Why La Brea came back to Melbourne for season two

Eoin Macken, Zyra Gorecki, Natalie Zea and Jon Seda in season two of La Brea. Photo Sarah Enticknap/NBC 

NBCUniversal’s international hit La Brea takes viewers on a wild ride spanning 10,000 BC, modern day Los Angeles and 50 years into the future—and it’s all filmed in Melbourne, Victoria.

Producer Jeff Rafner (Grey’s Anatomy, Away) says the ability to shoot anything in Victoria is the reason why creator, writer, and showrunner David Appelbaum and the series’ producers, Universal Television and Keshet Studios, chose to return to their base at Docklands Studios Melbourne.

“We’ve got a great crew and we’ve asked them to do implausible things—they’ve risen to the occasion every time,” said Rafner. 

“I don’t think we’d be able to shoot a show of this size and this scope in America. It all plays into being able to do more, being able to push the limit of everything that we want to do to make a big, beautiful cinematic show,” he said. 

Rafner says working at Docklands Studios Melbourne has been great, calling the purpose-built sound stages the “A-list player in town”. 

“Docklands Studios Melbourne is a big studio in a small footprint. It’s big enough for anything you want to build, but it’s only a couple of minutes’ walk between all the stages, all the facilities,” he said. 

La Brea season two was attracted to Victoria through the Australian Government’s Location Incentive program and VicScreen’s Victorian Screen Incentive.

Victorian company, Matchbox Pictures, which is part of Universal International Studios, once again oversaw production of La Brea in Melbourne, and the Production Support team at VicScreen also lent their experience and knowledge to the production when required. 

“The support from VicScreen has been excellent. They’ve helped us to maximise what we do on a daily basis,” said Rafner. 

La Brea is produced by Universal Television and Matchbox Pictures, both divisions of Universal Studio Group, in association with Keshet Studios. 

Want to find out more about the Victorian Screen Incentive? Get in touch with VicScreen’s Head of Incentives & Production Support, Joe Brinkmann at joe.brinkmann@vicscreen.vic.gov.au. 

Interested in filming at Docklands Studios Melbourne? Contact Docklands Studios Melbourne CEO, Antony Tulloch at Antony.Tulloch@dsmelbourne.com or general inquiries at info@dsmelbourne.com.