Where was The Rig filmed? We discuss the Prime Video series, its locations, and whether the rig they filmed on was real.
Working on an oil rig can be a pressured job at the best of times, with the limited space, hazardous environment, and cold temperatures. So when the supernatural is put into the mix, it gets much, much worse. Prime Video’s new six-part series, The Rig, explores what that might look like and if the crew can survive.
Audiences have been wondering where the series was filmed and if any part of it was shot on an actual oil rig. In this article, we’ll take a look at the filming locations of The Rig and if it was indeed filmed on a real rig.
What is the series The Rig about?
Set on the fictional Scottish Kinlock Bravo oil rig in the North Sea, a group of workers are due to return to mainland Scotland when mysterious fog rolls in and supernatural forces take control, cutting off any communication the crew has with the outside world. Driving the crew to their limits of endurance and testing their loyalties, they will be forced to confront forces that are beyond their wildest imagination.
The show is made up of six episodes, and they will all be released at the same time on January 6, 2023.
Martin Compston (Line of Duty) and Emily Hampshire (Schitt’s Creek) lead the cast, alongside Iain Glen (Game of Thrones). Half of the overall cast are Scottish, along with 70% of the production team.
Where was The Rig filmed?
Most of The Rig was filmed inside a studio in Edinburgh, even though the location in the show is somewhere in the North Sea, just off the coast of Aberdeen.
FirstStage Studios, the studio behind The Rig, opened in 2021 at a converted wave plant in Leith TV and film producer Bob Last and actor/director Jason Connery. The latter’s dad is none other than the late Sean Connery, while his mum is the late actor Diane Cilento. The Rig was the first production to shoot at the studio.
Is The Rig filmed on a real rig?
According to Amazon, a part of the filming for the show took place on an undisclosed oil rig in Scotland, but it didn’t give any more information. Any filming that did take place on an oil rig would have likely been quite limited because using proper film equipment and getting actors on an oil rig can be difficult and dangerous.
To get around this problem, the majority of the filming took place on a three-story oil rig the art department built located inside FirstStage Studios in Edinburgh, Scotland.
What oil rig was The Rig filmed on?
The rig in The Rig was a creation of the art department, and the sea was a creation by the VFX team. Actor Mark Bonnar explained on The Chris Evans show that the rig that was created was “incredible,” and “the VFX [team] do the most incredible job. It was very atmospheric.”
Despite the rig being fictional and the sea being added later on, the actors still had real buckets of water tipped on them. In the same interview, Bonna said that he nearly got hypothermia during the production.
“[The buckets of water] were warm, they were sort of warm but they became cold the longer the night went on.
“I was pre-hypothermic at one point. Nurse Pam was coming down and checking on my temperature every now and again, and just to check everyone because I was being covered in water.
“At one point she said, ‘Oh no, I’m whisking you upstairs because we’ve got to put you in the caravan and wrap you in tin foil.’”
