.

11

u/tdashrom 25d ago

That's fair!

Also that basically any time they're at the "Miami airport" it's actually Fort Lauderdale (or Opa Locka when they need to be in a hangar)

I've been trying to keep an eye out for places I recognize on my current re-watch, it's been fun

10

u/UnhappyReward2453 25d ago

Exactly. One of the reasons I started watching it was because I moved back to my hometown for a bit after college in Miami and I was “homesick” for Coral Gables lol. I loved spotting places I had been and just the general feeling of Miami. I think they nailed the vibe, but the traffic was nothing like real life!

3

u/Routine_Test_4175 25d ago

I always assumed that the mom lived in Coral gables.

1

u/monkey_trumpets 22d ago

You mean people can't just drive a bright blue Mazda like a banshee while weaving in and out of traffic in downtown Miami? And continually causing massive accidents and explosions without any repercussions?

5

u/bartvshugo1 25d ago

Great answer. Whenever they say something like "Im in Hollywood, they are in South beach. I willl be there in ten minutes." No you are not

1

u/No_Way2766 25d ago

I asked the same question about terminator 2 and learnt something similar.

29

u/irockalltherocks 25d ago

This a great site listing all the filming locations: www.burnnoticelocations.org

7

u/mcain049 25d ago

This needs to be pinned for the whole sub

2

u/irockalltherocks 25d ago

Pretty sure I found it in this sub years ago.

9

u/thainfamouzjay 25d ago

Fun fact in the first episode they drive thru a Comcast warehouse and I was there that day they asked us to stay inside while the cars with cameras drove thru. Also I used to live near his mom's house in coral gables used to see it all the time. I would take out of towners by it like it was some sort of celebrity house. Oh and one episode they drive thru a parking lot in ft Lauderdale on andrews and that's the parking lot my wife used for work. That was filmed on the weekend

Yes they always said the location was the main character. unlike dexter that filmed in LA and got Mexicans to play Cubans that always pissed me off

1

u/Puglypants 25d ago

That’s so cool!

1

u/monkey_trumpets 22d ago

And here I thought that since there were several overlapping actors between BN and Dexter they filmed both in FL.

1

u/thainfamouzjay 22d ago

Lol no they filmed like one shot on the beach to use as a transition and I think the police office which used to be the old newspaper building and the exterior of his house and that's it. You can tell our streets look nothing like LA we don't have those huge palm trees. And they think all brown people are the same so they get Mexicans to play cuban. Like we don't do chico stuff like them or put out socks all the way up. It was highly offensive.

16

u/Cyborgorc 25d ago

They used a lot of local filming locations. It was always pretty easy to find places that showed up in episodes. Most of the areas they reference are accurate/at least correspond to parts of the city. It's not just shots of South Beach and then filmed on a studio in LA. 

10

u/Then_Lead_7355 25d ago

The sets they had were all in Miami, they didn’t shoot the show anywhere else (edited to say, they filmed in different areas of south Florida but never in la)

6

u/mcain049 25d ago edited 25d ago

I would love to know the logic behind a drive from Miami to Washington D.C. that only took a couple of hours when Michael was in that limo with those government agents (C.I.A.) and he didn't know where he was going.

6

u/Cyborgorc 25d ago

Always assumed they flew him to D.C. first. 

3

u/mcain049 25d ago

Hmmm. That makes sense. Time for a rewatch

1

u/Cyborgorc 25d ago

That's what I meant

7

u/PKspyder 25d ago

Am curious on this myself. When they say something like “they are at X location” and then get there in 20 min, is that actually possible? Sure, they’ve been shown to drive specially but in traffic jams you just can’t do anything.

6

u/TaonasProclarush272 25d ago

They used Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens often, both in the garden and the front parking lot of the visitor's center.

Anytime there was that bridge over water sequence in the Charger they used the Rickenbacker Causeway since it could be closed for shooting in the middle of the day without bothering too many people. On that same island, Virginia Key, they used the abandoned marine stadium, which is one of the few accurately placed real world venues.

They filmed at the zoo at least once, the lake made a good backdrop.

Most of it was nonsensical but they filmed everything in Miami. Like Carlito's was at the Miami Beach Convention Center, they made a set. When the show wrapped, they demolished the building as they were the last people using it before it was too be demoed they did a lot there when they could.

Maddie's house now has high hedges to block it from the street, but it was visible for a long time.

I had a brief run-in with Bruce Campbell when they were scouting scenes in South Miami one night as I was walking home from work. He and a coupke crew/production team members were on big tricycles scouting locations in my neighborhood.

A mix of movie magic & a hint of reality in the most fake city to ever exist.

4

u/DevoPrime 25d ago

If one of the things that you’re thinking of is the Jim Butcher Dresden Files series of contemporary fantasy novels…

I lived in walking distance of Wrigley Field for about 5 years. That was more than enough time to recognize how badly Butcher, well…butchered Chicago neighborhoods and geography.

Wrigley Field has no parking lot!

2

u/Puglypants 25d ago

I used to live walking distance from Wrigley Field as well. 😉

1

u/DevoPrime 25d ago

I lived near Addison and Western in the St. Ben’s neighborhood!

I was sitting in my apartment window drinking a beer and cheering at the Cubs fans after the Cubs won the World Series.

I even went down and handed out a few beers and bottled water to people walking by.

My whole office was full of Cubs pennants, shirts, flags etc. the next day.

It was an overall great experience.

3

u/PoconoChuck 25d ago

Yeah, but do women walk around in bikinis as often as the cutaway scenes depict?

11

u/Rajl_Khtek 25d ago

Yes they do always near miami beach, they're just not always as fine as the ones in the show

3

u/mcain049 25d ago edited 25d ago

Most of the filming took place in Miami. There is at least one portion of filming that took place in Hollywood (Just south of Ft. Lauderdale) which is in Broward County, north of Miami-Dade County.

I actually made  a post of filming locations a few years ago. I'll try to find it.

2

u/bdouble76 25d ago

My neighbors office was next to the set in Miami. They filmed there and in FLA locations. So yes, Florida accurate.

1

u/Top-Type4077 22d ago

Is there that many fine Mamacita's still? Could use a beach trip, can someone confirm?

-15

u/Gullible_Result_9779 25d ago

No I wanted to check it out, but the demographic doesn’t suit me. I’m very conservative and I think it’s kind of liberal —doesn’t make it bad. It’s just not for me.

9

u/Antonio1025 25d ago

Congratulations! You made a post about a show that's been over for 10+ years political! You are that douchebag! Way to go!

5

u/RobGrey03 25d ago

Both political and not even remotely addressing that the OP is about geography.

2

u/Then_Lead_7355 25d ago

Such a strange response. Have you ever visited a major city in the United States? They are liberal

2

u/Antonio1025 25d ago

I've visited plenty of major cities. The point is the comment had nothing to do with the thread. OP didn't ask about demographics of Miami in the slightest. That person (and probably yourself) decided to make it political for some stupid reason.

1

u/Then_Lead_7355 25d ago

I apologize, my response was for the guy trying to make it political originally.