Location Managers Guild International

Summer 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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LMGI COMPASS | Summer 2018 • 41 Establishing shot near Angel's farm That sequel, billed as "the next chapter in the Sicario saga," had a different director, cinematographer, composer and Kavanaugh as production designer, among other new hires in key creative positions. "We all started fresh, like a one-off movie," he says. "We didn't have to abide by any rules from the first one, except for the fact that they're both set in the southwestern US and Mexico." The film's producers also wanted the same location team, led by LM S. Todd Christensen, LMGI, and Orona as key assistant, back for the sequel. "We knew what we were getting into," Oro- na says. "We had been so proud of our work on the first film and for Soldado, we felt it was really critical that everything matches that or tries to surpass it." Sicario was shot mostly in and around Albuquerque to take ad- vantage of New Mexico's film tax incentive. Orona and Chris- tensen both live in the state full time, but he was already manag- ing another feature for Sicario's producers, Black Label Media, so he agreed to supervise Soldado, write the department's budget and scout and manage its six-day Mexico shoot, and he promoted Orona to location manager in charge of the sequel's locations stateside. "There were days when we had three per day," she remembers. "It felt like TV, but it was a huge movie where we weren't just a push away from the next location." Orona counted a total of 48 locations on Soldado, including both sides of the border—nearly double the number in the first film. "It is a little bigger, with a little more action," hints producer Trent Luckinbill, one of Black Label's co-founders. "It kept the DNA of that gritty prestige the first one had but we wanted something that could be completely standalone, so if you hadn't seen Sicario, you could still dive in and feel you hadn't missed anything." The idea for a second film apparently came up in Black Label's earliest conversations with screenwriter Taylor Sheridan. "We had it in the back of our heads that we'd look at this if [Sicario] worked out," Luckinbill says. "When the characters sparked with audiences in a way where you could spend more time with them, Taylor came to us and said, 'I've got an idea and I want to write it.' There was more to tell and he really got the story right." The first film introduced quasi-vigilante federal agent Matt Grav- er (Josh Brolin) and pragmatic hit man Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), two shadowy recruits hired to escalate America's drug war quagmire. Sicario didn't set up much in the way of backstory about the two men, other than a few details about the brutal murder of Alejandro's wife and daughter. We never even learned his last name. Soldado gives him one—it's Gillick—and the se- quel puts his relationship with Graver at the center of its plot. All photos by Richard Foreman/SMPSP, except as noted. © 2018 Sony Pictures Entertainment. All Rights Reserved.

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