The Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) is the largest organization of Location Managers and Location Scouts in the motion picture, television, commercial and print production industries. Their membership plays a vital role in the creativ
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1065362
LMGI COMPASS | Winter 2019 • 17 O N A L ever had and going to work as a $50/day production assistant. I was 33 years old. I was extremely lucky to hook up with Chicago location manager Betsy Bottando. Probably one of the best location managers I've known. She taught me to care about what I was doing and who I was dealing with. She taught me the proper way to photograph a location, how to prep a neighborhood and how to land 30 pieces of rolling stock in a residential area and not piss everyone off. I owe a lot of my career to this woman and think of her often. After two years in Chicago, I realized that I was number six on a list of six location managers. There were only two or three big projects per year back then in the Windy City. There were a lot of commercials, but I was not into commercials. I talked with Nadia and said, "If I'm going to do this, we have to move to Los Angeles." Nadia grew up just outside of Chicago. Her friends and family were there. She did not want to go to Los Angeles. However, she wanted me to succeed so we packed up the apartment, put it in a storage locker, loaded up my Mazda and her Volvo and, with a couple of good friends and some portable CB radios, set out from Chicago. I added about 1,000 miles to the trip to see Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon and Wall Drug. We arrived in Los Angeles on July 6, 1990, and set up temporary shop in my sister- in-law's house in Silver Lake. She was in France for a month, so the timing was right and we house-sat. Through her connections, I picked up scouting jobs right away and then got hired to take over a show in Minneapolis called Drop Dead Fred. I arrived in Minneapolis on the second day of shooting. The line producer, Mary McLaglen, welcomed me and sent me off to read the script. Returning to set as they wrapped, the location assistant that was staying on, Bob Graf (now producing for the Coen brothers) and I hopped into the car and took off to see the locations that had been locked in and a few that weren't. We ended our tour on a floating dock in the Mississippi River in St. Paul next to a riverboat that we were supposed to be filming on in four days' time. There was no parking, no catering setup, no water safety, no support boats and the weight of the two of us had the float almost under water. How were we going to roll a dolly out onto this? I got down on my haunches, looked around, looked up at Bob and said, "We're fucked." Four days later, we had a barge for equipment, local Marine patrol for water safety, base camp, crew parking, everything we needed. We were exhausted, but we had it all. It went that way for the rest of the show. Two weeks in the Lake of the Isles neighborhood (the Bel Aire of Minneapolis) with half of it night shooting. City Hall on a Saturday, running and gunning, but we stayed about one and a half steps ahead of the company and left no trail of destruction. Everyone was happy. Both my father and my mentor, Betsy, had always taught me to do the best you can and never piss people off because you never know when you're going to return. I remembered that and because Bob and I handled things the way we did, I ended up doing five pictures in Minneapolis. I love the Twin Cities and it paid a lot of my mortgage over the years. I was fortunate to be put in touch with Marta Ball. She was a classic old-time LA location manager. Most of her notes were on matchbook covers and cocktail napkins. She hired me on Coopersmith, a TV movie for Universal. At the end of the show, I had 27 days. You need 30 to get in the union. She said to the production manager, "You've got me wrapping the next three days on stage. Give it to Tim so he can have his 30 days." He agreed and I will forever be in her debt for that. So began the next few years of getting my days to be a manager. I would take a nonunion show as a manager, usually out of town, to make some money and then work a show as an assistant (they didn't have keys then, just assistants at a whopping $575/week) to get my days. Murder, She Wrote, a Patty Duke TV movie, a feature called Clean Slate racking up the days and Surf Ninjas, Crossing the Bridge, Overnight Delivery, Somewhere in the San Gabriel Mountains, one of my favorite places. Photo: Nadia Hillman Strolling the grounds of Versailles with two of my greatest accomplishments, Maxine and Ben. Photo: Nadia Hillman