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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One of the pleasures for the location team on S.W.A.T., both in terms of their personal lives and what they get to feature on the show, is getting to shoot L.A. for L.A.—something rarely done these days. "We strive to shoot iconic Los Angeles, and we love shooting in town. It's nice to be able to go home at night, but in terms of the show's narrative, our goal is to do big things in hard places," says Surkin. Production designer Andrew Murdock, who has been on since the pilot and who had worked with Justin Lin on Star Trek Be- yond, notes, "If you're going to fly a helicopter and drones, you want those high and wide shots. You want to see that iconic L.A. skyline. We're always trying to get that authentic urban L.A. tex- ture into the show. That's my favorite phrase: 'urban texture,'" laughs Murdock. For the members of the Location Department, the most popu- lar settings from the show tend to be those that could only be done in Los Angeles; among them, a rooftop chase shot in Venice Beach and another car chase they shot on Vine Street directly in front of the famed Capitol Records Building. The legendary loca- tion, originally built in 1956, has been featured in many movies and television shows over the years and clearly hasn't lost any of its magic. "Shooting there took two months of planning. We shot on a weekend and we were right in front of the building—I mean, how much more iconic L.A. can you get than that? We had stunt cars sliding all over the place from the freeway down the hill to Hol- lywood Boulevard. It was crazy standing there, in the middle of a completely locked-up Vine Street. You just look around and go, 'Man, this is awesome,'" says Surkin. Now, halfway into Season 2, they often find themselves travel- ing virtually the entire span of Los Angeles. From their stages in Santa Clarita down to Long Beach, from Downtown to the West- side, the South Bay and beyond, the team is constantly on the lookout for new and exciting locations while also featuring some of the city's most famous landmarks whenever possible. "This season is huge," says Bernard. "I made the mistake of going into the writers room once we got picked up for the second season and telling the writers, 'go as big as you want and we'll try to accommodate.'" On day one of Season 2, the cast and crew found themselves on the helipad of the US Bank Build- ing, the second highest building in L.A. There they were, some 73 floors above the street shooting a sequence in which their lead actor, amid yet another shootout, leaps onto a hover- ing helicopter for a mano-a-mano fight with the latest bad guy. "When I hire people and they ask what it's like on the show," Surkin says, "I'll tell them, 'OK, whatever show you've worked on? We're dou- ble,'" but he also admits the stuff they pull off can be "ridiculous fun." And as on any show, it's important to keep it friendly with the city and local residents. "We don't want to piss off the community because we want to be able to come back," says Surkin. Bernard, meanwhile, sums up S.W.A.T. this way: "The bar always gets raised." Fortunately for the producers, they have an elite team on the show capable of handling anything that gets thrown at them … not the S.W.A.T. team, but the S.W.A.T. location team. "This season is huge," says Bernard. "I made the mistake of going into the writers room once we got picked up for the second season and telling the writers, 'go as big as you want and we'll try to accommodate.'" South Central LA, chop shop All location photos courtesy of Keith Bohanan