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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14 • LMGI COMPASS | Spring 2020 G U I L D I N T E R N A T I O N A L TM LMGI My dream was to organize world tours—for the Rolling Stones or the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. I am not one for small dreams. Logistics, travel, music and musicians—all fascinated me. I was already President of Les Fêtes de Saint-Jean Baptiste in the National Capital area, organizing summer events and performances. But, as a 17-year-old young woman, I could not legally hold my own commercial bank account. The vice president of our organization had to open the account and he was the one allowed to sign checks for me! When I moved to Montreal, I had a part-time job in an art house repertoire movie theatre. I was at the cashier's booth, answering the phone and mostly watching movies —a lot of movies. When a CAREER FOCUS new highly expected movie would arrive, the staff would organize our own private midnight screening, sitting in the front rows with our popcorn. The projectionist was as passionate about fi lm as we were, lucky us. Little did I know that I would end up working in the industry. I studied business administration at the University of Quebec in Montreal. I was told that was the best way to get to arts management, the career that I was dreaming of. Like most college students, I needed money and started looking for summer jobs in what was then a burgeoning Quebec fi lm industry. When I started in this business, location manager was not a recognized position. We were hired as production assistants and, as well as handling those responsibilities, we were expected to fi nd spaces and places which would refl ect the director's vision and allow a fi lm crew in to disrupt the 'normal' life of 'normal' people. It was a little rock and roll. It may be diffi cult to imagine today, but in this period, we'd return from a scout with a fi stful of Polaroids. Along the way, I got hooked, and I never went back to fi nish my university degree. From 1980 to 1990, I worked on many Canadian and Quebecois fi lms helmed by some of the province's most outstanding directors, including Francis Mankiewicz's Les bons débarras, Jean- Claude Lauzon's Un zoo la nuit and Pierre Falardeau's Le party. It was a heady and collegial time. Michel Brault was the cinematographer on Les bons débarras and, even though I was only a production assistant, I was invited to rushes. I learned so much then about the intricacies of composition and lighting, the ins and outs of fi lmmaking. My fi rst American feature was Alan Rudolf's Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. It was exciting to fi nd the New York of Dorothy Parker in the heyday of the Algonquin Round Table for Alan in Old Montreal. That part of our city is truly a gem. With its cobblestone streets and historically preserved buildings, it can easily play period New York (John Crowley's Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan), Berlin, London, Paris. As well as patrimonial buildings with their stately architecture, the city boasts hyper-modern structures with soaring rooftops and stylized interiors (Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past, starring Hugh Jackman). I have shot in back alleys, on McGill University's elegant campus and in the Olympic Stadium (Phil Alden Robinson's The Sum of All Fears, starring Ben Affl eck and Morgan Freeman). Since the turn of this century, many American productions have been attracted to Montreal by the advantageous tax credits and the versatile city's locations: The Terminal (directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones), Beyond Borders (directed by Martin Campbell, starring Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen), Wicker Park and Lucky Number Slevin, both directed by Paul McGuigan, The Curious Case of Benjamin Michele St-Arnaud in Rwanda The Indefatigable Michele St-Arnaud, Montreal Location Maven Extraordinaire! "What hasn't changed for location managers is the challenge of our job: to accommodate the sometimes contradictory visions of the director and the designer with original and unusual locations."