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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8 • LMGI COMPASS | Spring 2022 IN THE NEWS The LMGI Presents: Locations Behind the Oscars On March 26, 2022, moderators JJ Levine/ LMGI and Dodd Vickers/ LMGI sat down with location professionals who worked on fi lms nominated for the 94th Academy® Awards. KALM panelists included LM Michael Glaser/LMGI and KALM Zachary Quemore/ LMGI for Licorice Pizza; LM/ scout Sally Sherratt for The Power of the Dog; SLM Nick by Jen Farris Oliver and LM Peter Bardsley/ LMGI for Dune; LM Tim Gorman for CODA; LM Patrick Mignano/LMGI and LM David Park/LMGI for King Richard; LM Mark Scott Fitzgerald for Don't Look Up; and SLM Robert T. Striem for West Side Story. The fi lmmakers shared their perspectives on what made the scouting and managing experiences on these acclaimed 2022 Oscar nominees so unique and challenging. Dune location managers and scouts faced unexpected weather conditions while fi lming the fi ctional desert planet Arrakis in the deserts of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. They dealt with flashfloods and sandstorms, created roads to access remote locations, managed crew safety so members would not be lost in the vast wilderness, and—at all costs— protected pristine desert locations from tread marks and footprints before fi lming. Scouting for the perfect rock and desert formations also meant taking the changing position of the sun and shadows cast into account. Location scout and manager Sally Sherratt's key directive when scouting The Power of the Dog was "remoteness." The western drama was scripted as Montana, but Sally found the vast landscapes, big skies, river gorges and powerful landscapes in the Central Otago region of the South Island of New Zealand. The New Zealand scenes wrapped just before the COVID pandemic forced production to shut down for four months. On the opposite end of the spectrum, small seaside towns were the backdrop for CODA. Location manager Tim Gorman had to quickly master managing locations on docks and in marinas. Building relationships with fi shermen, and even their wives, was instrumental in obtaining access to huge seawalls and popular fi shing and tourist locations like Lanesville and Lane's Cove in Gloucester, Massachusetts. CODA stands for "child of deaf adults" and features hard of hearing actors. Using flashing light signals instead of traditional walkie-talkies is one example of the unique approaches taken to manage the CODA set. Landlocked locations for King Richard and West Side Story also had their share of challenges. West Side Story SLM Robert T. Striem had to recreate locations in the Upper West Side of Manhattan that had been demolished since the original West Side Story was fi lmed. Large tree canopies did not exist in 1950's Manhattan making the search for a tree-barren cluster of vintage buildings that would allow the characters to dance and move not an easy fi nd. Many song sequences were fi lmed against only several buildings to create the illusion of continuous dance movement in vintage spaces. Luckily, Robert had experience working on period New York-based musicals such as Across the Universe, with Julie Taymor, and The Producers: The Movie Musical, prior to managing West Side Story! Location professionals Patrick Mignano/LMGI and David Park/LMGI faced a diff erent challenge. To tell the story of the Williams' family using their Compton, California home meant squeezing the actors and crew into their 1,000 sq. ft. house. The team identifi ed a cluster of similar—but larger—homes, and sections of each house were fi lmed and then edited together to create one homestead.