Cyndy McCrossen has been a location scout in Albuquerque for nearly 15 years. Her portfolio of locations includes cattle ranches that can pass for Montana and a Victorian-filled neighborhood called Huning Highlands that can sub for Anytown, USA. “You erect a yurt village and put some riders on horses and hey, we’re in Mongolia,” she says. One of her biggest breaks came in 2009, when she began work on the AMC series Breaking Bad, which, along with its spin-off, Better Call Saul, became a long-lasting boon to the local economy. Even now, hardcore fans can grab a meth-themed Blue Sky doughnut at Rebel Donut or take a “star tour” of the city in an RV—“just like Walt and Jesse’s”—to check out the seedy motels and the fried chicken joint made famous by the show.
Not all that long ago, Breaking Bad would probably have been filmed in Southern California, and indeed, the show’s producers were hoping to set and shoot it in Riverside, given that the Inland Empire was then known as the world’s meth capital. But a generous tax credit in New Mexico pulled the entire production east.
Over the past couple of decades, tax credits have lured thousands of films and TV shows out of Southern California. and to Toronto, and to Georgia, and and to the U.K. As these areas became film centers in their own right, talent and crew and even studios from Los Angeles resettled around the globe, and production companies and workforces also sprouted up locally.
