Prehistoric movie Alpha filmed Alberta locations

Prehistoric survival movie Alpha filmed on location in Alberta, Canada, doubling the region for Europe as it appeared during the ice age of 20,000 years ago.

By Nick Goundry 17 Aug 2018

Prehistoric movie Alpha filmed Alberta locations
Alpha

Prehistoric survival movie Alpha filmed on location in Alberta, Canada, doubling the region for Europe as it appeared during the ice age of 20,000 years ago.

The story follows Kodi Smit-McPhee's young hunter as he is separated from his group and struggles to survive in the prehistoric wilderness with the help of an orphaned wolf.

Much of the film’s wilderness location work was shot near the Alberta city of Brooks, 100 miles south-east of Calgary, while the nearby city of Drumheller offered a different set of visuals.

“I started scouting at least six months ahead of filming with the production designer, with an effort to use a variety of extraordinary locations that eventually got compressed to just a few areas,” says Robin Mounsey, supervising location manager on Alpha, in comments to KFTV.

Alberta is developing its profile as a Canadian production centre. At the end of last year authorities channelled more money into the film fund for the province’s Screen-Based Production Grant, enabling the region to host productions with bigger budgets.

The province also now offers three sound stages at the Calgary Film Centre.

Game of Thrones visited Alberta for the first time last year and the region has also hosted three seasons of the similarly-acclaimed TV drama Fargo.

Alejandro G Iñárritu’s period survival movie The Revenant, more closely related to Alpha in story terms and which Mounsey also worked on, used Alberta’s wilderness visuals as well.

Production on Alpha was in fact evenly split between wilderness location work and matching set designs on stages and back lots in Vancouver.

Vancouver remains one of Canada’s top production hubs. Alongside the appeal of the city, wilderness visuals can be found relatively close by in British Columbia, such as Mount Garibaldi and Manning Park that both appeared in the first series of the Netflix drama Lost in Space, standing in for an alien planet.

See KFTV's production guide for more on filming in Alberta.

Images: Sony Pictures

Much of the film’s wilderness location work was shot near the Alberta city of Brooks, 100 miles south-east of Calgary, while the nearby city of Drumheller offered a different set of visuals.

“I started scouting at least six months ahead of filming with the production designer, with an effort to use a variety of extraordinary locations that eventually got compressed to just a few areas,” says Robin Mounsey, supervising location manager on Alpha, in comments to KFTV.

Alberta is developing its profile as a Canadian production centre. At the end of last year authorities channelled more money into the film fund for the province’s Screen-Based Production Grant, enabling the region to host productions with bigger budgets.

The province also now offers three sound stages at the Calgary Film Centre.

Game of Thrones visited Alberta for the first time last year and the region has also hosted three seasons of the similarly-acclaimed TV drama Fargo.

Alejandro G Iñárritu’s period survival movie The Revenant, more closely related to Alpha in story terms and which Mounsey also worked on, used Alberta’s wilderness visuals as well.

Production on Alpha was in fact evenly split between wilderness location work and matching set designs on stages and back lots in Vancouver.

Vancouver remains one of Canada’s top production hubs. Alongside the appeal of the city, wilderness visuals can be found relatively close by in British Columbia, such as Mount Garibaldi and Manning Park that both appeared in the first series of the Netflix drama Lost in Space, standing in for an alien planet.

See KFTV's production guide for more on filming in Alberta.

Images: Sony Pictures

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