LMGI COMPASS
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Fall 2025
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Photo by Kyle Kaplan/Amazon
"We opened up maybe 150 yards by 75 yards, and, like I said,
Ryan is decisive. He looked at it, saw it, and that wound up being
the location," says Howard.
Beachler notes that it wasn't quite that easy. "It took a lot of
convincing to get it at Braithewaite, but after working with Ryan
for 13 years, he trusted me and believed in me enough to go with
what I knew would be great. And it was with the help of the entire
production. It wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination
with the weather, the snakes, alligators and mud, but it turned out
beautifully and matched back to the stage Juke Joint perfectly."
Ultimately, it took roughly $250,000 and more than three
months in order to build the entire infrastructure to support the
shoot.
You may be wondering about how they handled those gators
during the shoot.
"We just left them there," laughs Howard. "They don't come
toward noise, but they do come to where food sources are, right?
So, you know, we put a memo out: 'The gators aren't gonna just
come here, but if you feed 'em, they will.' We had three animal
wranglers with us the whole time, obviously, but they dealt more
with the snakes."
The Train Depot
Near the start of the film, the twins return to Clarksdale eager
to recruit their old friends. To recruit their allies, one heads to
The Train Depot, and the other goes into town. The train depot
would be a challenge.
"We needed something that wasn't on an active track. We all
know how challenging working around trains can be after the
Sarah Jones incident in Atlanta," says Howard.
The team selected the Bogalusa Railroad Station which was
built around 1907 in Washington Parish and was central to the
development of the town—particularly it its role as a hub for
