We are honored to share that Costa Rica Filming Locations was the first company to work on a Tax Rebate project in Costa Rica!. We had the wonderful opportunity to be pioneers hand to hand with the UK company Worker Bee and its incredible team. 

Worker Bee´s team reached us in September of 2023 and we started working on finding the best locations for Netflix´s show Celebrity Bear Hunt. The whole process was absolutely brilliant and we will keep this shooting memories always close to our hearts. The shoot was a success in every single way because it had a great cast, fantastic locations that held hundreds and a hard working team.

Tax rebate is now available in Costa Rica for any project that will spend over $500k in the country. Costa Rica offers to give back the 90% of the taxes spent in 90 working days. You can contact us to guide you trough the process and start making your project a reality.

Filming reality shows in Costa Rica is one of our main strengths. We have shot all sort of reality projects, from House Hunters International for HGTV passing for all sort of medium size projects for Nat Geo, Discovery or Netflix, to bigger scale realities that demanded hundreds of crew members on site such as Keeping up with the Kardashians or getting muddy in the jungle with our friend Bear Grylls.

Giving film support in Costa Rica for reality shows like the ones that host Bear Grylls is Manu- our Location Manager- top joy. Do you need the most remote looking location but someone that can get you there? Do you want to add wifi to that? Well... Manoohar Tahilramani is the person that you need besides you. Helicopters, waterfalls, rivers, jungle, beaches and challenges, you will have it all.

Violeta Grancelli, our Line Producer, on another hand, is the person that you want looking after your budget when the challenges team is planning for the impossible. She will deliver and make sure the budget is well looked after, finding the best ways of making it go the extra mile. 

As a combo we will make sure our clients get the most amazing locations, the best on set results, and leave happy not only with the filming experience in Costa Rica, but also because the show will be fantastic, and on a budget! 

During February and March of 2022 we had the pleasure of working with amazing people, both from Costa Rica and from abroad. As part of our pre production tasks we had to find characters that could represent best the amazing people from Nicoya Peninsula, which often are close (or over) 100 years old and still not only living, but working, interaction with their families, cooking, riding horses, etc.

Filming in Costa Rica can be a wonderful and life changing experience, and we think this project certainly inspired all of us to pay attention to our daily habits, appreciate family and the beauty in the simple things.

The locations for this project, shot in Guanacaste, were mostly the houses of the characters. Some of them lived quite remotely so good logistics were put in place to make sure we could have a time efficient schedule along with the crew.

The production company Make Make simply sent a wonderful crew that were beautiful to the centenarians and eager to learn about the costarrican culture and worked along brilliantly with our Costa Rica Filming Location crew, which is the filming crew you want to be with when in Costa Rica. So talk about a magic combo!

The result: a wonderful series for Netflix, that you do not want to miss!

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Last year we had the pleasure of working with the Chanel team twice. They were preparing a video for their new amazing cream the Blue Serum, that brings elements from the world's blue zone into one cream that leaves your face looking amazing ( you can check it out here: www.chanel.com/en_MY/fragrance-beauty/skincare/c/blue-serum.html

From Costa Rica they use the essential oils of coffee, in the Peninsula of Nicoya where people leaves over 100 years old. The reason why this is a blue zone has been in discussion for many years, but in general terms everyone agrees it has to do with both their active lifestyle and their diet. We did a tv show with Jamie Oliver about this subject too, which we will post about later. 

Going back to this project, we had a lot of fun. The crew, both from Chanel and the production company Suffraggettes was incredible nice and fun to work with, and we met beautiful people in the coffee plantations area, that actually accommodated us as it is. a very remote location. So not only everyone got amazing images, they also left with a very nice memory and experience the life in this kind of rural areas.

The crew as small and flexible, perfect for this kind of location: Director, Director of Photography, Assistant Camera, Executive Producer and the two Chanel representatives. From the Costa Rica team Costa Rica Filming Locations provided the local production services/ fixer , gaffer and production assistants and drivers.

We were very happy when we saw how great it ended up looking, have a look at it and enjoy:

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Filming in Costa Rica it's easy and straight forward, but you will want to have you production services company working with you along the way to make sure that your projects runs smoothly.

One of the great things about filming here is that it's definitely cheaper than filming in the USA, Europe and even many other Latin American countries, and dollars are widely accepted which makes things very easy for a foreign production company coming here to shoot.

Another great thing about Costa Rica is that we have a very experienced and bilingual crew. Our crew has worked in all sort of productions: music videos, tv shows, feature films, corporate videos, photo shoots, and everyone is willing to give their best for each and every project.

Being close to the USA it's certainly a big plus, both for clients from that country and for bringing any gear that it's not possible to get locally ( the basics are here, but some specific things might need us to brig them from the USA or Panama).

On another hand, Costa Rica its a very small country but with incredible geographical changes with only short trips. We can take you from a very dry forest to the lush jungle within a couple of hours of driving.

Some of our client's favorites are the the Blue River, Arenal Volcano, Guanacaste's beaches or Monteverde. But we have shot in all sort of locations, from a high security prison to the most beautiful National Parks.

Contact us now to make any inquires about filming in Costa Rica: customs, filming permits, locations and crew, we will provide the production services that you are looking for from start to end.

Paddington was the first feature film project of Costa Rica Filming Locations ( see all of our projects here). We had worked as free lancers before and had created the company less than a year ago when we were contacted for this project. Feature films of this size do not get shot in Costa Rica that often     (although we are trying to change that!) so we were very happy when it got confirmed.

We filmed in Monteverde, which is a wonderful location and it's cloud forest was exactly what they were looking for. If you have seen the movie then you will probably remember that Paddington lived in " The darkest Peru" so we had to find that here, and we did.

Have a look at this behind the scenes video!:

This is the trailer for the movie:

We are proud to have a newer and fresher website. A lot has been going on since we started Costa Rica Filming Locations and we have been traveling and filming more than ever!. Last year only we have had some great projects like 50 Ways to kill your Mammy , several episodes of House Hunters International,  Stupid Man, Smart Phone , Blue Serum- Chanel, High And Low ( Empire of the Sun) , and much more. And we started this year working for Bunim/Murray in Keeping Up With the Kardashians, coming soon!.

We will be uploading our news and keeping you up to date with our never ending travels around the beaches, jungles, rivers and all sort of crazy locations of Costa Rica, many times in the company of our partner in crime: Coqueta the dog.

Stay tuned!