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
48 • LMGI COMPASS | Winter 2018 YOU'RE LIKE THE MAYOR, THE GUY WITH THE KEY TO THE CITY. Mike: Our original family name was actually Burgermeister; burger translates to town, and meister means master or master citizen, which translates to "mayor of the town." Jill: HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH DIRECTOR GEORGE CLOONEY AGAIN? Mike: I was hired to do Leatherheads in the Carolinas. George is actually a pretty friendly guy, a practical joker. The thing about him as a director, he worked very hard, he is very well prepared, I think because he did not want to come off as a dilettante making a movie. The actors love him, and he really knows what to shoot. So, they all knew me from Leatherheads and I was honored by the fact that they asked me back. Jill: BACKTRACKING A BIT, YOU MENTIONED THAT CASINO WAS PAIN- FUL. WHAT WAS IT ABOUT THAT FILM THAT MADE YOU SECOND- GUESS YOUR CAREER CHOICE? Mike: By that point, I had done some big-budget high-profile films. I got a chance to work with Scorsese. With Casino, the production manager said I'm going to keep a tight rein on the show. The first day, we had a scheduled page of work, and we actually completed one-eighth of a page. Our roughly 60- day shoot stretched into 90-100 days. Completely different from what we started doing because Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are going to shoot the movie they want to shoot. Casino was actually based on real events that took place in Las Vegas. That turned out to create a unique situ- ation. A lot of the scenes were vignettes, stories that actu- ally happened in some form or another in Vegas. I mean, you expand and have character development, but overall it was pretty accurate. So I would look for a location, sign them up and then suddenly get a call from the property. "Yeah, we don't want to film anymore … we changed our mind." And then I'd get another call. "Yeah, we changed our mind." The locations were falling out like crazy, I mean what's going on here? Then we were going to film at the former Landmark Hotel and I was talking to the guy I made the deal with. He was a very commanding type of guy, he says, "How's it go- ing?" I'm like, "Terrible! I'm losing locations right and left." He goes, "Yeah, yeah I knew that." I said, "What do you mean you knew that?!" Well, some people called me, they told me not to cooperate with this movie, they don't want this movie made. Some powerful people … So I asked him, "What did you say?" "Well, I told them to go f*** themselves." After being tipped off that there were 'certain people' that did not want this movie made, I felt like Jake Gittes in China- town. But instead of giving up, I came up with a plan. When I found the location, I cut a deal and paid them half the money upfront, as soon as they signed the contract. Once they cashed the check, they didn't want to give any money back. And after that, I don't think I lost anymore locations. We eventually cobbled together all the places we needed. Ironically, as soon as we shot at several locations, they were slated for demolition. All the locations seemed to get torn down, quite literally, some of them a week after filming. If we had made this movie one year later, a lot of the major loca- tions would simply be gone. It was such a difficult film; Vegas can be tough, and we had a big-budget operation in areas that just didn't want or need filming, but we pulled it off. When that movie was over, it rattled my cage. I thought if this is it, maybe I just don't want to do this anymore. But you lick your wounds, get some rest, and just like the Energizer Bunny, you just keep going and going and going. Jill: ANYTHING SPECIAL ABOUT VEGAS VACATION OR TWISTER? Mike: I liked Vegas Vacation because it was after Casino, and Vegas was in this whole family mode like bring your family, ride the rides … Vegas was a "family town" (this was before their "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" slogan). They LOVED Vegas Vacation, they loved Chevy Chase! We filmed at the Hoover Dam which has not been filmed a lot, and they gave us unprecedented access to all the big casinos because they liked the idea of a family film in Las Vegas. Everywhere we went it was "Chevy Chase? Come on in!" This was because it was a well-known, successful, funny franchise. Steve Wynn opened his arms, we filmed all over his hotels, we filmed ev- erywhere, and we went for iconic shots of Vegas, we were so welcomed, it was great. Quite a difference from Casino. Twister. I was helping the supervising location manager Jim Morris, filming in Oklahoma when the Oklahoma bombing took place. It was a difficult film during a difficult time. Twister was a big-budget effects-laden film. I assume you have heard of the phrase, "you bought the farm." Well, we literally bought a farm, with a house and a barn and we literally bought a town and tore both of them down. The town was in Oklahoma and I found the farm in Iowa. We had so many scenes in various cornfields, I would go up to a farmer, and say, "Well, I want to buy two acres of corn." "Why?" Well, I want to drive a bunch of trucks through it. "OK. Well, it's this much an acre…" I'd pay a fee plus the value of the corn, and they were pretty honest about it. It was funny 'cause for a while it seemed all I did was drive around buying up land and corn. The special effects department purchased a quarter-inch- thick piece of aluminum the length of a tanker truck, and had it rolled into the shape of a tanker truck. The special effects foreman had locals he hired stringing line after line of detona- tion cord, which looks like white clothes line, inside of the "tanker shell." The thing with Det Cord is that it is relatively safe unless you hit it with blunt force which could come from a hammer or a dull razor knife. So he had these local people running line after line, and he's telling them, after five cuts you have to change the blade. I'm sitting there looking at hun- dreds of lines of Det Cord running the length of the tanker and I'm thinking, I don't think I need to be here.