Shadowhunters Debriefs: Location Manager John Rakich

For this week’s edition of our Shadowhunters Debriefs (a collaboration between Basic Stuff Magazine and ShumDario News) we spoke to John Rakich, Toronto-based Location Manager and Scout and part of the Shadowhunters crew since Season 1 (see our previous features with the make-up crew, FolksVFX, Zoe Broad, and Peter Binswanger). John has been responsible for scouting many different locations we’ve seen on the show, from Iris Rouse’s brownstone up to the stunning landscape of Siberia from Season 3B. In the following interview, he talks about the location scouting process, the challenges of recreating New York in Toronto and how an old location from Season 1 ended up playing a major part in Season 3.

Shadowhunters has included plenty of stunning locations throughout the years. Could you explain the process of looking for those? Do you have a list of places already pre-registered or do you prefer to drive around the city and look for special places?

It’s a bit of both. We’re lucky here in Ontario to have a Locations Library Database that the film commission runs, which is often a good starting point. Otherwise, it’s places we’ve used before or know of, and then if those don’t work or don’t exist as we need them, you physically go out and try your best to find it.

How did you decide to build a whole set for a location from scratch instead of using a real place? For example, why build the Hunter’s Moon and not use a real pub?

Well, the decision isn’t so much mine but made by a few factors, such as if it’s [a location] that will re-occur and what the content is. If we go somewhere often enough, it becomes more cost effective to build it in studio. Like a bar, which we’d also then have full control over things, like the walls and such, like the window that Jace gets thrown through is easier to do in studio than on location.

What was your favorite location and why?

That’s really tough. There have been so many, from the the ship at the end of Season 1, to being downtown on the city streets in Season 2, the exterior of the Gard in 3A, plus a few places you haven’t seen yet in 3B.

Was there any location that was particularly hard to find or where you had to scout more places than usual until you found the perfect one?

Yes, for Iris Rouse’s place in Season 2 it took a while to find a place that had all the elements we were looking for. It was scripted as a brownstone (as there are plenty in Brooklyn and New York), but we don’t have that style of architecture and home construction in Toronto. So we spent quite a few days with the director Sally Richardson-Whitfield, looking at multiple options until we found the right one.

How far in advance were you able to start scouting locations for Shadowhunters?

I was lucky to have access to the incredibly talented writers’ room and see early on some of the things that would be coming up in the next few scripts. The more time we had for location scouting, the better, so we were lucky sometimes to have a week or two’s head start.

Is there a location that you would have loved to use but the constraints were too complicated?

We wanted to try to film in the actual Toronto Transit Commission underground subway tunnels, but based on scheduling and logistics what we wanted to film down there would have been very difficult to do. We ended up building a small set piece in studio instead.

We imagine that one of the challenges in your line of work is shooting in heritage houses. How hard is it to tell the vision you had set out without being able to put in the missing pieces of the world?

Heritage houses are always a little trickier because of the nature of what they are – you work alongside and follow their rules to make it work. Throughout the series, we shot in quite a few places like that. You just spend extra time making sure the physical spaces (floors, walls, door frames) are well-protected and take the extra time with the crew to minimize the risk of any damages and also adjust the needs of the production to work within the physical space.

We’re always guests when we come to any location to work and the goal is always to be the best guests possible, to make sure everything is as it was (or better) when we leave so that they’d always be open to future filming. Locations are a finite resource and it’s up to us to be the responsible stewards of that.

Shadowhunters has a very specific tone set when it comes to the look of the show. What were your main criteria when looking for new locations?

It always depends on what the story is asking for, that’s the real inspiration always. It lets me know not just the look but the context of the tone and where it fits in the world. We were lucky on Shadowhunters to have not just a talented writers’ room but one that was open to suggestions.

With conventions becoming more popular, various shows have hosted location tours for fans. Which set would you like to have shown others and what is a particularly interesting fact of it?

Sadly, none of the sets of any of the main interiors exist to be shown anymore, but we were lucky to have shot in quite a few locations that would still make for an amazing tour. From the greenhouse and park that played as part of the Institute, to Club Pandemonium, to the front steps of the Institute. I can keep going on and on.

The funniest fact is that the location that was used for the Church of Talto in Season 3 has actually been seen on the show before but as something different. It appeared in the pilot episode of Season 1 as the Brooklyn Art Academy where Clary has her portfolio review.

How closely do you work with the other departments, for example, VFX? Or is it all separate?

The Locations Department in one way or another ends up working with every department on a show, sometimes more so than any other. I mean, we are all part of one crew on a production and even though your task seems separate, they are all interconnected. Like where we decide that Transport can park the cast trailer will impact the time it takes for them to be onset and therefore how long hair, make-up, and costumes would need to have the cast ready in time. How long they take affects how long the camera, grip, and lighting teams have to be ready for them onset, and so on.

One of the most outstanding locations in 3B so far were the scenes of Clary and Jonathan outside in Siberia. What were the challenges in finding that location?

The biggest hurdle we had for this episode – well, actually 3×11 and 3×12, because we shot those two together – was the weather. We needed there to be snow on the ground to help make things believable for the Siberia scenes. The episodes were filmed in January, but for some reason, it just wasn’t snowing – or if it did, there wasn’t enough snow to stick around for a day or so. We kept changing dates based on weather forecasts and projections a few times until we got lucky and the location we chose got dumped on. It was almost too much, but in the end, it worked out perfectly and combined with some digital extension of mountains in the background from the gang at FolksVFX it looked amazing.

Writer Zoe Broad mentioned in our interview with her that there was some difficulty securing the ice skating rink for the Clace date in 3×14. What was the biggest challenge there?

Yes, there was a little bit of a challenge. It had to do with the fact that we filmed that episode in February, at the height of the hockey and skating season where most rinks are already rented or have very limited ice time. There was a worry that we may not be able to find the right look of ice rink to do justice to Zoe’s script or even find any at all that would work. I had a bit of a heads up that we needed a rink, so I’d already researched what were the best choices possible.

I know Zoe really wanted an ice rink and since (like myself) she’s one of the few crew members who have been with the show since Season 1, plus this was her first script, we didn’t want to let her down. We kind of knew the one we were hoping for and got lucky that with some help from the City of Mississauga Film Office, they were able to find us a window of time inside the Port Credit Arena that had that lovely wooden arched ceiling. Once we took Salli Richardson-Whitfield (our director) to see it and [approve it], I was happy to send Zoe a picture of the rink.

Tell us a little bit about Lorenzo’s gym, when Magnus goes to seek him out in 3×14? Where is that location and how did you choose it?

Lorenzo’s gym was actually inside a space at Wycliffe College which is part of the downtown camps of the University of Toronto. It’s one of their reading rooms that has incredible high ceilings, stone walls, and stained-glass windows. It’s quite an impressive room and made even more so by the art and sets department who brought in all the furnishings to make it more ‘Lorenzo,’ especially with even more famous paintings with Lorenzo added into them.

The original choice from production was to film the scene [where Magnus asks for help getting his magic back] in our studio using one of our existing sets with some minor changes, and the rest being visual effects – with the flying component we’d have to do some visual effects anyways. It just so happened that the filming period for this episode fell during our version of spring break (called reading week here) which meant a window of opportunity in accessing some of the university properties that are too busy during the school year. I was lucky enough to be able to persuade everyone to go visit this space, and once Salli Richardson-Whitfield and Roger Chingirian (director of photography) saw it they fell in love with what they could do with the space.

Can you tell us about the location of Magnus’ loft (exterior)? How come there’s two different buildings for night and day shots?

[It’s a different shot] because the real building used for the exterior doesn’t look like that, and it was digitally altered to more fit in line with the look that they wanted it to be like. It looks like from the later angle they wanted, they might have altered it too much.

The building is a property in Toronto’s Liberty Village Area that used to be an old carpet factory.

Canada has become a hub for filming television. Is the environment competitive for location scouting?

It can be, depending on how many productions are going on at the same time. It’s not uncommon in the spring and summer for 40 or more productions to be filming in the city looking for places to film, so that’s always a concern. We’re lucky in that the City of Toronto has a wonderful Film & Television office that keeps an eye out for any issues of overuse and any issues with the residents of the city.

How did working on Shadowhunters differ to your other/former projects?

Fundamentally, it didn’t differ too much. What was different were the people I got to work with over the course of the three seasons. It was such a wonderful crew, from the creatives in L.A., to the directors that would come to Toronto, to the entire crew. That and being on something that had such a large, engaging, wonderfully receptive fan base was something special that I’m very happy to be a part of.

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If you enjoyed reading this article, check out our website and ShumDario News for our previous Shadowhunters Debriefs.

Shadowhunters airs on Freeform on Mondays at 8pm EST and is available the following day to stream on Hulu and Netflix International.