Location Managers Guild International

LMGI COMPASS | Winter 2021 • 45 "I'm a big fan of period pieces," VFX supervisor Justin Ball says. "I enjoy trying to put myself there. On Perry Mason, I did a lot of the research myself. SLM Jonathan Jansen/ LMGI, production designer John Goldsmith and I worked together before on The OA: Part II. We'd look at various locations and fi gure things out on the fl y. "Luckily, HBO had us involved very early. That way, we could solve potential problems and help the director and others focus on the story. Certain issues might be a big problem while others wouldn't. We could inform their decision-making process by saying, 'No, we can solve that problem.' "Because Perry Mason was a period show, anytime they were shooting outside, there was some work for us. And when we're shooting inside a historical building, we might have had to clean up smoke detectors and other modern signage or devices." The largest build that Ball was involved with was the World War I scenes. "I worked with every department on it," he says. "The scenes were fi lmed on top of Mystery Mesa outside Santa Clarita. We had to build the trenches. The practical effects guys did the explosions, bullet hits and fl ares. Then we went in and embellished it all and added bigger explosions and changed the landscape to look like the south of France. We fi lmed things that made it safe for the actors." One of Ball's biggest challenges was populating the interior of Radiant Assembly of God Church, where an evangelist regularly drew huge crowds. "We weren't able to fi nd a church as big as the one we were going for," he says. "We knew we could never have enough extras, so we added more (via VFX) to fi ll the church up. That was challenging. For TV shows, we tend to not do something so nuanced. This time, we scanned the extras so we would have everyone in costume. That's how we fi lled the church." Ball and his team did a lot of work in DTLA (Downtown Los Angeles). "It's one of my favorite places," he says, "although there is a very limited amount of period buildings. We'd come in after the fact and make things more correct, including adding trolley wires and lights. We did a lot of work on a rooftop in Koreatown. We changed the placement of the building within Los Angeles and erased the skyline so it would feel more accurate." One popular 1930s piece of equipment surprised Ball. "After referencing old Signal Hill photos, we inserted a lot of oil derricks," he says. "I dug up old maps that looked at areas between downtown and Santa Monica. It was amazing what we found. At the intersection of Beverly and La Cienega, there was an oil derrick in the middle of the street, which was actually a dirt road. Cars would drive around the derrick." The Angels Flight location required a lot of work. "It was hard to do," Ball says. "We erected massive green screens at times at the bottom of the Flight. They had to be very designed and spaced out. We had a lot of green screen at the base and beyond because the top of Angels Flight was not able to be fi lmed. We couldn't get access to California Plaza. We fi lmed the opening shots of the show with the top ticket booth in a parking lot across the street from the base of the Flight." Ball employs fi ve people on his production team. "We have a producer, an editor, a coordinator and a supervisor, who helps manage the set, and I'm there for the bigger moments," he says. "They do everything from preparing road signage to creating or erasing billboards." Without their on-location effects work, 1932 Los Angeles would have been impossible to bring to life. By the time they completed 10 months of work on the eight episodes of Perry Mason, they had added 1,560 FX shots to the mix. Ball says, "The service we provide allows fi lmmakers to tell the story they want to tell." THE ARTFUL COLLABORATION OF LOCATIONS AND VFX of them. I've worked with him since 2005. He was a location assistant on Numbers, the fi rst show I was supervisor on in L.A." Rodgers brought Goldsmith into the mix because 1) she had just worked with him on The OA and 2) he comes from an architecture background. "I'd worked with this team before," Goldsmith says, "and Jonathan is a friend. We trust each other. Location is one of the most powerful tools in moviemaking. How you pick a location is critical because it controls how you tell your story. I sat down with Jonathan and went back-and-forth. He's smart and fun. It was a great collaboration. Sometimes we'd drive around scouting together or we'd bat ideas around." Was he infl uenced by Chinatown? "Yes," he says, "but it was not something we were trying to repeat. We watched it with Tim. It's so compelling as a marker in time and place. We wanted to do that as well. Our work was primarily removing what's built up since 1932. DTLA (Downtown Los Angeles) was thick with fantastic buildings—if you can get above street level. "There was a confl uence of events in Los Angeles in 1932—the Olympics, Prohibition and The Depression. All those things were going on at the same time, and the racial scene was shifting. African Americans, many from the South, were moving to L.A., where homeownership was possible. The team found places with the director after parking the van and walking a grid." Jansen and LM Georges also had a strong relationship. "Jonathan and I always push each other," he says. "'Let's keep going,' we'd tell each other. We'd keep looking for more options. Sometimes we'd rotate the scouts off locations they were searching for, just to shake things up." Explaining how he and his team operate, Jansen says, "I generally run the look of the show for our department and drive that narrative. I work with the director, DP, producers, art department heads and writers. Usually, I do the budget, handle the permits and coordinate the scouts. This time, we moved up Alexander Georges to manage. He wanted to do permits and handle logistics of the coordinating team. Brian Kinney and Alex Moreno are some of our best scouts. I tell all my assistants, 'Always have your camera on you. You never know what I might need you to fi nd.'" Jansen spent a lot of time with VFX coordinator Justin Ball, with whom he had worked on The OA. "Justin is a really nice guy and pleasant to be around," he says. "We'd be out scouting for locations, and he'd have

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