Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538629
4 2 1 2 t h A N N U A L L M G I A W A R D S I L O C AT I O N M A N A G E R S G U I L D I N T E R N AT I O N A L LMGI LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2025 ILT JONES Originally from Wales, Jones left an uninspiring career as a stockbroker to teach water skiing and manage a beach in Greece, inspiring a lifelong passion for travel. He developed a knack for logistics while dodging traffic as a bike courier in London, eventually moving to Los Angeles to manage a messenger company. Tapped by a friend to apply his knowledge of the city—and his skills as a I n the sprawling, dynamic universe that brings fantasy from page to screen with legendary scope, few have charted its gigantic terrain with the vision and boldness of supervising location manager Ilt Jones/LMGI. From folding Parisian streets like origami in Inception to forging a monstrous lair among the limestone pillars and winding rivers of Northern Vietnam in King Kong: Skull Island, Jones' adventurous range and artistic instinct have helped create worlds for some of the most visually iconic films of the last three decades. His epic portfolio reads like a Comic- Con dream: Iron Man 3, The Suicide Squad, Captain Marvel, Gattaca, The Dark Knight Rises and Captain America: Brave New World, to name just a few. photographer—to scout locations for a low-budget film, Jones successfully honed in on convincing facsimiles for Beirut, Tokyo, Geneva, Southern France and San Diego. Location work was a good fit for his eclectic resume, and it became a newfound passion, eventually leading to work on Pulp Fiction and As Good as It Gets. "At first, ignorance was bliss," laughs Jones, "I had NO idea what I was getting into other than the job seemed fun. I had no idea how much fun I was going to have over the ensuing 30 years!" In 1998, he landed on The X-Files when the show moved to Los Angeles in its sixth season. Adapting Chris Carter's cinematic style on a tight television production schedule proved Jones could handle big budgets, complex technical challenges and thorny strategic decisions over four seasons of the cult series. "It was by turns terrifying and exhilarating and those years flew by in the company of surely one of the best crews ever assembled," he recalls. Jones' enduring curiosity to see beyond the next bend in the road led to a cascade of globe-trotting projects. "If not working, he's traveling," says producer Ian Bryce, who worked with Jones on the Transformers franchise and Hancock. "That appetite for exploration is in Ilt's blood and made him the perfect partner to lead us to a vast array of some of the most beautiful, iconic, sensitive, historical, fascinating and exciting locations that we were privileged to film together." Jones has amassed a champion's mantle of epic projects with visionary directors like Christopher Nolan and Michael Bay, propelling ambitious narratives into a mythic realm by blending CGI-enhanced vistas with raw physical space and pushing the boundaries of what real-world locations can become. Unflappable and tenacious, Jones has mapped fantasy worlds in Prague, Patagonia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Greece to seamlessly integrate ancient monuments, natural scenery and sleek modern features with blockbuster scale action. "The fact that you are helping create imaginary worlds is tremendously liberating for a location scout," he says. "You can offer up locations that weren't necessarily called