The other factor that made California the location choice was the state's many Japanese gardens. The production filmed in such places as Huntington Gardens in San Marino; San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, which has a pagoda and pond; Saratoga's Hakone Gardens, which has an authentic tea house and was designed by a Japanese emperor's landscape architect; and Descanso Gardens in the Los Angeles suburb of La Canada, where the production diverted a stream and created hot springs.

"It would have cost millions to create these gardens, and they stood in for six or seven locations," says location manager Mike Fantasia.

No location was left unturned. Even Yamashiro restaurant in Hollywood, built in 1914 as a replica of a Japanese estate with an actual 600-year-old pagoda, was used in three scenes in the movie, including doubling as a geisha school.

With all of California's beauty on display, preserving nature was the order of the day. Fantasia, who worked at the U.S. Forest Service, is known for his respect and protection of locations, and the production gained access to sensitive locations precisely because of his reputation.

At Ventura Farms, for example, there was a creek that ran by the set, and the production had several workers who did nothing but maintain it, using erosion fencing and sandbags. (The site itself was regraded, reseeded and irrigated so it looked exactly like it did before the "Geisha" crew arrived.) When the production shot at Moss Beach, Fantasia made sure hundreds of bales of hay were put on trails leading to the site so four-wheelers could take cast, crew and equipment to the shoot.

"It took a lot more time to get everything done this way, it took a lot more energy, it took a lot more money, but that's what it took to shoot in these locations," he says.