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(CNN) — After taking several big trips as a couple, Robin Lachhein and Judith Schneider, both from Frankfurt, Germany, wanted to do something extra special for their next vacation.
They discussed several possible ideas before coming up with something that got them both excited: traveling to a filming location and recreating a famous scene.
In 2014, they visited Prague and re-enacted a clip from the 1996 movie “Mission: Impossible”, capturing the moment on camera.
Over the next few years, Lachhein and Schneider visited everywhere from Rome and Iceland to New York and even Utah, shooting scenes or promotional shots from movies like “Thelma and Louise,” “The Hunger Games,” “Eat Pray Love,” “The Devil.” Wears Prada” and TV series such as “Game of Thrones” and “Downton Abbey”.
The account now has more than 53,000 followers, including Oscar winners Hilary Swank and Marion Cotillard among those who post in the comments section.
Classic reenactments
Lachhein, 32, and Schneider, 31, who met 11 years ago at a friend’s birthday party, say they’re thrilled that their somewhat unusual hobby is getting so much attention, especially since they never intended to share the images with the world .
“At first, we just want to take the photos for our living room so we can have great memories of the places we’ve visited,” Lachhein told CNN Travel. “But more and more people reacted to these photos.”
According to Lachhein, some of their friends assumed the images had been Photoshopped, and were stunned to learn that they had actually traveled to the places in the movies, dressed as the characters and taken their photos at an identical angle.
“We laughed when we first talked about dressing up as actors, because that’s a lot of work,” says Schneider. “But then we tried.”
They also go to great lengths to make sure the angle is as close to the original photo as possible.
“You have to have the right angle, the right perspective and stand exactly where the actor or actress was,” explains Lachhein.
The first shoot they did didn’t quite go according to plan. After they got dressed, put on the right make-up and went to the Charles Bridge in Prague to mirror a pose of Tom Cruise in the first of the “Mission: Impossible” movies, it started to rain uncontrollably.
Lachhein and Schneider had little choice but to return and meet again the next day. Fortunately, they were eventually able to get the shot they needed, and soon they started planning other filming locations.
‘We have to improvise’
However, recreating an iconic movie or TV scene isn’t as easy as showing up at the location one day and pulling out a camera.
The couple often has to plan a lot to determine exactly where the spot in the sequence they want to focus on is and how to get there.
They walked for hours to get to the spot where Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling dance in the 2016 movie “La La Land”, while villagers stood by to help them find a specific rock in New Zealand from the action-adventure movie “10,000” from 2008 to be found. before Christ.”
“If it’s not such a big movie, then it’s a bit difficult,” Lachhein explains. “Then there are many hours of research on Google Maps to find the overview of the area.”
On some occasions, they had to be allowed to take pictures in a certain place, as was the case when the pair reenacted scenes from the 2020 movie “Tenet” at Villa Cimbrone in Ravello, Italy and “Star Wars: Episode II Attack”. of the clones” on Lake Como.
Then there’s the small matter of making sure they have clothes that are identical to the movie or TV characters they appear in.
“We always try to use things we already have so we don’t buy a lot of stuff,” says Schneider, who explains how they made a chain from a piece of steel for a certain “Star Wars” scene.
“Or we borrow from our friends. Sometimes it’s very easy, you might need jeans, white shoes and a shirt. But for something like ‘Game of Thrones’ it’s very complicated. We have to improvise a lot.”
One of the most popular images on their account is a reproduction of a scene from the 1994 movie “Forrest Gump” shot in Monument Valley, in which they enlisted a group of travelers to stand in the background to make it look more authentic. to show.
If the place they need happens to be a popular tourist spot, such as the sofa from the 2014 movie “The Fault In Our Stars” starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, which is next to the Leidsegracht in Amsterdam, the picture gets that they need can be even more challenging.
“There were a lot of people who wanted to sit there,” Schneider says. “So we waited and waited until it was empty.”
Celebrity Support
Their painstakingly precise efforts have proven to be a hit on Instagram, with Swank giving the account her endorsement when she said, “That’s unbelievable!” in their image from her 2007 film “PS I Love You,” which also starred Gerard Butler.
However, Welsh actor Tom Cullen, who played Viscount Gillingham in “Downton Abbey”, was the first star to post, writing “nailed” on their image, a rendition of a scene from the popular ITV show captured outside Highclere. Castle in the UK.
“At that point, we might have had three photos and 300 followers or something like that,” says Schneider. “So that was a lot of fun [of him].”
Since they both work full-time, Lachhein and Schneider plan their trips within the six weeks of vacation they get each year.
While some of their followers assume that the couple’s travels are financed by their families, they emphasize that they pay for everything themselves and make no money from their photos.
They try to avoid Photoshop as much as possible so that the photos are a true representation of the location, but admit that they occasionally use filters and/or change colors to enhance an image.
While the couple don’t necessarily choose their vacation destinations based on the movies they want to make, Lachhein admits that the prospect of visiting the filming location for the 2010 film “Inception” played a big part in their decision to move to the United States in 2017. to go to Paris.
“‘Inception’ is my favorite movie. I wanted to do this scene with Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard at the [Pont de Bir-Hakeim] bridge looking at the eiffel tower.
“So then we had to go to Paris. And we combined the trip with different movies and series.”
They have been particularly touched by the effort some of the locals have gone to to ensure they get the exact picture they need.
“People are so proud that these filming locations are in their city,” explains Schneider. “And they try to help us a lot. They are so nice.’
While the pandemic put many of their foreign travels on hold for a while, the couple was able to tour Germany to take photos and also visit Italy in the summer of 2020.
While they haven’t been able to travel as much as they’d like in the past few months, they’ve focused on writing an eBook with tips for other travelers eager to seek out specific filming locations.
And despite having shot about 100 film and TV scenes, Lachhein and Schneider have many more on their wish list and plan to visit London, New York and Australia in the near future.
“The list [of locations] is long,” says Schneider. “I think we’re going to be working on this for quite a few years to come.”
This story was originally published in June 2021 and updated in August 2022.
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