The afterlife comedy series Upload is set in the digital Lakeview Hotel, but this picturesque afterlife needed a real-world setting before it could be brought to the screen. The Prime Video series has put a hilarious twist on posthumous life, creating a virtual luxury hotel in which souls—or digital uploads of the brain—can live in peace for all eternity. This required a lot of creativity for Uploads showrunners and a few locations and buildings of the corporeal world to convincingly make Nathan Brown’s afterlife look like the place to be.
Getting its start with season 1 in 2020, Upload was brought to life by director Greg Daniels, who created a futuristic realm in which the dearly departed can continue in a digital existence. Here, the living can use technology to visit their loved ones, which puts car crash victim Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell) in a complicated place as he finds himself at the center of a love triangle that bridges the living and virtual worlds. Of course, the settings surrounding the characters of Upload require a lot of sound stages and CGI work to pull off. However, to bring a tangible touch to the breathtaking scenery of the hereafter, real-world filming locations (via Atlas of Wonders) were used as well.
Vancouver, Canada
Upload shot much of its scenes throughout the series’ three seasons on location, though sound stages were used for the interior of Lakeview and other indoor settings. These stages were constructed at a studio in Vancouver, Canada. In addition to these, the Prime Video series utilized several luxurious homes and businesses to communicate the extravagance of Nathan’s afterlife experience in Upload. For example, the gardens of Lakeview were filmed on the property of Cecil Green Park House, a Tudor-style mansion in Vancouver that has been used as a filming location in episodes of Riverdale and the movie Fifty Shades Freed.
An event center in Vancouver, the Lord Stanley Ballroom at Stanley Park Pavillion, was used for scenes throughout the afterlife, such as Nathan’s funeral in Upload season 1. A few of the “living world” settings were also shot on location in Vancouver. The company responsible for Nathan’s afterlife, Horizons, has a building in which employees like Nora Antony (Andy Allo) must report to work, the exterior for which was shot at 100 Powell Street in Gastown, Vancouver. Then, the city’s Chinatown was used for several living-world cities and traffic scenes.
Mohonk Mountain House – New Paltz, New York
The central location of Nathan’s afterlife in Upload is the Lakeview Resort, a digital hotel modeled after the beautiful Victoria-style hotels of the United States and Canada. Though most of this afterlife resort is filmed on soundstages in Vancouver, the exterior and a few interior scenes were shot at the Mohonk Mountain House near New Paltz, New York. Situated on a mountain ridge near Mohonk Lake, the views here perfectly justified the “Lakeview” name.
The Castle Green – Pasadena, Texas
Upload utilized another real-world location for the interior of Lakeview Resort as well. The hall within the afterlife hotel was shot within Castle Green in Pasadena, Texas, a historical venue built in 1989. The Victorian-style architecture perfectly contrasts Upload‘s futuristic technology, which is a significant part of the strange appeal of the Prime Video series. Though only a few scenes were shot at Castle Green, many of the sets built at the studio in Vancouver were meant to imitate the Pasadena event center’s historical design and structure.
Fairway Market – Brooklyn, New York
Throughout Upload, Nora lives in Brooklyn, New York, and the exterior of her apartment was filmed at an actual building called Fairway Market. This allowed the Prime Video series to feature Manhattan’s skyline in the background, though it was edited in post to make it look more futuristic. Set in 2033, the assumption here is that the skyscrapers of New York City will be built ever higher in just another decade. Of course, like other interior sets of Upload, Nora’s apartment and office were filmed in Vancouver, but the real-world external settings add the perfect flavor to the Prime Video series.
