Back Lot
The greatest filmmaker of all time has come out of hiding, and he needs your help to make his masterpiece. But will you be producing the next big blockbuster, or is there trouble in tinseltown? From the first frame to the final cut, it's lights, camera, action!
Poptropica Cheats for Back Lot Island
Curse that darn paparazzi! They think anyone in a golden blimp is a film star. Actually, they think anyone is a film star. Have a look around the town, and you'll discover that everybody is obsessed with movies here. It seems to be a copy of Hollywood. And there are coffee shops everywhere! Enter One of a Kind Talent Agency and talk to the receptionist. She'll think you look like a star... you, her, and everyone else too... and give you some advice on finding a thousand dollars for entering: "Harvey Scoops is looking for help with his gossip rag", whatever that means. Go right and you'll find a crazy-looking guy in a green shirt. He's Harvey Scoops! He'll tell you there's some unusual activity at Grand Majestic studios, and he wants you to help by taking a photo for his blog.
The camera is "broken". Run all the way left to Main Street and talk to the guy outside Celebrity Wax Museum. He'll give you a canister of film... come on, guys, we all know what film is, right??? USE it to put it in the camera, then to to Grand Majestic. Climb to the very top-right of the hideous green building to your left and USE camera. Look around with the camera... there's a person! Take the picture and you'll feel some rumbling... it's an EARTHQUAKE! That's the last thing you say before plummeting into the studio.
Soundstage 1
Hey, a dog! And shiny castle meadows! Okay, not really. Walk left, off the set, and you'll find out that you're inside the studio. Run right and click on the door to the recording room. Sofia May, the director's assistant, will answer some questions. Apparently Carson Willis, the lost director, the guy on the roof, is making a movie in secret and doesn't want to get caught. Inside the recording room you'll find a replica of a cabin in the snow wilderness somewhere. Kirk Strayer, an actor in this movie, will get mad at you and halt the scene. Nothing else to see here... leave and talk to Mrs. May, and she'll ask you to take the golf cart and look for Kirk, who's in his trailer most likely. Get into the cart and drive straight down. Turn right onto the road. Go down, turn right immediately (these are relative to the screen, by the way) and then up into the lot there, and then click on Kirk's purple trailer. Talk to the guy with the beard, who blames you. Then knock on the door of the trailer.
Kirk will give you an empty cup of coffee and ask you to refill it. Now drive the cart back to the first soundstage (where you started), open the gate by clicking on it, then exit the studio. Run all the way left to Main Street and enter the first Queequeg's coffee shop. Make sure to talk to the disheveled guy there. But they're out of Half-Caf Leviathan Latte-Espresso! We'll have to chose something different. Order the following:
- Espresso Decaf Infant-size
- exit and run to the next Queequeg's
- order Latte Full-caf infant-size
- USE one of the cups and pour them both into Kirk's cup
You must move your mouse (you have no cursor) when Kirk moves to keep him in the faint circle. This is what Kirk does:
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Exit the soundstage and get into the golf cart to start looking for people to help, as per the director's instructions. Go down, then turn right onto the first road. Drive all the way right, until the four-way intersection. Go up all the way, then turn right and enter Soundstage 2. Enter the recording room. Mrs. May is angry at the scriptwriter and you need to get the script from him. But we know where he is... exit the stage, and drive to Soundstage 1. Climb to the top of the stage building and talk to the scriptwriter. Just as he announces how genius his work is, the script is blown away by the wind. A recurring theme in Poptropica, don't you think? Run left and exit the Studios.
- Climb to the top of the theater from the left side. Use the little red claw-looking thing to launch yourself to the roof. Collect the first piece.
- Jump right, to the top of the hideous green building. Grab the script piece snagged on the antenna.
- Run to Main Street and climb the first Queequeg's. Grab the script piece on the big neon logo.
- Jump across the rooftops to the left until you reach the Celebrity Wax Museum. Grab the script piece on the left side.
Soundstage 2
Now return to Soundstage 2 and try to give them to Mrs. May. They're not in the right order! EXAMINE the script pages. You have to drag the correct page numbers on each of them; this part is easy, but I have an image of the completed script to the left (click to enlarge). But now she needs a new lead actor! Go to the talent agency on Main Street and USE the picture on the receptionist. She'll reveal that she, herself, is Lacey Williams! Drive back to Soundstage 2. Whew! Lots of running around on this island. [Here are the written instructions, showing which first line goes to which page:
- The Many-Splendored Zephyr
- PILOT: "I know what you're thinking. You can't come with me!"
- PILOT: "What is it?"
- The NAVIGATOR smiles bravely. The baloon starts to ascend and exits the frame. The NAVIGATOR waves.]
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Talk to the people there. Apparently now you have to get dressed to play the part of the Navigator. Climb onto the stage, then jump left to the dressing room. Click GET DRESSED to get ready. Now you have to fill in some dialogue from the script. If you didn't read the script, here are the instructions:
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Soundstage 3
Leave the soundstage to the left and drive down until you reach the first four-way intersection. Drive left all the way to the end, then turn down and turn right, into the third Soundstage. Enter the stage room and walk left, to the wild-west-themed scrolling backdrop. Keep going left and talk to Mrs. May. The prop builder is absent, too. Don't these guys have any sense of responsibility? Click on the prop bin to start building a train. This part is kind of tough: you have to use a set of Tetris-like wood blocks to fill in the outlines of three different trains. Follow the pictures below.
You cannot rotate pieces and there is always the correct amount and shapes of pieces available. I have to say, it's kind of hard, but if you're good at Tetris (unlike myself) you can get it done pretty quickly. If there is an open space of one, two, or three squares, you have to move pieces around it; that's the only way. That's all I can say! Now Mrs. May will give you the task of finding an actor who can play the role of a cowboy with a white hat and one with a black hat. You can find these in the room just above the entrance. Exit the Studios and onto Sunrise Street. *sigh* Don't these movie guys have decent casting people???
Run left onto Main Street and enter the first Queequeg's. USE the black hat to give it to the unshaven ex-actor. Then leave and run left, to Digital Dreamscapes. Run all the way left and give the white hat to the guy dressed up in the tracking suit. Then return to Soundstage 3. Click on Mrs. May to take on your next movie challenge: special effects.
All you have to do here is click the appropriate button for the special effect that gets called out.
- "Cue the tornado" -> left, twister icon
- "Cue the villain" -> middle, hat icon
- "We need more buffalo!" -> right, animal icon
Soundstage 4 Leave the stage and drive to the left, then down on the road there all the way. Turn right and drive all the way, before turning down and shortly turning right, into the fourth soundstage. Enter the building, only to witness another one of Kirk's tantrums. I guess you can add "once played a gorilla in a movie nobody has ever heard of" to your résumé. Wear the suit and climb onto the stage. Now follows a minigame in which you have to climb to the top of a cluster of buildings to pop a red balloon, then pretending to be shot down by airplanes. You also have to destroy all green balloons on the way up. Enemy soldiers and rocket launches will stand in your way, which can be destroyed by landing squarely on them, but just hitting them from the side is ineffective. The launchers flash red before firing, and the soldiers get an angry expression before charging. Now drive left, out of the Soundstage 4 area, and enter the building to your left.
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Post-Production Talk to Mr. Willis, then follow him to the left, into Film Editing. Click on the station set-up on the table. What you have to do now is cut out the incorrect frame from each of three scenes. Use the slider to move the film, and draw lines all the way across the frame to cut it out. Move the slider left to move the film up, and right to move it down. Cut out the frame with the cowboy holding a feather instead of a gun, cut out the frame with a sound boom above the Navigator, and the one with electrical wires spouting out of the bear's arm. Funny how we didn't see these errors before...
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On to sound editing! Run all the way to the room at the right and click on the station. Now this is probably even trickier than the last one... you have to click the appropriate sound button when the prompt tells you to, while watching the movie. The icons aren't too descriptive. Follow these in order:
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The Movie
Now we have to take the film reels to the theater! Exit the Studios and run left, to the cinemas. Talk to Mrs. May. Huh! Why wouldn't Willis see his own film? Anyway, enter the cinemas. Climb to the top left and USE the reels of film in the projector room. This movie doesn't make any sense! Basically, here is how it goes:
Finally, the medal after much hard work! But there's still more...
- Navigator scene a pilot falls into the sea to his death
- Cabin scene a guy's cabin is haunted and he runs out
- Western scene a bandit is chased across a train and pushed off
- Gorilla scene a gorrilla climbs a building, grabs a red balloon, and is shot down, before revealing that he is a human.
Finally, the medal after much hard work! But there's still more...
Members-only Souvenir Stealing Bonus Quest
There's still another quest waiting for us yet! It's... turning a camera off?? Enter SoundStage 1 and grab the camera. Wait, who are those two ladies? They're the real owners of the Studios! Wherever were they before? Now you'll have to make a break for it from Studio security. You have to avoid the security cars for two minutes while collecting green dots to improve protection and using rockets to improve speed. The boosts are not easily found, until the end. My strategy is to drive crazily near the edge of the roads and suddenly turn near the corners. This keeps the security at bay. KEEP MOVING, even if you lose the guys chasing you. I made a demo video for this, too.