American Wedding|Plaza Park, Old Towne Orange — The Circle That Plays East Great Falls

The film finds East Great Falls in its first minutes, and what the camera is actually looking at is a one-acre circle of grass in Orange County where two streets cross and the traffic has to go around. Chapman Avenue runs east to west. Glassell Street runs north to south. A fountain sits at the centre and brick storefronts ring it on all four quadrants, built when packing oranges was the local industry. The production did almost nothing to the place. That is why it was chosen: it already looked like the small American town the American Pie films kept insisting their characters came from, so a few signs were enough. Stand in the southeast quadrant facing north and the opening composition lines up in front of you. Antique dealers fill most of the ground floors now, as they did in 2003. On a Sunday morning the circle fills with people eating breakfast on the kerb, which is nearer the film's idea of the town than any set builder could have managed.