Countdown Gets L.A. Locations
Location manager Jeffrey A. Hunter is committed so showing off Los Angeles—red tape be damned.
Countdown successfully operates on multiple entertainment (and entertaining) fronts. The Prime Video series is a welcome TV return for Jensen Ackles, a will-they-won’t-they banter vehicle for Ackles and Jessica Camacho, and a propulsive action thriller with juicy side plots. But for those of us on the lookout for such things, Countdown also does a remarkable job of showing viewers what life in Los Angeles actually looks like.
A show that actually films in L.A. is already a tragic rarity, let alone one that eschews the usual shorthand visuals that scream Los Angeles. But creator Derek Haas was adamant not only about filming across the city but about splashing the neighborhood names across the screen in bold, unmistakable font.
“It's an ambitious show and it's fun to work on because we're all over L.A.,” location manager Jeffrey A. Hunter says. (In true location manager style, he calls into the Zoom interview from his car.) “We're everywhere. We can be in Palmdale, we can be in Culver City, we can be in downtown, we're all over the city. Lincoln Heights was a big one for us, for the look of some of the homes in that area. There’s so much to offer in California. We have so much to offer here, and I’m really hoping that things pick up for everybody, because it's honestly bleak out there right now.”
That may be changing soon; there’s a groundswell of support for simplifying the process of filming in Los Angeles, particularly in terms of the permits required. (Did you know L.A. is one of the most red tape-constricted places to shoot?) “ When I talk to managers I know in New York and Atlanta, we are being asked to do things that I don't necessarily understand or agree with,” Hunter says. “And I know there are talks going on. I've seen the direct effect of the mayor saying that she wants things to be made easier for production in L.A.”
In the meantime, let Countdown serve as a primer for the options available in Los Angeles. The thrill of the series is seeing how it effortlessly slides up and down the socio-economic scale of the city, from a Studio City mansion and Downtown’s Angels Flight to the Port of Los Angeles and drug dens in Koreatown (one allegedly located two blocks from my apartment). Not that Countdown is any more committed to perfect location integrity than other shows.
“We have to make things work with the schedule,” Hunter says. “So one day we could be in Koreatown shooting part of a scene, and the next day we could be in the valley [ for the rest of the scene]. Matching, meshing that all together to make it look like you went from Point A to Point B, not Point A to Point W. I watched the show and was very impressed with the way it was cut together because it looks really well.”
A perfect example of how the show’s production team creates a location comes in the show’s third episode, which includes a daring undercover operation at the U.S. Border Patrol. If filming in an L.A. office building is overly complicated, no way did Countdown shoot at the actual checkpoint. Where did they pull it off?
“Santa Anita Racetrack!” Hunter says. “There's a section at the front that has this dip that created the perfect element for that. I'll give set dressing and our production design team all the credit for that because it looked really cool. I like to say we provide the skeleton, and they put on the muscle fiber and the skin and the eyes. They do a wonderful job on this show.” Hunter is also quick to point out that the Santa Anita brain wave came from location manager Robert Paulsen and key assistant location manager Sam Gomez.
Hunter and Paulsen know each other from Adam Sandler films, but this is the first time they’ve worked together in a decade. Hunter handles logistics; Paulsen is the guy in the van. “Whenever we get a chance to do it ourselves, we will get out in the field,” Hunter says. “Robert will spend many hours on his own time if he has to. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm instantly thinking of the show and things that we need to find and how to find them. What we do, you can't ever let go of it.”
Jeffrey A. Hunter’s production manager credits include Ready Player One, Season 3 of You, and All American. His go-to at craft services is, unsurprisingly for a location manager, coffee. “ We put in 16-, 17-hour days sometimes,” he says. “So as soon as I walk to crafty, it's dark roast coffee. And I'm always fighting for agave because I don't like putting sugar in my coffee.”