Lompoc Celebrates Best Picture Winner, Partially Filmed At La Purisima
LOMPOC, Calif. (KEYT) - The historic mission in Lompoc appears in portions of last night’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture.
One of the filmmakers is from Santa Barbara county as well.
“One Battle After Another” had quite the social buzz leading up to the Oscars, as it was written nearly twenty years ago but has become sharply relevant to the world we live in now.
Among six Oscars, “One Battle After Another” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson won Best Picture.
And its Best Film Editing award went to a graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Andy Jurgensen.
“I want to give a special thank you to my editorial crew, who worked their butts off behind the scenes,” said Jurgensen in his acceptance speech. “You guys are amazing. Thank you to Paul. Thank you for taking me on this journey and our collaboration. Thank you to the wonderful cast and crew.”
La Purisima Mission in Lompoc was selected for a location shoot for several scenes in the film.
“It's very cavernous,” says Jurgensen. “Especially that chapel. And so when lockjaw is, like, screaming at her and they're kind of yelling at each other, it really it has, like, a really cool effect.”
Already a popular tourist attraction on the central coast, La Purisima Mission has stood for over two centuries and contains a rich history.
“The convent scenes were all filmed at Mission La Purisima,” says David Bolton, California Missions Foundation Executive Director. “The chapel, the colonnade, all of the surrounding areas allowed for the entire convent scenes.”
The filmmakers wanted to capture the authentic atmosphere, and they also wanted to avoid having to film a key scene with any special effects, and that made La Purisima’s neighboring hills an ideal practical location.
“Bob is driving up the hill and looking down at the mission,” says Jurgensen. “Like we really wanted to do that practically so that we could use a hill that would look down on the mission so that we, you know, didn't have to green screen.”
During the two weeks of filming in the summer of 2024, cast and crew were booked at several of Lompoc’s hotels.
Jurgensen made sure to make a shout-out to his family from the Oscar stage: “Love to my parents and my sisters who are up in the balcony somewhere.”
La Purisima’s visitor center is open for tours most days of the week, showcasing the rich history that goes back much further than last night’s Oscar-Winning film.
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