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
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/924095
40 • LMGI COMPASS | Winter 2018 millionaire who can't get into his house. I like the challenge of fixing problems and also the creative side, working with the art department, producers and directors. You have to have the abil- ity to investigate and discover things and see locations from the eye of the camera. You have to be the eyes and ears of the cre- ative team." Thor: Ragnarok was shot partly at Village Roadshow Studios in Queensland and partly on location. "On location days, we had about 250 people, plus 1,000-odd back at the studio building sets," Jones says. "The logistics of supporting the crew required trucks, equipment and lighting. The digital team now is huge. It's all very well to find a location, but if it's not practical from a production point of view, there's no point looking at it. It's a dif- ferent kind of filmmaking now, having such large crews with so much infrastructure." Lynne Benzie, President of Village Roadshow Studios, speaks highly of Jones, saying, "I have known Duncan for over 15 years and worked with him when he has been based at the Studios working on productions," she says. "He is very professional in his role as location manager. His attention to detail is of the highest standard and always goes above and beyond his require- ments. Duncan has been working with the Studios on the last two big-budget productions on our location backlot (Thor and the 2018 release Aquaman). Even when production finished, he spent a further six months, out of his own time, ensuring the area was put back as required. He is a great asset to the Gold Coast Film Industry." Like many LMs, Jones, 44, got into locations by accident. "When I moved down to the Gold Coast, where the film studios and Sea World were, I volunteered to work with dolphins," he says. "One thing led to another, and I started my career at Sea World as an animal trainer." Then he worked on the TV version of Flip- per for four seasons. "I was one of the animal trainers, and I knew all the crew," he says. "The locations guys were al- ways coming down and saying hello, and I thought their work looked like fun." Before Jones tried it himself, though, he wanted to see where his animal-training ca- reer would take him. He had already spent time in the mili- tary, having enlisted in the Australian army after high school. "My whole family has a military background," he says. "It wasn't expected of me, but it wouldn't have been a problem if that was the path I chose." He decided against the military, choosing instead to travel all over the world train- ing whales and dolphins. "I moved to the Bahamas for a year, then Florida for a while," he says. "After that, I trained animals in the south of France." When Jones returned to Australia a few years later, he began working with some of the location managers from Flipper (Blake Archer, Chris Strewe and Mike McLean). His first job as location assistant came on the TV movie Inspector Gadget 2 in 2001. Soon, he moved into features, working all over Australia on such proj- ects as Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Saving Mr. Banks and The Shallows. "I think being a good location manager is more about applying what you've ex- perienced in life than what you do," he says. Jones sees his job as a large jigsaw puzzle. "I take swimming with dolphins, a little bit of traveling, a little bit of military and the world of meeting people, and combine it all in locations." As LM on Unbroken, Jones made great use of his knowledge of the ocean. "We did some work in open water—great establishing shots," he says. "One plan had been to do all shots in open water, but to take 200 people out to do those jobs, where you're deal- ing with the weather and the water is quite complicated. So a lot was done in the water tank, especially the raft sequences where there was so much dialogue." He is referring to the Gold Coast's Warner Bros. Studios, which has the largest purpose-built film water tank in the Southern Hemisphere. Although Jones is currently a location manager full time, he says, "I loved the dolphin life experience. It gave me tools that I use now. In dolphin training, you're on show and you're dealing with crowds. You're trying to interact with people in a very short space of time and give them a message about conservation and animals. When I walk into council meetings (trying to encourage locals to get behind filming), it's the same thing. You have a short window to win the hearts and minds of the people you're dealing with, getting your message across."