Where Was 'The BFG' Filmed? It's Pretty Magical

If you haven't heard about the release of Steven Spielberg's new film, The BFG, it might be time for you to get all caught up. Spielberg directed the film that hits theaters Friday, an adaptation from Roald Dahl's 1982 children's book, The BFG, or the big friendly giant. The previews alone appear to boast some pretty impressive-looking scenes. So, where was The BFG filmed? Apparently most of it was shot in the Vancouver area.

According to the Vancouver Sun, Spielberg revealed in front of reporters in Los Angeles, that most of the film was shot in Vancouver, in a large studio-stage-like space – 300,000 square feet large.

We were on a big sound stage. Not even a sound stage. I think it was a former — what was that space we shot in? What did it used to be? Was it a big food processing storage plant or something? It was like 300,000 square feet of space and we utilized every square foot of it. We had sets built all over the place. We had our capture volume. We had a mill where the sets were built right on the sound stage. So I never really left. In Vancouver I never really got out of the space, except to go in to Vancouver proper to go to bed and then get up in the morning and go back to that space. I had three months of that.

Spielberg also revealed that all the exteriors in the film were built inside the large space, and the orphanage was a full-sized set, built inside the space as well.

In another interview with the Vancouver Sun, Daniel Bacon, an actor who plays a not-so-friendly giant named Bonecrusher, explained that some parts of the film were shot in Europe, but most of it was in the studio Spielberg described, in the Vancouver area in a city called Burnaby, located directly east of Vancouver.

Bacon, who's 5-foot-9, said that he was shocked when he got the call to audition to play a giant. "I got the initial audition call and I looked at it and I’m like, 'Giants? What? I’m five-nine. I don’t see myself as a giant,'" he said. "And all of a sudden I saw this name on the page — Steven Spielberg — and that was a big moment. 'OK, let’s go back and read everything else again a little more closely.'"

The BFG himself is played by Mark Rylance and the costar, newcomer Ruby Barnhill, is casted as Sophie. It's always incredible to imagine how and where films are shot, and to see the magic unfold on screen.