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
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1535985
LMGI COMPASS | Spring 2025 • 45 Photo by Kyle Kaplan/Amazon "On these kinds of narrative-led commercials, it's a matter of providing loads of options for everything, choosing locations that are ideally convenient but also suit the story and schedule and then carefully putting it all together like a puzzle," says Freid. Gunning adds: "With these narrative commercials, the landscape is an additional character, so getting it right is so important. This is why I wanted Seattle and the Pacific Northwest because of their different landscapes, textures and atmospheres. I try to really get across the emotional journey of the story in the characters and settings." This is a different approach to the standard pickup truck/car commercials where it's about showing off the vehicle's features in tricky terrains. "We've done a load of those 'sheet metal' ads where it's all about the car. This Toyota commercial is more about the story and the car is effectively an accessory to it," says Riordan. Interestingly, with these car commercials, there are multiple assets being shot all at one time. "The client might want stills for marketing purposes, such as a billboard ad, or short 15-second video clips for YouTube, which needs to be factored in. So, we're working on the main commercial, but also have to consider side quests and ensuring the backdrop is right," adds Riordan. Permits Getting permits to shoot all these locations varied considerably. "Some places you need them, others you don't. We needed sheriffs to close some roads and do traffic control for certain road sequences because we were doing arm car-to-car work," explains Freid. For the ferry sequence, the team had to get permits from the Washington Department of Transportation and the ferry company, "but it wasn't too expensive (about $350)," says Freid, "and the drone shot approval from the Federal Aviation Administration was easy to allow us to fly." But working to such tight schedules can cause some dramas with permitting. "The time span makes it difficult. Sometimes we don't know if the permits are going to come through quick enough, but we work hard to build relationships and think outside the box to get things done, often being good diplomats between clients, authorities, production teams and crew," says Riordan. Freid adds: "We had to face restrictions at most of our locations, but we (Lisa and I) were able to chat about them and come up with a working plan to accomplish her ideas." Award Winner All this work was rightly rewarded with the 2024 LMGI Award for Outstanding Locations in a Commercial at the 11th annual ceremony on Saturday 24 August. "I looked over at Mark and was like, 'What?' I didn't think we were going to win, so I didn't even prepare a speech," laughs Riordan. "But it was nice to be appreciated for all our efforts, and to network with other production and location figures and swap war stories."