Do you recognize these BC spots in Netflix's new survival show? (PHOTOS)
Did you know Netflix’s survival drama series, Keep Breathing, is set in the wilderness of our very own “beautiful British Columbia?”
Keep Breathing portrays the cathartic journey of a no-nonsense New York lawyer, Liv Rivera, whose plane crashes on its way to northern Canada. In the show, the protagonist, played by In the Heights actress Melissa Barrera, must struggle with her past to find the strength to survive in the wild.
Keep Breathing is #1 Worldwide 🤯
So proud of the incredible team that made this serene thriller that is resonating with so many people. And thank you for all your DM’s and tweets about how much it’s meant to you all. pic.twitter.com/KnjZyFywSP
— Martin Gero (@martingero) July 30, 2022
Recognize the view that the main character is stuck with? Chances are you have walked the same path!
“Keep Breathing was filmed mainly around Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, and Squamish, Whistler, Mission, and Cobble Hill in Vancouver Island,” Meg Campbell, who oversees publicity for Netflix Canada, told Daily Hive.
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Daily Hive had the opportunity to talk to the show’s director of photography and Vancouver local, Jon Joffin, who says the province was an easy choice for the backdrop.
“Beautiful British Columbia has these gorgeous remote settings which would work perfectly for the look of the show,” said Joffin.
A View to Die For
A classic scene in stranded films is when the lone survivor makes their way to the top of a cliff or mountain and screams at the top of their lungs for help.
Liv makes her way up a mountain and is met with a view she finds dreadful — but in reality, hikers would call it quite rewarding.
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This mountain is actually the Stave Lake lookout in Mission. Though the shot looks effortlessly stunning, Joffin says his favourite shot was really challenging to achieve. The crew spent most of the day prior to shooting driving a huge camera crane up the mountain.
“The road to get up onto the top of that mountain was quite a feat. We had to go with limited crew [and] we had to figure out getting the equipment in the day before we had to make sure we could safely get up before it was dark,” he said.
The Plane Crash
Typically, the “stranded in a deserted area” narrative begins with a classic plane crash where the main character survives but others aren’t so lucky.
In the first episode of Keep Breathing, the small private plane en route to Inuvik in northern Canada crashes into a lake in the remote wilderness of Canada’s Northern Territories.
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In the show, the plane crash scene was a composition of several locations in BC. The lake background where the plane descends is at a lake near Whistler’s Olympic Village, but the plane crash itself was filmed at a quarry on Vancouver Island.
Script called for a plane to crash into a lake. We wanted to do as little CG in the show as possible. Started talking about using a model but the interaction w/ the water wouldn’t scale right. Eventually l asked a stupid question: “Can we just crash a real plane?” #keepbreathing pic.twitter.com/oMzfHwixAi
— Martin Gero (@martingero) July 31, 2022
“You can’t really crash a plane into any lake because you don’t want to contaminate the lake with any of the oils and whatever is in the plane. So we found this private quarry,” said Joffin.
“Our special effects department rigged up the plane on a guideline [which] was almost a kilometre long. So it started up in the mountain and went on an angle right into the lake. So we had a controlled descent we would know exactly where it was going to go.”
Liv’s New Home
In the show, it isn’t quite clear where Liv actually crash lands and washes ashore. However, the filming location is in fact the lake near Whistler’s Olympic Village.
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“It was about as remote as it could get. And the thing that was tricky for us is, we’re used to having all these tools and all this big equipment. We’re used to using big lights and we were so deep and so far into a lake, we couldn’t even get enough power to run our big lighting,” said Joffin.
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The crew had little space to work with around the lake, so they set up their equipment on a barge platform, which could be moved around to change the direction of shooting. Barrera had to shoot for hours in the freezing lake, so the crew also set up a hot tub at the location.
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Vancouver, the Concrete Jungle
Downtown Vancouver plays the role of bustling Manhattan where a majority of Liv’s flashbacks are set.
The restaurant scene where Liv becomes acquainted with love interest Danny, played by Jeff Wilbusch, was filmed at Yaletown. The scene is set in Brix and Mortar, a 1912 heritage building that is a modern Canadian cuisine restaurant today.
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Other locations include a law firm in Downtown Vancouver and an art gallery in East Vancouver.
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Filming in the wilderness of British Columbia can be challenging when the project demands heavy equipment and near-ideal conditions. However, Joffin and the crew recall feeling it was the most special project they worked on.
“There was something absolutely magical about being out in the pristine forest and the lake. We all loved it and were very fond of this project. We talk about it with much love and we actually call it the project of the lifetime,” he said.
Keep Breathing is available to stream on Netflix.
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