Strolling Williamsburg Pic Spam Part 1
As promised, I bring you picspam from strolling through Williamsburg. All the photos are from Thursday, but first, a bit of information on Williamsburg for those that might not know anything about my silly little town.
Williamsburg was the capital of Virginia for most of the eighteenth century. Jamestown was the first British settlement in North America and served as the colonial capital until it was burnt in an uprising in 1676. At that point, the capital was moved away from the coast, just up the James River to Williamsburg. The capital was again moved to Richmond, its current location, in the 1780s or 1790s, I think. Something like that. When Williamsburg was the capital, the town centered around Duke of Gloucester (DoG) street. DoG street currently runs about a mile with the edge of the College of William and Mary campus at one end and the old Capitol building where the colonial legislature, the House of Burgesses, met. The bit of DoG street closest to the college is Merchant's Square, home of the university Barnes and Noble, tons of little tourist shops, over priced clothing, jewelry, and collectible shops, a handful of restaurants, and a decent candy store. The rest of DoG Street, the majority of it, has been rebuilt to look like it did in approximately 1775 and is owned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Colonial Williamsburg (CW), including but not limited to DoG street, is the largest outdoor living history museum in at least the US. A bazillion tourists come every year to find out a bit about life in colonial America with costumed interpreters explaining everything.
I live in the College of William and Mary Graduate Apartment Complex. Walking North from my apartment, first you'll come to the Law School, then a small park, then the DeWitt Wallace Museum, then the beginnings of Merchant's Square and DoG Street. For the purposes of this post, we are skipping the law school and the park. The DeWitt Wallace Museum is part of CW. The building was originally built in 1773 as a hospital but the current museum focuses on textiles, potteries, silver, and other decorative arts from the colonial period with only a small section explaining the history of the building and a bit about the history of health and medicine.
Early last week, I noticed there was something going on in the field in front of the DeWitt Wallace Museum, largely involving the erection of what appeared to be replicas of colonial soldiers' tents. This is hardly an unusual occurrence in Williamsburg but since I had my camera out on Thursday for the photo meme, I decided I'd take the five minute stroll down the street to see if the tents and hospital would make for some decent photos. When I got down there, I discovered that the tents were there because someone was filming something and this was the set. I never was able to see any of the people as in director, actors, etc. I only saw crew running around telling everyone watching to stay on a certain street and off another and to put cell phones on vibrate if sticking around to watch the filming. I also heard the occasional yell for silence followed by "Action," but I still have no idea what was being filmed. Oh well, I got nice pictures of the set.
During actual filming, they had a machine blowing smoke or something. I'm not sure what they were trying to do but they certainly covered the roof with white gunk.
Just as I have no idea what they were doing with the smoke, I don't know why the ground is covered in white tarps.
Here you can see people, part of the film crew, moving around by the big tent.
Pulled back a bit to get a better idea of the landscape, hooray trees.
Closer in on the tents
I thought the wagon in this picture was cool so I took a couple of close ups of it.
Based on the flag, I'm assuming whatever they were filming was Revolutionary War stuff and this was a British encampment. I'm fairly certain one of the English generals really did turn the public hospital into his headquarters and a hospital for his men so there would have been troops camped all around and there would have been British flags flying.
Just another angle on the wagon. Pretty, yes?
Those are all the good pictures from the filming. After I left the museum, I walked up and down DoG street for a bit and took a lot more pictures, but I've probably overwhelmed everyone with these eight and my long explanations so I'll post the regular CW ones later. Maybe tomorrow.
Williamsburg was the capital of Virginia for most of the eighteenth century. Jamestown was the first British settlement in North America and served as the colonial capital until it was burnt in an uprising in 1676. At that point, the capital was moved away from the coast, just up the James River to Williamsburg. The capital was again moved to Richmond, its current location, in the 1780s or 1790s, I think. Something like that. When Williamsburg was the capital, the town centered around Duke of Gloucester (DoG) street. DoG street currently runs about a mile with the edge of the College of William and Mary campus at one end and the old Capitol building where the colonial legislature, the House of Burgesses, met. The bit of DoG street closest to the college is Merchant's Square, home of the university Barnes and Noble, tons of little tourist shops, over priced clothing, jewelry, and collectible shops, a handful of restaurants, and a decent candy store. The rest of DoG Street, the majority of it, has been rebuilt to look like it did in approximately 1775 and is owned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Colonial Williamsburg (CW), including but not limited to DoG street, is the largest outdoor living history museum in at least the US. A bazillion tourists come every year to find out a bit about life in colonial America with costumed interpreters explaining everything.
I live in the College of William and Mary Graduate Apartment Complex. Walking North from my apartment, first you'll come to the Law School, then a small park, then the DeWitt Wallace Museum, then the beginnings of Merchant's Square and DoG Street. For the purposes of this post, we are skipping the law school and the park. The DeWitt Wallace Museum is part of CW. The building was originally built in 1773 as a hospital but the current museum focuses on textiles, potteries, silver, and other decorative arts from the colonial period with only a small section explaining the history of the building and a bit about the history of health and medicine.
Early last week, I noticed there was something going on in the field in front of the DeWitt Wallace Museum, largely involving the erection of what appeared to be replicas of colonial soldiers' tents. This is hardly an unusual occurrence in Williamsburg but since I had my camera out on Thursday for the photo meme, I decided I'd take the five minute stroll down the street to see if the tents and hospital would make for some decent photos. When I got down there, I discovered that the tents were there because someone was filming something and this was the set. I never was able to see any of the people as in director, actors, etc. I only saw crew running around telling everyone watching to stay on a certain street and off another and to put cell phones on vibrate if sticking around to watch the filming. I also heard the occasional yell for silence followed by "Action," but I still have no idea what was being filmed. Oh well, I got nice pictures of the set.
During actual filming, they had a machine blowing smoke or something. I'm not sure what they were trying to do but they certainly covered the roof with white gunk.
Just as I have no idea what they were doing with the smoke, I don't know why the ground is covered in white tarps.
Here you can see people, part of the film crew, moving around by the big tent.
Pulled back a bit to get a better idea of the landscape, hooray trees.
Closer in on the tents
I thought the wagon in this picture was cool so I took a couple of close ups of it.
Based on the flag, I'm assuming whatever they were filming was Revolutionary War stuff and this was a British encampment. I'm fairly certain one of the English generals really did turn the public hospital into his headquarters and a hospital for his men so there would have been troops camped all around and there would have been British flags flying.
Just another angle on the wagon. Pretty, yes?
Those are all the good pictures from the filming. After I left the museum, I walked up and down DoG street for a bit and took a lot more pictures, but I've probably overwhelmed everyone with these eight and my long explanations so I'll post the regular CW ones later. Maybe tomorrow.