the vulture spot

Fairyland Magicked Up a 1970s San Francisco

The thing about shooting a movie set in 1970s San Francisco in 2023 is that those two time periods are actually not the same. The world changes! So when Fairyland, a movie based on a memoir of the same name by Alysia Abbott about growing up with a gay dad during the height of the AIDS epidemic in San Fran, decided to shoot on location, the team had their work cut out for them. “San Francisco in the ’70s was the coolest thing to see in a movie,” said director Andrew Durham at the film’s Sundance premiere. “The production team did an incredible job at finding those places,” added Scoot McNairy, who plays Steve Abbott in the film. Above, see the team discuss how they accomplished their time machine, along with:

➽ How Durham’s real life inspired him to make his directorial debut by adapting this memoir
➽ How they made the movie for the illiterate community
➽The weird trick Adam Lambert uses to make his ice cream taste better

Fairyland Magicked Up a 1970s San Francisco