It looks like Delta is about exactly the right distance from Sandy, and reasonable proximate to I-15, so maybe that's approximately the "real" location of the fictional Juniper Creek compound, to the extent there is such a thing. The filming location was, of course, nowhere near there, or even in the same state.
There are repeated long shots of Sandy that have wrong-looking mountains in the background - that's what I was referring to when I mentioned that they "CGI in some not entirely convincing mountains." I think they digitally added bigger mountains behind a shot of California. What's obviously fake is that there's a smaller ridge of foothills in front of the mountains - which, as you note, is not at all how the Wasatch come down in Sandy. There aren't any smaller mountains or any real foothills: the big mountains are just there. You can see the top of Snowbird from Sandy (and vice versa).
They do have short insert shots that are "real" - generally cars driving on a highway and the like. No extended shots with the actual actors in them, or the Henrickson's houses, or anything like that. These short establishing shots were really shot in Utah, unless (among other things) they recreated all the Interstate directional and exit signs on a highway in California and somehow let traffic drive by them in the middle of the day. This might be stock footage they got from somewhere, though I suspect they sent a crew (or hired a local crew) to spend a few days filming so they could pop the shots in as appropriate throughout the series.
Some of the backgrounds out the windows of office buildings (e.g. Bill's lawyer's) are Salt Lake City. That's an easy bit of not-very-special effect work.
EDITED TO ADD:
A few more examples of shots really of Utah: in the last episode of Season 2, an exterior shot of Bill's Chevrolet SUV driving in what's clearly downtown Salt Lake City; in the first episode of Season 3, a shot of the huge smokestack in Magna, from the highway. Season 3, Episode 2, tracking Bill's SUV from behind as it turns left from northbound State Street to westbound South Temple Street.
reply
share