Season two of Netflix’s Shadow and Bone takes the story far beyond the bounds of Ravka and Ketterdam.
The first season of the popular show largely relegated itself to a few key locations, with emphasis on the Little Palace, Ketterdam’s Barrel, and the Shadow Fold. It seems safe to assume that most scenes featuring the Shadow Fold are largely accomplished via CGI, but many of the areas featured across Netflix’s Grishaverse spawn from real-world locations. These expanded massively in season two of the show, which saw characters visiting Shu Han, Novyi Zem, and far more obscure areas of both Ravka and Kerch. Each of these fictional locations is tied to a real world location where the team behind Shadow and Bone gather to bring the magic to life.
Shadow and Bone filming locations
The story in Shadow and Bone is expansive, so it tracks that the show’s filming locations are similarly wide-ranging. The vast majority of season one was filmed in various locations across Budapest, with Hungary, as a whole, providing almost every bit of non-set scenery across both seasons of the show. Frequent, vital gathering points like the Little Palace were filmed on location, while other, more unfamiliar sets — like the icy wilderness Nina and Matthias cross in season one — are largely the result of studio work.
The Fjerdan wilderness, as well as the vast majority of Ketterdam, were both filmed at Origa Studios in Budapest. The studio also serves as the home to The Witcher‘s set, and eagle-eyed fans might notice a few borrowed props between the two. The tea house scenes, and those colorful Bhez Ju moments, were also likely filmed on set, but that’s where Shadow and Bone‘s reliance on crafted sets ends. The remainder of the series took to real-world locations to deepen that sense of immersion.
Festetics Palace, located in Keszthely, Zala, Hungary, serves as the primary filming location for both the exterior and interior of the Little Palace. It crops up frequently through Shadow and Bone‘s first and second seasons as home to so many of the show’s Grisha. The show’s second most popular keep, the Grand Palace of Os Alta, is captured via several alternate locations — the Museum of Ethnography and Buda Castle — both of which are in Budapest. Buda Castle also served up some visual fodder for use in season one’s royal archives heist, and Amade Bajzath-Pappenheim Castle provided the backdrop for Alina and Mal’s early days at Keramzin.
A trip to Budapest would reveal a huge number of familiar sights for fans of Shadow and Bone, which borrowed scenery from across the city. Its main square provided a glimpse at West Ravka in season one, and various other scenes incorporated elements of its visuals to ramp up the show’s realism.
Season three of the show — as well as the potential Six of Crows spin-off — could expand the world of Shadow and Bone even further, and might even see the cast depart Hungary for alternate filming locations. We’re perhaps getting a bit ahead of ourselves — as the show hasn’t even been renewed for a third season — but we can’t help ourselves. Shadow and Bone has made great use of its real-world locations so far, and later seasons all but guarantee even more spectacular visuals.
Published: Mar 21, 2023 01:35 pm