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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LMGI COMPASS | Spring 2018 • 19 O N A L on opposite coasts. In NY, the set decorators order and install layout board; in LA, it's the location department. This led to a fight, which culminated in a compromise. I ordered the layout board and got it on the set decorating truck, and Rosemary handled the crew for installation. Twenty- three years of marriage later, the fighting has fortunately decreased and the level of compromise has increased. Following School Ties, I continued living and working in New York for another year and Rosemary and I had a long-distance romance. I knew that eventually, I would move to LA, and when a Teamsters strike threatened to close down the business in NY, I decided to take the leap. It meant restarting my career in the Teamsters union in order to qualify for work. I continued to scout on commercials while I was qualifying. There are lots of cultural differences between coasts when it comes to filming. On the TV series Tattingers, I needed to find half a dozen quintessential New York restaurant exteriors for the opening-credit sequence. The Carnegie Deli was one of those locations. I met with the owner, a human version of Jabba the Hutt. It was the middle of the afternoon and he was squeezed into a booth inhaling a table full of food, while I explained what we planned to do on the shoot. I said, "This would only be a 2nd unit night shoot with a camera on sticks, a crew of three people, and it would take only about 20 minutes. It would just be a shot of the storefront and neon sign. You won't even know we're here." With his mouth full, he asked, showering me with bits of food, "Would there be any lights and cables?" "No" I answered emphatically, "it's a simple shot with ambient light, no movie lights or cables. We have five other restaurants to shoot the same night. There's no time." He continued eating as he said, "I'll agree to do it on one condition, that you bring lights and cables. Lights and cables create chaos. Chaos creates crowds, crowds mean business and business means money." Oh brother … only in New York. In my early scouting days, my camera was a Hasselblad with a Polaroid back. It was a great learning tool for focal length and exposure, but the film packs were only B&W. Later, Polaroid developed a fully manual fold-out camera, the Polaroid 195, that took great color shots. When I went on the road to scout a project, I had to take cases of Polaroid film with me because it wasn't readily available. The film had to be kept warm to develop properly, so in the winter, you would put the exposed film in your coat pockets while they developed. Invariably, the chemicals would ooze out of the film pods, burning holes through the coat by the end of the winter season. When 60 Minute Photo hit the scene, it revolutionized scouting. We could now get high-quality results quickly, make multiple sets of picture files, and present a location the way a DP or director envisioned it. All things we all take for granted now in the age of digital. Thelma & Louise is a career highlight. It was my second film with visionary director Ridley Scott. I started by flying to Arkansas, and driving the entire route that the girls drove in the story, from Little Rock to the Grand Canyon. Once we knew what the actual route looked like, we could find a few centers to base from and replicate the different locations. When I got to the Grand Canyon, I met with the National Park Service information officer. We thought it would be best to explain the story in person, that when they drive into the canyon in the final scene, there would be dummies in the car, all fluids would be removed, and we would have divers and crews in the river below to clean it all up and restore the area to its original condition. I finished my presentation, and after a long pause, she said that we could not film at the national park. I saw my life flash before my eyes. This was the key Haber fashion photographer assistant Once A Scout Always A Scout "My art education provided a foundation for scouting and photography. Not a day goes by that I'm not grateful for that art background."