Holy Crap, Got a Mention on VICE!

How the hell did Miguel swing this?:

Breaking Bad, considered one of the greatest TV shows of all time, won nearly every television award in existence. Its spin-off prequel set six years prior, Better Call Saul, has also been critically acclaimed; as was El Camino, a feature-length film presented as an epilogue to Bad and released late last year on Netflix. For over a decade, creator Vince Gilligan has slowly been building out his own fictional universe in the Southwest, filled with con men, cartels, crime syndicates posing as fast food companies, and, of course, bright blue meth.

But one of Gilligan’s more incidental accomplishments during this time was helping to put Albuquerque, New Mexico on the map—not only as a major filming hub (Netflix bought Albuquerque Studios for close to $30 million in 2019, and signed an agreement promising $1 billion in production spending over the next decade), but as a destination for Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fans. In both shows, the city of Albuquerque becomes as much of a central character as chemistry-teacher-turned-meth-cook Walter White (Bryan Cranston) or smarmy attorney Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), with most scenes shot on location throughout the region.

No one knows Albuquerque better than Miguel S. Jaramillo, who has tracked nearly all of Breaking Bad’s and Better Call Saul’s filming locations since the shows began. A New Mexico native, Jaramillo co-created a Breaking Bad fan fest in 2014 and runs the unofficial Instagram account of Breaking Bad/ Better Call Saul filming locations, where he offers backstory about specific locations seen on-screen and what locations doubled for what sets.

...When did you launch the Instagram account?

Around the middle of 2011, with the start of Breaking Bad’s fourth season. I recognized most of the show’s filming locations—like the car wash where Walt worked part-time, which is a massive building in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights. But there were several areas that I wasn’t familiar with, like Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito)’s industrial laundromat, located on Candelaria Road; or the desert areas where Walt and Jesse first cooked meth, which has since become somewhat common knowledge as being located on an Indian reservation called To'Hajiilee, about 45 minutes west of Albuquerque.

I got curious about the places I didn’t know, so I looked online and found a blog run by another fan of the show, Marc Valdez, who was tracking down and documenting locations. As time went on, Marc and I got in contact and we started to work together to find areas that appeared in new episodes. I thought it would be great to have a way for fans to easily look up the locations while on the move, which is what inspired the Instagram account.

What has the response been? Do these various places mind being put “on the map” for fans to find?

The response to the Instagram has been huge; I never realized how many people were interested in these random, behind-the-scenes areas. When I was starting out, I went around to the different locations to ask questions about what their experience was with Breaking Bad. There was an obvious difference between the places that embraced the exposure versus those who weren’t into it at all.