Iceland, Spain, Nevada and Mexico City. In all, she was responsible for
nine main unit locations and five aerial unit locations.
One of her first tasks was not to be overwhelmed by the original Blade
Runner. "I'd seen it years and years ago," she says. "As soon as I got
the call, I watched it again. That's when I realized it is so iconic. How
am I going to match this?" Soon, though, she recognized her job didn't
involve matching but finding something new. "Seeing the film did
help," she says. "You've got to have it in the back of your mind. But
you have to look at it with fresh eyes. You can't try to replicate. You
need to go in with an open mind and try to find the best available
architecture. My brief was not related to the original. I needed to go
into concrete, straight lines and Brutalist style. Grimy locations, lots
of grimy locations. That was hard because there's not a tremendous
amount of it in Budapest. Budapest architecture could double very
easily for Paris."
Pill likes to consider options outside the box. "As location manager,
you can put up ideas that are slightly off-brief if you think they're
interesting," she says. "Sometimes you get knocked down and
sometimes they think your idea is amazing. Denis is a very energetic
and communicative director. If he doesn't like something, he'll say so,
and that's great. At least you know what he thinks. I'd rather have a
'NO' then 'EH!'"
Once Pill got settled in Budapest, she started her usual routine—
spending her weekends exploring the city. "To learn about a place
and get my bearings, I always walk," she says. "My team would hate
me on Monday morning. I'd come into the office with pictures and
say, 'I want to know what's in that building.' That's the problem with
location managers. We're nosy! I found one of our key locations
by just walking down the street. I thought, 'That building looks
really interesting. We need to get in there.' It was a school that had
extraordinary architecture. We used it as an apartment block for one
of the characters, but we had to shoot during the students' summer
holiday."
Gassner doesn't consider nosiness a problem. "I told Emma, 'Just
look at the city. Describe to me what looks interesting. I'll do the
same when I'm driving around.' There's a pattern language that
starts to develop. The first Blade Runner has its signature, and we
have to have our own signature. They're going to be contiguous, but
there's a freshness to it. Location managing is an art. Like any of the
departments, it's very particular. You have to love it, and Emma loves
it. She's an unsung hero."
