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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Blues-Infused Scouting At the start, shooting in Mississippi, or even Georgia, was briefly considered by the filmmakers, but even before Howard came aboard, it had been decided to film in Louisianna. "A few weeks before the shoot there are hundreds of people in the office, but in those early days it was really just Ryan, Hannah and Elston scouting," recalls Ohanian. On the first day Howard, Coogler, director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw and others from the team all hopped in an SUV and drove about 55 minutes out of New Orleans to Thibodaux, Louisiana. "We were looking for the cotton field vibe. The plantation vibe," Howard says. "Thibodaux is on the plantation belt and is known for the Laurel Valley Plantation that still has sharecropper cabins sitting on it. "On the drive out, Ryan connected his Bluetooth to the car, and I realized that he's a music guy—rhythm and blues. And he was playing music to get the energy of the scenes and what we were looking at," says Howard. "That's when I realized that this movie was already shot in his mind and I felt the pressure immediately. "That music was Ryan's mental preparation for scouting, and it went on for weeks and weeks and weeks. We never listened to the radio or random music. It was just music he was planning for the film, and it put you right into it." For Beachler, it was simple. "Our process, Elston's and mine, has always been: 'What does the director need to tell this story?' That was how we approached it with Ryan, so we push and put the gas pedal down until we find it." As scouting continued, Howard began to fill out his team, enlisting scout Jimmy Trotter and key ALM Deven Schruff Howard … who also happens to be his wife—a fact the Howards like to keep under wraps during work hours. In fact, one producer from a past project, who shall go unnamed, had worked with the couple for two years and never knew they were together! Thibodaux seemed the ideal place to look for their cotton fields as sugar cane would eventually be planted there. "Cotton grows in the south, but in Louisiana, it's more of a northern crop. And it gets harvested in the fall. We would be shooting in the spring and summer. Cane gets planted in early summer to also harvest in the winter, but we managed to work it out," says Howard with a sly smile. So, all the "cotton fields" seen in the film were actually cane fields with more 60,000 Hibiscus plants—and the cotton, from real cotton plants, was tied into each one by hand. They ended up shooting about a third of the movie in Thibodaux. Martian Soil One of the biggest challenges for the location team throughout the shoot was replicating the terrain of Clarksdale, Mississippi, in Louisiana. "Even though it's the south, our soil is very different," Howard says. "They're known for red dirt and it's a very pliable dirt. The most important thing to Ryan was wherever we shot in Louisiana, A "dressed" Donaldsonville. Both photos are courtesy of Elston Howard/LMGI