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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16 • LMGI COMPASS | Winter 2021 and seeing the American Museum of Natural History, the Empire State Building, the Guggenheim Museum and more, my appreciation for architecture continued unabated. I particularly enjoyed the opportunity to apply that appreciation to my scouting. I've been pleased and proud to have shot some of the great architectural residences of Los Angeles over the years. For example, the Ennis House worked in Grand Canyon for the home of the producer in the story (inspired by Joel Silver) in place of the "modern concrete bunker" in the script, because of Joel Silver's passion for the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. John Lautner's Sheats-Goldstein Residence, one of the great pieces of modern architecture, was a location in Bandits. Neutra's Lovell Health House, one of the most classic examples of international design in the world, had a starring role in LA Confidential. Pierre Koenig's Case Study House #22, also known as the Stahl House, was used in Nurse Betty. And even though it's only a brief glimpse, a Paul R. Williams house in Los Feliz was used in Warren Beatty's Rules Don't Apply. I've done my best to avoid the McMansions of the world. Even a seemingly mundane character deserves some defining touch of style. Call it coincidence, or perhaps synchronicity, but it was Ted Haworth who designed The Longest Day, the movie that my father took me to see so many years ago, and that sparked my interest in working in film; and it was at a tribute to Bill Creber that I met my wife, production designer Caty Maxey. I am fortunate in that every film I've worked on has had some redeeming feature: a great script, a new logistical challenge to work out, an interesting location or a talented crew. Some were brutal to work on—LA Confidential comes to mind. It was a modestly budgeted film, but no one believed it after Kim Basinger and Kevin Spacey were cast. Director Curtis Hanson had a clear vision of what he wanted to accomplish, as did cinematographer Dante Spinotti and production designer Jeannine Oppewall, but it was a running battle getting approval from the producers to get them what they needed. The Location Department for an all-location movie with a plethora of night filming consisted of me, Leslie, Stephen Fischer, Ken Hunter and the occasional day player if we were lucky. The excellence of the finished product helped eased the pain ... along with an unusually long stretch of time off to recover. Some productions required amazing feats of complex coordination. For The Italian Job, we shut down Hollywood Boulevard for multiple days. We had helicopters flying along the rooftops and a hundred concert security staffers controlling pedestrian traffic. Adding to this, for a couple of days, we closed off the freeway exit to control traffic on Highland Avenue too. We sent Mini Coopers into Metro stations and other places they weren't meant to go. We flew a helicopter down Lower Grand. For Jason Bourne, we closed a portion of the Las Vegas Strip for eight nights, with the help of about 70-plus police officers ... each night! On In Time, we closed down major sections of downtown Los Angeles, including the 2nd Street tunnel, 4th and 6th Street bridges, 7th Street and Lower Grand in one gloriously crazy day. Thankfully, other productions were like scenic road trips that I was lucky enough to be paid for ... like Bandits, which started in Oregon and made its way down the California coast to Marin, Sonoma, Napa, San Mateo, Monterey and Solano counties before eventually ending up in Los Angeles. The movie should be seen for the locations alone! Leslie and I were proud to Director Cameron Crowe and I on the set for Aloha. John Panzarella. Photo by Jared Cowan