Possible or Not?
Ferris, Sloane, and Cameron spend one amazing day ditching school, exploring the great city of Chicago and take time to visit many landmarks and take part in many exciting activities. The day depicted in the movie would be a great and exciting day for anyone, but is it possible for them to have done all of the things they did in one day? I believe it is reasonable to believe that Ferris and company may have been able to do all the things they did in the movie in one day. The first thing that needs to be looked at is where Ferris lives. Ferris most likely lives within 10 minutes of his school considering he lives in the Chicago area and there are many high schools, he wouldn't live too far from his high school. That is all just logic. Ferris' school was shot at Glenbrook North High School which is at 2300 Shermer Road Northbrook, IL 60062. Using this site and assuming Ferris' house is ten minutes away the journey begins. It is assumed that Ferris and Cameron pick up Sloane at 10 a.m. from school so this is when the timing starts. From school they head to downtown Chicago in Cameron dad's 1961 Ferrari GT California, which has a top speed of 155 mph . Despite this we can assume that with Ferris driving, and him being a very daring and confident teenager, he was likely driving between 80 and 90 mph on the open freeways to downtown. Ferris had to travel about 22 miles to the parking garage in downtown Chicago, 18 of which were on a freeway. Assuming Ferris drives about 80 mph it would take him less then 15 minutes on the freeway and probably another 10 minutes on surface streets to get to the parking garage. The parking garage was located on the corner of Madison and Wells in downtown Chicago. This would make the time about 10:25 a.m. when they reached the parking garage to drop off the Ferrari. From the parking garage Ferris and his friends go to the top of Sears Tower and look down. It is approximately