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
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18 • LMGI COMPASS | Winter 2019 among others to pay the rent. Like a fool, as soon as I had my 300 days, I moved up to manager. I had nothing lined up, I just wanted to manage. Once again, I was lucky and got called on a feature right away with a great man, Brian Haynes. From there, I hooked up with the folks over at NBC and did TV movies. Roseanne & Tom, a Hollywood Marriage, The Other Side of Dark with Tori Spelling and, wait for it, Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas. I learned a lot doing those movies and the pay was pretty much the same. I really wanted to get into features though. I did a couple of HBO shows that got my name out to producer Daniel Lupi. He needed a location manager for Scream 2. I not only managed the film, I got cast as the captain of the campus police. I had a scripted line that to this day pays me residuals. I did five pictures with Daniel over the years. A crazy man, but a good man who always had my back. After Scream 2, it was Magnolia, a film where we shot 107 out of 79 days. We went over by a bit. A harrowing film for locations, but great opportunity to work with Paul Thomas Anderson. On the last day of filming, we were having a celebration at a bar in Big Bear and I told Paul I thought he was a genius. I also told him he was one of the biggest pains in the ass I ever worked with, but still, a genius. He laughed harder than I had seen him laugh on the entire film and I think he wore that comment as a badge of honor. I got hired to do the Texas and Tennessee portions of Cast Away. This picture has my favorite location, the one I am most proud of. I was tasked with finding the crossroads that open and close the movie. It had to have nothing around it, in the middle of nowhere. I traveled to six states in seven weeks (or seven states in six weeks, it all ran together). I'd fly into town, get in a small plane with a map book and a rudimentary GPS, fly out and photograph and mark the intersections on the GPS. The next day, I would drive out to the crossroads that looked promising and shoot them from the ground. Then process the film, tape the photos together and send them off in a FedEx package to Los Angeles. I spent two weeks in the Texas panhandle basing out of Amarillo. I was getting discouraged because at every intersection, there was something there. A house, a gas station, a grain elevator. One weekend, I put 1,700 miles on the rental car. Then someone suggested Canadian, Texas, population 243. I had nothing to lose, so next morning I was on the road. My standard drill was pull into town, go to the local Chamber of Commerce or City Hall, explain what I was looking for and then follow the ideas people gave me. I pulled into Canadian and spotted the Chamber of Commerce where I met Remelle Farrar. She was setting up shop in her new office and I gave her my pitch. I was looking for the crossroad and either a great piece of land to build the artist's house or a cool place to use as her location. As I was talking, I looked down and there was a framed photograph leaning against her desk. She hadn't found the right spot to hang it yet. I said, "I'm looking for a house just like that." She said, "That's the Arrington's and we could be there in 20 minutes and five miles down the road is a crossroad that you might want to see." I bought us sandwiches for the ride since it was lunchtime. Setting off across the rolling hills of the panhandle, we pulled up to the amazing Arrington ranch house. It was a kit house from the 1890s, when you ordered a house from Sears and they built it, broke it down, put it on a train and sent it to you. You then took the pieces out to your land and put it together. Kind of like a really big thing from Ikea. This place was gorgeous with the big white barn that ended up being the perfect artist studio. I shot the house and continued on down the dirt road for another five miles and there was the crossroad. On the northwest quarter about 500 yards up the road was a giant, orange gas generator (most of these farmers had cows, but made their money off of natural gas). Next to the generator were these giant round bales of hay that were partially stacked. I figured we could stack the hay up in front of the generator and it would disappear. And it did. Street closure in front of the SW Bag Company for CSI: NY. Photo: Justin Healy/LMGI Visiting the Lancaster poppies. Photo: Nadia Hillman