Avengers, Assemble the Goonies! How SetJetters Connects Movie Fans to Their Favorite Film & TV Locations

The first (and only) time I visited Boston was when the Yellow Pages were still delivered to neighborhood doorsteps. It was the days of 56 kbps dial-up internet, T9 texting, and MapQuest directions. But it was also an era of extraordinary filmmaking that saw the release of Goodfellas, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Titanic, Fight Club, and Good Will Hunting, from, at the time, two unheard of writers named Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The movie follows a troubled genius (Damon) who eventually finds his way with the help of a therapist played by Robin Williams. What made the film for me was an unassuming scene where the two characters sit on a park bench and talk about what makes life worth living. The film fan in me wanted to sit on that very bench. I found out it was located in the Boston Public Garden, but exactly where was a bit of a mystery. With the help of some locals, I was able to eventually find it and relive that scene in my own way.

Today, that bench is part of Boston filmmaking lore and easy to find with modern smartphones, as well as on local tours. Thanks to internet sleuths, finding the locations of your favorite films and television shows is much easier. It’s also a booming part of the tourism industry, with some of the biggest draws being Lord of the Rings tours in New Zealand and Game of Thrones tours throughout Belfast and Croatia.

Capturing that same magic is SetJetters, a mobile app that connects movie-lovers to thousands of film locations from over 900 movies across 47 countries and 600 cities. Its quintet of creators includes Charlie Hartsock, Erik Nachtrieb, Viv Smith, Kate Edwards, and Karl Norsen, who made the travel-inspired map from the movies they love. “I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of film locations and shooting on location, and the travel aspect of that,” says Hartsock, who got his start in Hollywood as an actor before producing films like Crazy, Stupid, Love, starring Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, and Julianne Moore. “It’s that moment of emotional connection that you get with a scene, a storyline that you’re immersed in. And that’s the connective tissue that the studio has given to fans by bringing these stories to life. With SetJetters, what we hope to do is make that life continue forever.”

We chat with Harstock and Nachtrieb about giving movie fanatics like me a chance to visit the very spots where cinematic magic took place.

Where did the idea for SetJetters come from?

Charlie: When I was a kid, the film that I watched that impacted me the most was To Catch a Thief. For a small-town Ohio kid, Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in the south of France, there’s not a lot wrong there. That really opened my eyes to the world of Hollywood, acting, and travel. And then the origin of SetJetters came about when, back in 2005, I was hired to shoot a commercial, and it was going to shoot in Japan. It was shortly after Lost in Translation had come out, and the production company booked the entire commercial to almost follow the path of Lost in Translation.

When we got to Tokyo, we stayed at the Park Hyatt Hotel, did karaoke at Karaoke Kan, and shot on the same golf course where Bill Murray has that one quick scene. Every time we got to one of those locations, watching the people’s experiences, this light bulb went off of that emotional connection to a movie you love, and then you’re actually standing in the location.

Yes, for film fans, there is nothing like standing in the same location as one of their favorite characters. I’m curious to know how the core team came together.

Erik: Fast forward to 2018, and my business partner, Viv [Smith], and I met Charlie, and we ended up having a lot in common. Charlie liked the way that we produced things, and he said, You know, I’ve got this kind of show kicking around that I’d like to get going. It was called SetJetters, and the concept was with a host that would go and visit film locations and create a series out of that. And right when we were starting to write something up, COVID hit. And we’re like, holy crap, what are we going to do? And we thought, well, let’s build an app that does that, and a show can come out later.

So with the pivot, how did you approach building the app during the pandemic?

Erik: I have to admit that Charlie, I, or Viv, couldn’t type you one line of code, but we had the concept of the idea, so we started writing it down on paper. Then we recruited Kate Edwards, who is a longtime gamer and a map enthusiast. She consulted for Microsoft, MapQuest, and Google Maps. Then we got hold of Karl Norsen, a senior VP of digital at Edelman, a big ad agency. We all started doing Google documents, chicken scratches, and core loops for the user, figuring out how we would monetize, and put together what we felt we wanted to present to the cinephile or film tourist. As Charlie said, where they can emotionally reconnect with that scene, have that experience in that moment, and then experience everything that we coined beyond the frame.

What makes SetJetters different from searching for the information online?

Charlie: Some websites talk about movie locations and stuff, but what we saw as a company was that void after the production left. They had a footprint on the ground and brought a lot of great jobs for however long production was on the ground. Afterward, it was how those incentives could be recouped at the state level in different ways. People are traveling and going to the locations, and what we decided to do is not just show the fan where it was shot, but also work with the local community on having them have a way to extend that long tail of the tax incentive revenue. So it’s not just shut off in the community when the production leaves, but there’s a tourism stream coming in following that will last forever.

Once you’re at a location, the app offers various interactive content. How did those ideas come about?

Erik: Film tourism has been going on for decades. When social media started, they started posting pictures, and they were editing photos in this split screen, or some people were holding pictures in pictures. And we thought it was better not to reinvent the wheel. Let’s give them what they’re trying to do at home. Let’s create the tools that can help them create what they want to make. So we sat down and figured out how to do that so that they could post on their social media what they wanted and how they wanted from the experience.

I’d imagine those app features are constantly changing.

Erik: Yeah, it’s still evolving in several ways. For instance, you can post a shot sync attached to a scene right now. And then you can make another post for another picture and scene. So we’re looking at ways to create a carousel that’s attached to a scene and a bunch of different ways that they can present it, not only inside of SetJetters, but outside of SetJetters. A lot of social media wants to keep you trapped on the app. We want them to carry this to other social media and spread it around. 

Are there specific features coming?

Erik: We have things like augmented reality on our roadmap.  Some people call what we do augmented reality, but it’s not; it’s just a shot sync. But augmented reality and other things that are on our roadmap, where we want places where we want to go with this, you know, where we really want them to be able to do things like, you know, if you’re in a Star Wars scene, you know, hold a lightsaber, so is there a way to drop a lightsaber into the scene, that sort of thing. It’s just responding to what the film fan wants and then taking it a step or two further.

The app also offers unique experiences. For instance, visitors of the Oregon Trail can scan a QR code and experience locations from the classic 1959 film. That was made possible through a partnership with the state. Can other tourist destinations partner with the app in a similar way?

Erik: This is a question we’ve had for several years. How can a studio, a film office, the tourism board, or a chamber of commerce be a part of this and capitalize? We sat down with the Association of Film Commissioners International about a year ago to write up the best practices because no one really knows where to intersect with film tourism. From that, we will try to suggest a way for the different entities to get involved. Some already have, for instance, our biggest partners, such as film commissions. Film commissions want to measure film tourism for the first time. Our app can collect anonymous, aggregated data for our partners.

Data to help build out experiences, or is there more to it?

Erik: Yes. But for instance, the film offices collect information and repackage it, and they can lobby their legislature to keep or to grow their incentives. And we have partners doing that right now. Oregon has an infographic video built around the data we collected in Oregon in 2023. And it turns out, film tourism brought in almost as much money and revenue to the state as the actual productions did on the ground while they were there. And so now, they can go back and say, look, our tax incentive dollar has created $3 for every one incentive dollar, which they’ve never been able to say before.

How about the studio side?

Erik: It’s more of a marketing play for the studios. We’ve had a couple of studios approach us discussing how we can market to you. People don’t realize that these movies you’ve never heard of, these scenes you’ve never heard of, these old movies you forgot about, are still hugely popular, very popular. People have been migrating to these locations for decades. They watch the film several times a year. And so we’re really revitalizing these aging film libraries around the world.  And not just films you see on the bigger streaming areas but the small domestic films and documentaries. We’re revitalizing and giving life to this filmography.

Fans can submit locations to the app for consideration, but what’s your approach to integrating new destinations?  

Charlie: We know the studios want to keep their stories and storylines private and surprise their audience, so we don’t release anything pre-production. We don’t release anything until the show or movie drops. Having been a storyteller in Hollywood, I know how important it is to keep that excitement for the fans available. But the minute it comes out, people start looking. A great example right now is White Lotus. Everybody wants to know where it is. There’s an opportunity for not just the big scenes, but all the tiny little local spots. If you’re in Thailand, we’ll tell you where the snake pit is. We’ll let you know where that off-road temple on the back roads at the beginning of the first episode is. We’ll tell you where in town they stood when the gals had to get away from the water guns.

So, for us, we want to activate the location and activate the fan. Not everybody can get to Hollywood and go on the studio tours, but they can find something that was shot in downtown Cleveland and stand where the Avengers stood when they shot Cleveland for New York.

This article is part of an on-going series that brings awareness to businesses and people of the film and television community. SetJetters is a member of the California Production Collation. You can find more about them here.

Featured image: The Gooniese, Ecola State Park, Oregon. Courtesy SetJetters.