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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COLA Awards. Photo: David Berthiaume/LMGI movie to work on with ever-changing schedules and logistically very tough locations. I believe the experience from scouting for a location to prepping that same location to working on the shoot day and then to see it come to fruition on the big screen gave me a real satisfaction and really made me realize how much of a character the actual location plays and how important our roles as location managers really are. I have been lucky in my career to work with great location managers, especially Albert Epps, who gave me my first camera and showed how to use it to scout. Steve Woroniecki, Kokayi Ampah, LMGI, Jason Kaplon, LMGI and Alison Taylor, LMGI were also very important mentors. PM: What is something you are aspiring to do in the Location Department? HL: I would like to eventually be involved more in the feature film world, to travel and see the world professionally. My wife Sandra and I became parents in our early 20s and I've been lucky to be able to work steadily in Los Angeles and be home with the family. Now that we're three years away from sending our son away to college, I look forward to the possibility of assignments beyond Los Angeles. PM: What have you found to be the most challenging? HL: When working in locations, specifically in scripted television, more often than not, the main challenge is almost always time. We don't always have the script pages with necessary locations available to us with enough time to scout and prep locations. Quite often, we find ourselves tech scouting on a Thursday with the assistant director scheduling locations that following Monday or you have a schedule for a location that films on Friday of that week and they pull it back to film on Tuesday and you find yourself scrambling with permits, street posting, vendors and all the other logistics that go along with location filming. PM: How did it feel to receive Assistant Location Manager of the Year at the 2015 COLAs? Has it changed your career trajectory? HL: I won the California On Location Award (COLA) for Assistant Location Manager of the Year in Feature Films for my work on Straight Outta Compton. First of all, I want to thank Alison Taylor for nominating me for the award and FLICS (Film Liaisons in California Statewide) for putting together such a great awards ceremony and recognizing our work as location professionals. I never expected any kind of recognition for doing my job and was very humbled by the entire experience. From getting the initial email letting me know about my nomination to listening to Ed Duffy and Steve Dayan call my name as the winner still seems surreal. To this day, I couldn't tell you exactly what I said in my acceptance speech. I don't know if it changed my career trajectory but more people know who I am now. PM: Do you have any advice for any young scouts just starting out and why? HL: The one piece of advice I would give new assistants is to listen, learn and absorb as much as you can from the managers On the set of Straight Outta Compton. 50 • LMGI COMPASS | Summer 2018