The scene of Walter Mitty and his guides hiking through the Himalayas and Afghanistan is not actually shot where you would believe he was. It was actually on location at the glacial Vatnajökull National Park in Iceland where most of the movie was shot. Jason Farrar was the location manager for the movie. His specific job is to find locations to shoot the movie and get permission to film there. Once he receives permission and filming begins then he is in charge of making sure nothing goes wrong to the location and once they are don’t they make sure they leave the location in a satisfactory condition when the location is handed back to the owner.
During pre-production, the location manager works closely with the director to understand the directors vision for the film. For example, for this film and particular scene, the location manager needed to find a place that resembled the remote himalayas for the hiking scenes. Since Iceland already had mountain peaks that resembled the Himalayas in Central Asia.
“The unique qualities of Vatnajökull National Park are primarily its great variety of landscape features, created by the combined forces of rivers, glacial ice, and volcanic and geothermal activity.”
