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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40 • LMGI COMPASS | Summer 2019 pool, and we've got to be able to have a camera that moves over so you can see the other house. We looked everywhere. It was such a tricky combo of driveways and was very specific to the shot he needed.''' Schuler agrees. "The toughest to find proved to be a combina- tion of two houses that were nestled next to each other," he says, "each one accessed through gates and up long driveways. That specific configuration was just the beginning of a long list of re- quirements required to make this most crucial location work for a pivotal scene in the movie. "The house that anchored this combination of houses was that of the late murdered actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and her husband Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha). We began our search by scouting for similar-styled homes designed by the ar- chitect Robert Byrd. We scouted the hilly areas of the studio zone, spending considerable time driving up and down streets, peeking through gates and fences and viewing countless aerial images on Google Earth. We were pleased with what we found in the Covina area. Although the style of the houses was spot-on, the configura- tion of the pool of one house to the front door of the adjacent house was not ideal." FINDING HOLLYWOOD 1969 "Trying to find the late '60s in Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills to do period films is getting harder and harder," Fitzgerald adds. "But hunting for all that stuff was kind of fun. A lot of people jumped on board because of Quentin. Property owners and build- ing owners were willing to listen when he would say, 'Here's what we want to do.' Out of all the people I've worked with in the past 20 years, he was unique in that he just went out and talked to people. I'd take him to houses, and there would be an 80-year-old lady sitting there with her husband, and they had never had film- ing done. I'd introduce Quentin. He knew how to talk to people and present himself and be very genuine." Fitzgerald spent several months looking for the two neighboring houses. "The whole idea was that Rick Dalton and Sharon Tate lived in the same neighborhood," he said. "So we had to find two houses that would work. Quentin had these little pieces in his mind. Rick was a movie star, so his house had to be the house of a movie star. But movie star homes back then were not weird and wild like they are today. Some were modest ranch houses in a nice neighborhood. It was a sign of wealth. We found a few that hadn't been remodeled. Sometimes to find the right location, you stumble around in a neighborhood until you feel like you have a groove. You drive around and leave letters. We looked all over the place." In the middle of the two-house hunt, Schuler brought on veteran location scout Lori Balton, LMGI to help. "She delved into scouting areas we had previously thought too problematic considering our scheduling requirement of 14 nights of filming," he says. "Tarantino was super specific about his needs," Balton says. "The exact geography was important. For instance, the camera is on Top: A recreation of Westwood's Bruin Theatre showing a film from 1969; Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate walks along a Westwood street.