Warsaw local has website dedicated to documenting movie and tv show filming locations in Chicago and L.A.

WARSAW — A unique hobby for a Warsaw man has grown into a passion that he shares with others.

Chas Demster’s day job is at the Kosciusko County Department of Work Release, but when he’s not working, he has a hobby that occupies his time. Demster loves to search for buildings and locations where movies and TV shows have been filmed. He documents his findings by taking photos of various aspects of filming such as a location of a pivotal scene or houses, buildings and restaurants that are filmed. He shares them on his website.

Chas Demster

His website documents the locations of over 300 movies filmed in Chicago and Los Angeles. Demster has many TV shows on his website as well.

Demster’s love of scouting out filming locations began when he was around 13 years old. He had watched the movie, “The Blue’s Brothers,” which was filmed in Chicago. A family friend lived close to that area and asked if Demster would like to see some of the locations in real life.

Demster went with the friend to see where the movie was filmed and said he felt as if he was reliving some of the scenes in the movie. From that moment on Demster said, “I was hooked.”

Typically, he focuses on finding the locations of movies and shows that have been filmed primarily in the L.A. and Chicago area. Though, he has also pursued the locations of Indiana movies such as “Hoosiers,” and “Rudy.”

Every year, Demster spends a week in L.A. and several weekends in Chicago scouting out the filming locations for various movies and shows.

His first trip to L.A. was in 2002. It just so happened that he got to go because his mom won a trip out there and invited Demster to be her guest. They got to see a taping of “Friends” and he did his first tour of Warner Brother’s Studio. Since then, Demster has taken several tours of the Warner Brother’s Studio.

Before he takes his annual trek to L.A., a lot of preparation goes into the trip. Demster makes a game plan for the week. He chooses what area of the city he is going to go to and what buildings/locations he is searching for. Demster takes lots of screenshots of scenes from movies or shows of the areas he is searching for.

Over the years, he has learned various tips and clues to finding what he is looking for in Chicago and L.A. He explains a certain style of a house can give a clue as to what neighborhood the house is in. He mentioned the hardest items to find for movies may be houses because often they will have a fake house number in the scene.

Demster says a lot of it is, “Having an eye for the neighborhoods.”

It takes all kinds of resources to find the filming locations. The most basic tools are Bing Maps or Google street view. Demster has found that, “Location managers are key,” to finding specific areas. Over the years, he’s made relationships with many people who have worked on film sets. Many of them are helpful in Demster’s endeavor to find various locations.

Demster says he loves, “doing 80s and 90s movies,” because he can see an actual difference in locations. If it’s a more recent movie, nothing has changed. Demster mentioned one of his favorite movies is “The Karate Kid,” which was filmed in L.A.

While Demster loves aspects of planning his expeditions and his actually finding the hard to find places, one of the favorite aspects of his hobby is sharing his findings with others. People have said they love to see what the location of an old favorite scene looks like now. People have told him that they have seen some of these movies on their first date and that gives the movie a special meaning to them.

“I feel like I’m doing a public service.”