Yahoo Movies Where Yellowjackets was filmed
Though Yellowjackets follows a girls' soccer team from New Jersey that crash-lands in the wilderness, the actual making of the series took place thousands of miles away on the West Coasts of the U.S. and Canada.
The series had a tumultuous path to its season 1 premiere on Showtime: The pilot was shot in November 2019 in Los Angeles, with Jennifer's Body director Karyn Kusama at the helm. Then COVID-19 happened and production was suspended until the spring of 2021, when Yellowjackets moved north to Vancouver to shoot the rest of the season.
For the cast and crew, going from the high of filming the pilot to the lows of quarantine and then back to work, all while isolated from the rest of the world, was surreal. "We shot the pilot, we took like a year and a half off in COVID and then we went to Canada and shot the whole season in six months," Ella Purnell, who plays Yellowjackets team captain Jackie, told CBS Boston in November 2021. "We were in this super intense immersive bubble. We wrapped three weeks ago and now I'm doing a press junket. It's been crazy."
Since its premiere, Yellowjackets fans have been abuzz with excitement for season 2. If you want to take your fandom to the next level, here are six locations where you can walk in the characters' footsteps — without all the mayhem and murder, of course.
The cannibal camp (Mammoth Mountain, Mammoth Lakes, Calif.
Yellowjackets opens with a scene that haunts the show throughout the rest of the first season: A girl with brown hair runs barefoot in the snow before falling into a pit, where she is impaled and soon eaten by figures wrapped in animal skins. Much of the pilot's intrigue revolves around figuring out the identity of these mysterious cannibals, but thanks to location manager Jimmie Lee, there's no mystery about where these enigmatic — not to mention gross and creepy — images were shot.
Mammoth Mountain is a ski resort located 11,053 feet above sea level in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., about five hours north of Los Angeles in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. (The resort website tells visitors to "Unleash Awesome" and "Get Ready for Great Times," which are both pretty ironic when you consider the, uh, cannibalism scenes that were filmed here.) Lee shared an Instagram post from the top of the resort's slopes after wrapping production on episode 1 — so if you go on a ski vacation here, keep an eye out for the Antler Queen.
Wiskayok High School (John Marshall High School, Los Angeles)
The fateful scrimmage match in Yellowjackets' pilot episode, where a teenage Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) trips and injures freshman player Allie (Pearl Amanda Dickson), was played on the field at John Marshall High School (located at 3939 Tracy St, Los Angeles, CA 90027) in the Loz Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. You can also see exterior shots of the school in the background of an earlier scene where Taissa and her teammates discuss removing Allie from the roster before nationals after she failed to keep up with them.
If John Marshall looks familiar, that's because it's a favorite location for Hollywood productions in need of a realistic high school setting. You may recognize it from Grease, the original movie version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Wonder Years, Boy Meets World, or any of the dozens of other films and TV shows that have filmed there over the years.
The crash site (Panther Paintball & Airsoft Sports Park, Vancouver)
The majority of the locations on this list were only used to shoot a couple of scenes at the most. That's normal for a television series, as most scenes in any show are shot on a set in order to control sound and lighting, among other factors. Much of Yellowjackets came to life at Bridge Studios in Burnaby near Vancouver, a massive complex featuring 15 acres of sound stages, where most of the interiors for the show — and effects-heavy shots, like those in the plane crash scene — were filmed.
Unfortunately, Bridge Studios doesn't do tours. But you can still visit Panther Paintball & Airsoft Sports Park (19022 16 Ave, Surrey, BC V3S 9V2), an outdoor sports facility that was transformed into the site where Taissa, Jackie, Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), Natalie (Sophie Thatcher), Lottie (Courtney Eaton), and their teammates regroup after surviving the crash. Panther sits on 57 acres of woods, which gives fans plenty of room to explore if they decide to sign up for a friendly game of paintball on the grounds.
Taissa's home exterior (Downtown Vancouver)
After the pilot episode, the Yellowjackets crew relocated from Los Angeles to Vancouver, known to locals as "Hollywood north." That would mean that any exterior city scenes in season 1 would have to have been filmed somewhere in British Columbia. One notable example comes in episode 5 of season 1, when a grown-up Taissa (Tawny Cypress), facing pressure to reveal the truth about how the team survived as she runs a political campaign, rushes outside to find the word "Spill" painted on her front door. When she rounds a corner, a street sign behind her reads "Columbia St" — one of the main thoroughfares in the middle of Vancouver.
Much of season 1 includes multiple scenes of characters going out to eat or drink at bars and restaurants, and it's a testament to the show's production designers that it's not always easy to tell sets apart from real establishments. But there are a couple of Vancouver spots we can say for sure served as filming locations for the show.
Natalie's motel exterior (2400 Motel, Vancouver)
One easy to spot destination in Yellowjackets is the motel where an adult Natalie (Juliette Lewis) lives after getting out of rehab in the pilot. It even plays a role in season 1's final cliffhanger (no spoilers here if you're still watching). The interior of Natalie's room was created on a soundstage, but the exteriors for scenes where she and other characters hang out at the hotel were shot at the 2400 Motel (2400 Kingsway, Vancouver, BC V5R 5G9), a classic mid-century motor court motel located smack dab in the center of the city.
Online reviews for the 2400 Motel are mixed at best, so keep that in mind before booking a room. It might be best to just roll by for some pictures — and to buy something from the vending machine Natalie punches out to get her snack fix in episode 9.
Natalie's blackmail meet-up (Finch's Tea House, Vancouver)
Another Vancouver location that definitely got a visit from the Yellowjackets crew is Finch's Tea House (353 W Pender St, Vancouver, BC V6B 1T1), an adorable little cafe that sells baguette sandwiches and oozes shabby chic old-world charm. We know that Yellowjackets filmed a scene here for two reasons. One: An eagle-eyed local posted a filming notice in August 2021 informing others that the show was in production at Finch's that week. And two: You can literally see the Finch's logo painted onto the window behind Natalie and Suzie (Colleen Wheeler) when they meet to discuss digging into Travis' bank account in episode 8.
If you make a Yellowjackets pilgrimage to Finch's, look to your right as soon as you walk in and grab a chair at the window seat with a friend (though blackmail is not recommended).
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