I used ispot to identify the production companies for the commercial and one of them, Carbonvfx has a photo from the shoot which showed a multi story building behind the neighborhood and using google earth I was able to identify the street as Orion Avenue in Van Nuys. Apparently it is a major filming location in the Valley for 50’s style homes.
The HOA has a website http://www.cameronwoods.org/
This thread has been much more rewarding than I ever imagined it would be. That’s some great detective work there, ctr22. Thank you very much. (Now I’ve got several cool to areas to explore next time I’m in L.A., a very good location for some great prime rib, and now if I want I can drive down and explore the exact street where the commercial was filmed.) I can’t thank you guys enough. I really appreciate all the help with this odd little curiousity of mine.
For anyone else interested, there’s a lot of info on that neighborhood at the website ctr22 linked to. Here’s a link to the neighborhood’s history page, which contains only some of the information available on the website. Among the info listed is that Audie Murphy once lived in one of the houses on that street, and The Jack Benny Show was written in an office behind another one. The houses apparently come up for sale very rarely and sell within a couple of hours when they do. I love neighborhoods like this and it’s fun to find to be able to find out so much information about this one, which for some reason really struck me the very first time I saw it in the commercial.
Only in LA would the homeowners association website have a Filming Information section and Special Filming Conditions already drafted.
I live in burbank. It seems like I pass 2 or 3 different productions on various streets/bars/restaurants/venues every day on my way to work. The big white production trucks are almost as common as busses.
And please dont think im bragging about it. Let it be known that im complaining. It sucks when you just want to go the grocery store and the road closures force you to go round about ways. Or your fav bar/restaurant is closed for filming when just want a damn club sandwhich.
Yeah, I can see how that would get to be a real drag after a while. A Google Earth image of that street showed semi-truck sized production vehicles parked all up and down that street. Apparently it plays home to between 35 to 45 movie, television and commercial filmings a year.
And as an aside it’s funny how much nicer the homes look in the commercial than they do in real life (via Google Street View). Not that they aren’t nice homes, but somehow they look better on camera - larger, cleaner, and more expensive-looking. As nice as that neighborhood is in reality, it isn’t as nice as some of the neighborhoods I’m familiar with which the commercial reminded me of. I noticed Ryan Reynolds seemed to look better too. He’s been showing up in magazines and on talk shows a lot lately and in the commercial he seems to look more full-bodied and not so long in the face. I guess this is all a result of the filmmaker’s art. It’s easy to see the value they deliver for their clients.
For me the real problem is how they get to put up blanket, legally-binding, official “No Parking” signs along whole blocks for an entire 24-hour period. It may not be such a problem in places like Tocluca Lake, but it definitely is where I live.
I worked in DTLA for 13 years and lived in it for the my last year in California. Few things gave me more road rage than when I’d get stuck at work late or on a weekend, and then get stopped trying to go home because a car commercial was being filmed and the crew was holding up traffic for several minutes at a time.
For folks who don’t live in or aren’t familiar with LA, you might be amazed at the high percentage of car commercials that are filmed in DTLA. Most of the tunnel shots you see are the 2nd/3rd Street tunnels between Figueroa and Hill. Lots of shots of cars driving up and down Bunker Hill on Grand Avenue between 3rd and 5th (usually right in front of the Wells Fargo towers). And if you ever notice this sculpture and fountain in the background of a car commercial, they’re on Flower Street between 5th and Wilshire.
Yeah, almost all of them–along with the requisite shot of the car going over the 4th St. Bridge on the east side of downtown, skyline in the background.
They sure love those tunnel shots, don’t they?
It’s very cool that I’ve not only been able to learn a likely area in L.A. where homes of the type shown in the commercial could be found, but the exact street and the exact homes to boot. As a result of reading some the information available online about how shoots are done in this neighborhood I’ve learned some interesting things about not only the neighborhood itself but how things are done prior to filming.
Apparently things can be done both within and outside the houses themselves to make them look better and/or to assist with filming. If you go down Orion Ave. using Google Street View you can the individual houses used in filming the Ryanville Hyundai commercial. The street view images are from about a year ago and yet there is a considerable difference in the way some of the houses in the commercial looked then vs. when the commercial was filmed more recently.
The house where the football scene was filmed is particularly notable. It looks like the original lawn was removed and new grass installed. Also a year ago the trees in the front yard had uneven brick borders around them and plants growing at their base, and these have all been removed leaving no visible trace. There’s another house on the block that appears to have been in the middle of improvements for another filming as it’s front lawn is smooth and totally devoid of grass, apparently awaiting new landscaping for an upcoming shoot.
It appears the residents are paid a fee for the use of their homes in commercials, movies, tv shows and so forth. I imagine they probably go along with landscaping and other improvements willingly as they undoubtedly get to keep whatever improvements were made.
Anyway, if anyone’s interested in seeing the contrast between the way these homes looked a year ago vs. how they looked at the Hyundai commercial was filmed, I was able to identify which homes were used for which scenes. Their addresses are as follows, the name of the street is Orion Ave.
Opening scene, house with arbor - 6395
Bicycle - 6333
Cop giving ticket - 6300
Jackhammer - 6233
Football - 6238
Dog walker - 6247
And in case you’re wondering - yes, I do have a lot of time on my hands. 
I’m stuck at home recovering from knee replacement surgeries.
Great job. I’ve lived all over the place, including a year in LA, and I would have said “Somewhere in Connecticut”. 
In researching the history of the houses on Orion Ave., Connecticut and other New England/Cape Cod influences were what the builder was going for. He originally intended to create an entire housing addition of homes like the ones there in that area. But just as he finished the homes on the two block stretch of Orion the city of Van Nuys changed its zoning to permit small tract homes to be built in the area, primarily for returning soldiers to buy on the GI bill. So now there’s that little two block long oasis of nice, picturesque homes on large scenic lots surrounded on all sides by small tract houses.
I was surprised to learn real estate values for the homes on Orion have plummeted last few years and the homes there are now worth only about half of what they were worth eight to ten years ago. Even at that the small ones are valued by Zillow at around a half million each, with the larger two-story homes going for $1.3 million or so.
Cheviot Hills? Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles - Wikipedia
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Whoops. Didn’t see that it had been answered.
They do shoot a lot of suburban type stuff in Cheviot Hills though.
No problem. Thanks for the suggestion.