ABSTRACT
What constitutes a cinematic city? Investigations have queried the role of cities in film, the relation between proto-cinematic devices and cities, and cities as backlots for film production. Whereas hermeneutical analysis tends to frame cinema as representational, cinema reflects more-than-representational activities of the production and consumption of film. The formation of a cinematic city is a complex and ongoing production of a topological web of networks and practices. It is also constituted by locational image facts that remain invariant to the transformations of turning filmed sights/sites, into narrative scenes. The cinematic city is constituted through an ontogenetic landscape at work. This chapter contests the notion that cinematic cites are only worldly cities with dense iconographic networks of recognizable locations. Using geographic information system analysis, in-depth interviews, and fieldwork, this chapter examines how cinematic topologies are created and maintained through social networks and filmed sites which produce unique backlots within the city. 3,790 filmed sites were geocoded from documents provided by the San Diego Film Commission which reflects most of the production that occurred between 1985 and 2005. The topological metaphor is a useful tool to engage the cinematic city as a more-than-representational series of ongoing practices.
