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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38 • LMGI COMPASS | Winter 2026 Trapped in El Paso Playing as Downtown Baktan Cross When Lockjaw and his team of heavily armed soldiers show up to abduct Willa, the world behind that lush, redwood curtain shatters—and Bob flees to another part of town, seeking refuge with Willa's karate teacher, Sergio (Benicio del Toro). "El Paso offered the back half of our fictional city Baktan Cross," says Glaser. "At night it was a complete ghost town, like having a pre-World War II industrial brick city to yourself with all the rooftops and lighting positions you could ever ask for." Anderson had stopped in El Paso while shooting in Marfa for There Will Be Blood, and he knew he wanted to get back there one day. The rooftops. The empty streets. The humid sense of danger that sits just below street level. For the narrative, this is where Bob finds the first real thread leading toward Willa. For the production, it's where precision and improvisation had to co-exist, with Texas location assistant Jacob Cena/LMGI leading the way from the initial scout throughout the filming. "There were a handful of critical locations for the shoot that had been identified as scenes that could be shot in El Paso," says Cena, "but in the beginning, I didn't really know what they were because not everyone was allowed a copy of the script. Glaser actually loaned me his, and he's like, 'you got two hours' or maybe it was an hour. I can't remember. So, I sat in my car, and I skimmed it as fast as I could, and that's all the information I had. "I was calling people left and right! Cops, property owners, real estate agents that I know, architects, doctors, lawyers, I mean, you name it! I was calling people's mothers just to get doors unlocked, you know what I mean? Because after I read the script, I realized how big this project was, and I also wanted to show Glaser that I wouldn't fail and that I could keep up with these guys, because Glaser, Wesley… I mean, they're the best!" Among the primary locations in El Paso were the Sergio's Ninja Academy, the Perfumeria above which is a migrant hideout, Sergio's apartment and a key rooftop scene where Bob tries—and fails—to keep up with some young skateboarders who are meant to lead him to safe passage. The Academy "was a decrepit old space that we brought back to life," says Glaser. "It had jail bars across the whole front. Some glass was broken. It was in bad shape. So, we took the bars off, redid the windows. There are some numbering and lettering on there that's original from the late sixties, early seventies, but Florencia and her team made it feel old and new at the same time." Cena knew it would work the first time he saw it. "I don't know how I knew, but I was sitting with one of our other KALMs and I just said, 'they're gonna do it here' … and he wasn't sure. He was like, 'Man, this would take a ton of work,' but it already had some benefits to it even in its rundown state … it had the big windows onto the street so you could see the cop cars whooshing by, there was parking in the back … but yeah, they did choose that location and it needed a lot of work," says Cena. "But look how cool it looks on screen!" Sergio's refuge and the hidden migrant haven didn't really exist either. "When you see them go upstairs and open the door in the hallway, that door is actually across the alley. Florencia's crew built almost 90 percent of that," says Cena. "The room with the mats where the families and the kids were hiding exists above the Perfumeria. The rest is a build." Martin and her art department team even found ways to incorporate elements throughout the film that they'd seen during scouts, like when she noticed that children in an actual migrant shelter had drawn pictures on the walls, or when her team recreated an entire mural from a building they'd seen. "Florencia and I were in a foxhole together almost from the beginning," says Glaser. "She helped us keep the train on the tracks. And because Paul likes to keep things looking real and authentic, it made the pivots and U-turns easier for our departments as we had to be in lock-step throughout the film." That ability to believably drift between real space and invented space came from a location department/art department machine "Baktan Cross" under siege- El Paso, Texas by Jacob Cena/LMGI