Here's Where Wheel Of Time Filmed Those Otherworldly Scenes
Amazon Prime Video's "The Wheel of Time" is a high fantasy drama series based on Robert Jordan's book series of the same name, set in a fantasy world filled to the brim with wild magic, horrific monsters, and legendary heroes. As with all fantasy projects, one of the biggest challenges of "The Wheel of Time" is making this fantastical world seem real and alive on camera through the use of special effects and carefully constructed sets.
While there's certainly a fair bit of CGI in "The Wheel of Time," the series also filmed in plenty of jaw-dropping real locations that helped to give the show its medieval fantasy look. While the majority of the series was actually shot in a studio in Prague, the production also visited locations all across the Czech Republic -– frequently using a historical wooded mill known as Dolský Mlýn for outdoor shots. According to the magazine VFXV, the series also shot on location in a Slovenian mountain pass, and intended to shoot the Blight sequence in the Canary Isles, though those plans were eventually scrapped due to the ongoing pandemic, leading the team to construct a set instead. All in all, each location embodies a part of the fantasy and magic of this unique world.
Amazon built their own studio just for The Wheel of Time
Knowing that the majority of "The Wheel of Time" was shot in a studio in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, it's worth noting that the fascinating story of how this particular studio came to be. In early 2021, IGN reported that "The Wheel of Time" was such a massive undertaking it required Amazon to build and maintain their own studio for the project, and thus Jordan Studios was born (named for the series' original author, Robert Jordan).
Repurposing defunct industrial buildings within Prague, this enormous studio reportedly includes a visual effects unit, a costume department, writing rooms, an accounting department, stunt gyms, and several enormous soundstages. In addition to Jordan Studios, the aforementioned VFXV article revealed that the production team also constructed nearly the entire village of Two Rivers in a quarry near Prague, with the remainder of the village being painted in after the fact using special effects.
Even when the shoots were not on location, these enormous and elaborately crafted sets did an amazing job of bringing Robert Jordan's fantasy world to life on-camera, showcasing the immense amount of effort that Amazon Prime Video put into the production of "The Wheel of Time."