‘Biggest series we’ve ever had’
High-profile NBC drama ‘The Brave’ to film in Santa Fe, Albuquerque
A high-profile NBC drama about a squad of undercover military specialists will shoot in Santa Fe and Albuquerque through December, the state film office announced Wednesday.
The Brave will hire 600 New Mexico crew members, 4,000 extras and 180 resident actors and stunt performers, according to the film office.
Jon Hendry, business agent for the film technicians union, said it would represent “the biggest series we’ve ever had.”
The scope of the production, he said, would far surpass the prestigious but cable-network-based Breaking Bad and even other network series, such as Midnight, Texas. “We’re extremely excited to have this,” Hendry said. The Brave will follow elite “military heroes” as they “save lives of innocent people and execute missions in some of the most dangerous places in the world,” according to a news release from the film office.
The production will be based in Albuquerque but will shoot all across the region, said Eric Witt, director of the Santa Fe Film Office.
Witt said The Brave is the latest project in a new regional approach that he and Ann Lerner, director of the Albuquerque Film Office, hope to establish. The idea is for the two cities to increasingly cooperate and coordinate production resources.
“We’re kind of melding into a complementary single market,” Witt said. “Productions are basing in one area and shooting in both. [The Brave] is going to be hopefully the next of that iteration.
“And hopefully it’ll be the next series that’s locked in here after Longmire,” Witt added, referring to the Netflix neo-Western that recently wrapped filming in the area for its sixth and final season. The Brave will star Anne Heche and Mike Vogel. Reviewing the pilot episode last month, Matt Webb Mitovich of TVLine wrote The Brave “is well-produced, the tactical operations are clever and the cast is impressively diverse.”