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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30 • LMGI COMPASS | Spring 2021 The Polley Prologue Polley, a Toronto native whose SLM credits include Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and two films in The Divergent series, had never considered going into film. "In our family," she says, "you looked at a real career, not anything in the arts." As a student, she planned to go into sports medicine. In fact, she graduated having studied kinesiology at University when her sister happened to get a job as a PA for a local commercial company. Polley soon got an offer to join her sister, but despite the company being the biggest commercial production house in the city, shortly after she started, the owners announced they were bankrupt and would be shutting down. By that time, Polley had a taste of the business and liked it. "I remember thinking, 'How can I stay in this?'" she says. She needn't have worried. An opportunity soon presented itself when she noticed a new group moving into the building. They were members of an MGM crew coming into town for Mrs. Soffel, with Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson, and someone on the crew asked if Polley would be willing to stay on for their shoot. Of course, she said, "Yes." Her fortune improved from there. A producer on the film had fired a few assistants and Polley was asked if she'd like to interview for the position. Not only did she get the job and survive through the end of the shoot, she was asked to relocate to L.A. for another film. "I was shocked," she recalls. "It was so far from the realm of what I'd grown up with in Toronto, but I said 'yes' again and moved down to L.A." She was tasked with scouting locations on that next film and was soon able to join the union despite the fact that, prior to that job, she'd never even used a camera. "I remember having to ask a driver to help me load the film," she laughs. Polley soon completed a number of big action films working as a scout and assistant before moving up to location manager. Two critical things happened during this period: The first was that she was hired as a LM by the late director Tony Scott, and the second was when she was hired by writer-director Michael Mann. Polley would ultimately go on to work as Scott's LM on nine films, including True Romance, Man on Fire and The Taking of Pelham 123, and as Mann's LM on six features, including Heat, Collateral and Blackhat, as well as a brand-new HBO Max series which just wrapped in Japan. "The two of them taught me everything I know and I'm still in awe of both of them," she says. The Garage With those credentials, it's no wonder Polley got the call asking if she could come to Christopher Nolan's home for a meeting or, more specifically, to his garage. Nolan famously begins all of his projects in the garage where he and Academy Award-nominated production Director Michael Mann presents Janice Polley/LMGI with the LMGI Lifetime Achieve- ment Award. Photo: Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging. Courtesy of the LMGI Oslo Opera House