“There’s a small group of people from around the country who really get involved with filming locations for television,” said Marc Valdez, who blogs and writes about location filming for the show.
Valdez, who lives in Sacramento, Calif., grew up in Albuquerque, N.M., where most of the events in “Better Call Saul” take place. Much of the show, along with its predecessor “Breaking Bad,” is shot on location in Albuquerque.
That’s what roped Valdez, an author, a semi-retired PhD atmospheric researcher, and former California Gubernatorial candidate, into sleuthing where episodes of both shows are shot.
Valdez recalled the moment he went from a casual first-time viewer to a post-broadcast location scout. He was watching a first-season episode of “Breaking Bad.”
“I’m looking at it and Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston) is handing Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) his life savings in order to buy an RV,” Valdez said. In the background was a hill Valdez enjoyed hiking when he was growing up in Albuquerque.
“For me, it became very personal,” he added.
...Valdez gives credit to his fellow location detectives for spotting Rochester in “Better Call Saul.”
“Our group of people recognized pretty quickly it wasn’t the Albuquerque area,” Valdez said. “My thought is okay, maybe it’s the Omaha/Council Bluffs area.”
People affiliated with the show don’t publicly share that kind of information. Sometimes that’s because location sites are negotiated with private property owners and people affiliated with the show are trying to protect privacy. Other times, directors, production staff and location scouts don’t like to share their secrets of good spots.
However, Valdez and the group have a particular set of skills.
“We all have our super powers,” he said. “Working together, we know we can do this.”
James Gelet, a professional photographer, has an eagle eye for spotting locations based on road markings and signs, Valdez said.
Valdez said it was likely Gelet who figured out the scene was shot in Minnesota.
“Hats off to him, he’s a miracle worker,” Valdez said.
...Could that 30-second scene inspire a would-be location scout in Rochester the same way “Breaking Bad” inspired Valdez?
“It might,” Valdez said. “It’s like a point of pride that you didn’t even know was there.”
Valdez has published two books listing and interpreting location shots for “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul.” Now that “Better Call Saul” is concluded, Valdez plans to travel to some of those locations later this month and finish revisions of both books for publication in September.I have two very minor corrections to the newspaper article.
Even though James Gelet determined that the film sequence came from Rochester, it's still unclear to me how he did it. James consulted with another friend of his who is an authority on roadmarks, and that fellow informed him that the film sequence came from Minnesota. (Who knew there were experts who can tell what state they are in based only on roadmarks?) Still, Minnesota is a big state, so how James narrowed the location down to Broadway in Rochester, I don't know. A wizard doesn't reveal his secrets!
Second, the extra who "bragged online about being part of a 'Better Call Saul' courtroom scene but isn’t saying where it was shot" eventually clarified his Facebook comments and identified the courtroom as actually being at the real Bernalillo County Courthouse.
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