Location Managers Guild International

Winter 2018

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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20 • LMGI COMPASS | Winter 2018 least her abilities to take care of herself in any terrain made her, in no time at all, my 'go-to' scout. She remains so. We worked for 10 years scouting and managing in LA. Although these were the hardest working years of my life, they were in many ways the most rewarding. The combination of the multiple boroughs with their different filming policies (Pasadena today, Monrovia tomorrow, Santa Monica Pier the day after…), coupled with the hassles of dealing with merchants and neighbors, and the press of traffic was at first, utterly overwhelming. But Venice was vibrant then and affordable and not yet overrun by overpaid techies. For a country boy raised on a farm in Devon, England, 10 years was all I could manage in LA and I take my hat off to those of my brothers and sisters who still ply their trade in that toughest of cities. But that hard-won experience stood me in good stead, and, not incidentally, bought us a piece of property, when we relocated to Taos. For a few years, I ran a film commission which covered much of northern New Mexico. I Slator with Amanda Seyfried on set for A Million Ways to Die "Need a paradise? Call The Huntington." —Pasadena Star News Our heavenly options include: themed gardens, lawns, ponds, mature trees, statues, and architecture 626.405.2215 | FilmHuntington.org "Need Call The Our heavenly themed gardens, mature trees, 626.405.2215 was also Executive Director of Taos Picture Show and Taos Mountain Film Festival. Programming film festivals is fabulous work, funding them is not. Thanks largely to the lobbying efforts of Jon Hendry, the BA for NM IATSE 480, the New Mexico state legislature started the incentive program for film and the projects came rolling in. As one of the few experienced location managers in the state, my phone started ringing and soon I went back to work in the craft I know and love best. But now, it wasn't a Bel Air mansion or a Melrose restaurant I was tasked to find, but a box canyon for a Commanche ambush, a lonesome highway, a ridgetop for a Taliban-Navy Seal gun battle. This was more like it! Over the next 15 years, I was fortunate to be involved with what may well prove to be the last great period of feature production as our industry shifts toward the made-for-TV product of our online times. Appaloosa, the superb slow- burn Western, with Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons and Renee Zellwegger, taxed my knowledge of the high desert. I was intrigued by director Harris's silent and contemplative consideration of locations; one time shedding his clothes to wade the Rio Grande, quietly surveying the angles. On Marvel's Avengers, we looked for slices of landscape on which VSFX could weave their magic while the splendid designer James Chinlund drove my scouts and I to distraction in an interminable search for a grove of trees in which Thor and Captain America could skirmish. The Australian gentleman, Chris

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