LMGI COMPASS
|
Winter 2019
•
39
Photos
courtesy
of
Arnaud
Kaiser/LMGI
Arnaud Kaiser
PARIS
ARNAUD KAISER, LMGI:
"I was introduced to
a location manager in
2002, at the age of 22,
to work as a trainee
on The Dreamers, a
movie directed by
Bernardo Bertolucci.
At that time, I had
a very partial and
distorted vision of the job. This movie, which was a
period film that took place during the riots of May
1968, allowed me to discover all the preparatory
work beforehand to make the shoot possible. I met
an exceptional location manager who then became
my mentor. I quickly had fun trying to find 'the place'
that the director had in mind or to surprise him with
suggestions of places he had not thought of." Kaiser's
credits include Inception, Sherlock Holmes: A Game
of Shadows, Now You See Me, Edge of Tomorrow, The
Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Parts 1 & 2 and Dunkirk.
He recently completed Robin Hood. He won the 2018
LMGI Outstanding Achievement Award for Outstand-
ing Locations in a Period Film for his work on Dunkirk.
"The most challenging part of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan
was to prepare a movie talking about terrorism and
reproduce facts quite similar to what really happened
in France shortly before and which were still fresh in
people´s minds," Kaiser says. He and his team scouted
locations for about three months. Shooting in Paris
lasted four days and involved two directors. Then
came a fifth day of shooting in the Alps. "The snow was
pretty much melted as it was the end of the winter pe-
riod," he said, "so this part was finally re-scouted and
shot during the following winter.
"One difficult location to find was the church in which
we had to shoot a terrorist attack. We had many re-
fusals, but we finally met a very open-minded priest,
who had also been a journalist in the past. He is very
involved against censorship in art and culture." The
church, known as the Church of Saint-Merri, is located
on the Right Bank of Paris. "Getting permission from
the church took some effort," Ammon says. "The
French team worked very diligently to find a church
that would be willing. The content was very sensitive,
especially in a city that suffered. It was undergoing
some construction at the time, so we had to build a
deck over the floor to hide the work. It was an amaz-
ing location. I also like the view from Belleville. People
were separated and looking down at the wealth and
glory of Paris. I think Lori found that location. She de-
serves credit for a lot of the locations."
Closing a street in Paris is not so easy. "Paris is an old
city," Kaiser says, "and the layout of the streets in some
