Location Managers Guild International

34 • LMGI COMPASS | Fall 2020 JOINING–THE HANDMAID'S TALE Richardson was thrilled to be asked to join The Handmaid's Tale at the start of Season 2. Due to their unavailability, she took over lo- cations from John Musikka and Geoffrey Smither/LMGI. "I was very familiar with the show" she says. "I was a huge fan. When I got the call, I was really excited. What was really great for me was that I'd also worked on Alias Grace (a 2017 miniseries based on another Atwood book). Margaret doesn't often come to any of the locations, but I did get to meet her." Richardson, who managed locations on such projects as FX/ Hulu's Mrs. America, YouTube Premium's Wayne and CBC's Workin' Moms, credits Season 1's location team with "doing an amazing job finding some of those continuity locations. Of course, new things came up. In Season 3, we had to replicate a lot of Washington, D.C. We filmed there for a day, and the rest we did in Toronto. The Washing- ton episodes were mine. I did the Toronto for Washington locations, and D.C.-based location manager Carol Flaisher/LMGI was hired for the Washington shoot." Describing how she handled the location work on such a popular show, Richardson says her secret was simple. "We treated it like any show. You get scripts, break them down and meet with the production designer to get her vision. Then we compile a list of options we present to the director and producers. We usually spend 16-18 days of prep on every block shoot. We block-shoot two episodes at a time so it's one director per two episodes. If it's an 18-to-20-day shoot for a block, we'll be on the stage for maybe 5-8 days. It's busy but we always manage to get it done in the end." ICONIC LOCATIONS After taking over from Musikka and Smither, Richardson revisited key locations from Season 1. "One was the wall, where they hang people," she says. "That was shot in Cambridge, Ontario. To me, the wall is the location that people refer to most often when I contact them about locations. We've also done a lot of scenes on Main Street in Cambridge. They're exceptional with us when it comes to the permitting process. They're very organized." Finding a replacement location for Loaves and Fishes, the store where handmaidens shopped, proved challenging. "The building was no longer available," Richardson recalls, so Jeremy found another space in Burlington, which already had some of the grocery store elements to it. It took us two months to get it ready." One big problem for Pinard was neighborhood pushback at the Waterford House location. "Because of the number of times we visited here, several influential and vocal people who lived in the area didn't want us to return for the last shot in series 3," he says. "They'd had enough, and they tended to be more vocal. Meanwhile, we wanted to get as many people as possible to support us. Sometimes people say 'No' but won't tell you why. When we were trying to get permission to do our last scene, we had a meeting with the city, and the only people who showed up were in support of us. It was challenging, but (the naysayers) were gracious enough to let us come back so that we could transition out of the neighborhood. The fire was the last time we shot there. Our producers were happy to attend meetings at 7 p.m. when people got home from work. They really supported us and put themselves on the line." Iford Manor. Photo ©2020 Studiocanal S.A.S. Cambridge, Ontario. Photo by George Kraychyk/Hulu

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• 40-43 Hollywood Forever
• 44-53 6 UNDERGROUND
• 54-59 GRIFFIN
• 62-63 Martini shot