Location Managers Guild International

Fall 2021

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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40 • LMGI COMPASS | Fall 2021 paramount. Every location exists in North Philadelphia in the neighborhood of the cowboys. The horse-riding club and the surrounding community opened their homes and lives to the production. All the horses shown in the stables are actually housed there." Locations to watch for: The Fletcher Street Stables One of the oldest and last-remaining of Philadelphia's hardscrabble inner-city stables, it was built by a collective of horseriders in an old, dilapidated brick city warehouse with the horses' pasture in a vacant grass lot among Philly row houses and apartment buildings in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood. Mirroring the fi lm's plot, this location faces demolition as urban development encroaches upon the area. Belmont Stables The Belmont Stables are city-owned and used to house the Philadelphia Police Department's Horseback Unit. It is now used to teach the city's kids how to ride horses. In the story, Belmont plays the city- owned stable where the horses are taken after Fletcher St. is shut down. Life may imitate art, as this scenario may come to pass when the cowboys lose their home to development. Harp's House A typical 90-year-old Philadelphia row house—two stories and 950 square feet—it had to accommodate a horse in the living room. The house needed its basement structure rebuilt to support the weight of the horse, the equipment, the actors and crew. The house was quite small, especially with a horse in it—but it made for an amazing scene! Graffi ti Tunnels The culmination of a frantic foot chase as Cole and Smush evade the police takes place in the ominous, abandoned SEPTA Train Tunnel and Viaduct. The shadowy, graffi ti-festooned walls provide the dramatic backdrop for an emotional confrontation between Cole and Smush. NOMADLAND LM Nathan D. Harrison Real people and imagined characters merge as Nomadland tells a story based on real modern-day "nomads"—usually older Americans whose fi nancial circumstances force them to take a detour from a conventional way of life and hit the road in vans and campers chasing seasonal work to survive. Set against expansive western landscapes, one woman's odyssey takes her to South Dakota, Nebraska, Arizona, Nevada and California—where Fern, new to the lifestyle, redefi nes her own version of "the American dream." What the locations say about story: Actors share the narrative with fi rst-time performers who genuinely live as nomads. If the real nomads are what give the movie its heart, it's the landscapes, with their lonely, limitless beauty—from the striated rock formations of South Dakota's Badlands National Park to the redwoods of Northern California's Mendocino coast—that give it its contours. From high desert to low desert to the plains and to the ocean, the relationship with the landscape allows Fern to embrace the freedom of her new life and community of like-minded souls, and to let go of the life she left behind. The locations reveal the nomads' expansive universe, emphasizing the contrast between gaining freedom from society while feeling estranged from it at the same time. What the location manager says: "The beet farms in Nebraska, Arizona desert camps and nighttime parking lots that we see in the movie are the same places where real-life nomads work, socialize and sneak away for a troubled night's sleep in their vans. The open spaces and roadways of the American West allow the audience to experience both wonderous beauty and loneliness, along with the fi lm's protagonist." Locations to watch for: U.S. Gypsum Mine in Empire, Nevada This mine and company town were abandoned when the market collapsed in 2008. It is both beautiful and desolate—the site of a lifetime of memories for the people who once lived and worked there, including the fi ctionalized main character. It is the death of her husband and the economic collapse of the town that motivates Fern to take to the road, pin-balling around the American West in search of work and living out of a camper van. La Posa Desert, Quartzsite, Arizona The Sonoran Desert site of the annual Rubber Tramp Rendezvous gathering of nomads really anchors the fi lm, bringing together people from all walks of life who share their stories during the conclave. The desert manages to transform from a site of joy and community to one of quiet, beauty and isolation as the vans depart and Fern is left alone. Amazon Fulfi llment Center in Eastvale, CA A cavernous ultra-automated marvel, this mesmerizing location is a modern version of the factory in Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times. The center is both a necessary source of income for Fern and the other workers, and in its inhumanity, a contrast to the people who work inside it. This location was fi lmed as is, with the actor doing real work alongside real Amazon employees. Dave's Home, Mendocino, CA The warm and inviting classic farmhouse set in Mendocino's Port Arena is a lush-green haven after the stark desert landscapes. Fern visits Dave and spends time in the majestic redwood forest of Hendy Woods State Park and along the rugged shoreline of Point Arena. But the comforts of a traditional home now feel claustrophobic, and Fern soon departs for the freedom of the open road. South Dakota Fern passes through the Badlands, fi nding work in a campground and then as a waitress at nearby Wall Drug, an iconic truck stop known for its huge statue of a brontosaurus. TENET SLM Janice Polley/LMGI LM Klaus Darrelmann/LMGI - International LM Julie Hannum/LMGI - U.S. Tenet is a big movie with big locations and a big mind-bending premise: A secret agent learns to manipulate time to prevent an attack from the future that will annihilate the world of the present. The agent journeys Nomadland Tenet NOMADLAND LM Nathan D. Harrison Real people and imagined characters merge as Nomadland tells a story based on real modern-day "nomads"—usually TENET SLM Janice Polley/LMGI LM Klaus Darrelmann/LMGI - International LM Julie Hannum/LMGI - U.S. Tenet is a big movie with big Tenet is a big movie with big Tenet locations and a big mind-bending

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