LMGI COMPASS
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Winter 2023
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film shoot is a "campaign" or a "field exercise," accidental scene
walk-ons are "civilians." As a PA, his on-set callouts were closer
to a drill sergeant's bawl.
"It reminds me of a military unit coming in to do a task.
Every department has its own choreography, but everybody is
synchronized to get to one goal. Everybody is moving forward
to the pointy end of the stick for the director's vision, and I just
love the organized chaos."
Millar got a few gigs from school connections and slept
overnight in a Subway restaurant booth to get to his first union
job: as location production assistant on the 2000 film Screwed,
starring Norm MacDonald, Dave Chappelle, Danny DeVito and
Sarah Silverman.
He applied his Army Cadets training and boundless curiosity
to developing cold-weather location chops on shows like
Underworld: Evolution with Kate Beckinsale, and A Dog's Way
Home with Ashley Judd in Squamish, where he worked with
the support team on Ice Road Truckers and learned how to
transport gear and mobile shelters using snowcats. "We'd be on
the mountain in the dark in 30 feet of snow with snowcats and
snowmobiles—it was a blast," Millar recalls. "I really got geared
into doing critical site logistics."
He developed a well-rounded ALM career on hit projects like
Riverdale and the Fifty Shades movie trilogy, and when he was
approached in the summer of 2019 by Hans Dayal to fill his spot
as location manager, Millar was ready.
Devenyi says that Millar is a good match for the show's
emotional quotient. "Robert approaches the scripts like an actor
does: What is the essence of the character, what is the essence
of the location? They're not just looking at if there's parking
nearby or if this is a cheap location. If it's the top of a hill or 100
miles into the bush, he's always going that extra mile and getting
into the character—he's really tireless in finding the right thing."
"The producers wanted it to be a little bit more textural than
