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/1545239
found incredible terrain—the perfect balance of familiarity and otherness. Thankfully, I had a four-wheel-drive jeep (although I did invariably get stuck in a bog, in a ditch, in the woods and on a beach). It was like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty of scouting." When he returned, the creative team was so wowed by the images. They started writing scenes around specific photos and the places Smith scouted. They particularly honed in on the Bonavista Peninsula, which Smith then returned to on six scouting missions from June 2022 until they finally started shooting main unit in April 2023. But there was still one important filming site that was proving hard to find on the peninsula. In one draft, there was a doctor character who lived in a nice house, but Newfoundland is not particularly conducive for easy-read upscale. "What we did have was an amazing, characterful, rustic home with no electricity or plumbing, isolated on a peninsula with a dramatic reveal, which again they were really impressed with, and so they rewrote the character, Auntie Sissy Cobel, to live there with health issues," says Smith. "It was quite something shooting there, using kerosene lanterns for lighting. But it was phenomenal. Very Barry Lyndon. I don't know any other show that would do that." A lot of the scouting in the peninsula required unorthodox transport, including helicopters and inflatable military rafts to get to Fogo Island with director Ben Stiller. "It was crazy," Smith says. "We filmed a lot of second unit work there and were actually working on the island when the writers' strike happened. Fortunately, we managed to finish." Another standout location Smith picked out for the second season of the show was a waterfall in Minnewaska State Park. The writers had described a snowy wood setting for a work retreat that needed to be kind of magical. "Amazingly, the park is only two hours from New York City but has so many incredible looks. One of its most postcard features is this waterfall, which I showed to Ben and he loved it," Smith says. "So much so that they based the episode locale around it, including the climax scene of Irving threatening to drown Helly R." But it wasn't just the waterfall that caught the filmmaker's eye. They also needed an enchanted tree where the characters receive instructions. So, they were on the lookout for a great place to put a prop tree. Smith's scout Julian Ruhe had been on location with his kids when they had run off and he found them in a cave that was off the beaten track. "Julian took me there, climbing over rocks— there was no way we're going to get the actors back here—but he insisted I see it, so we carried on and it was incredible. It wasn't just a cave, but an actual tunnel, granting two access points," Smith enthuses. "Fortunately, they loved it, and the tree scene became the Scissor Cave scene." To turn this vision into a practical, shootable reality, they supplied the crew with crampons—and for the cast, incorporated crampons into the costume design, outfitted the equipment trucks with snow tracks, hired a team of Alpine guides to set pinpoints on the boulders, ran safety lines (and strip lights) through the park, set up igloo-like warming tents for the crew, and tents as green rooms scattered throughout the woods. But it was worth it. "We shot the heck out of the park for several sequences," he adds. "The writers joined us on multiple scouts. We'd find something, they'd write it in (or vice versa). It was a beautiful synergy." This also proved to be the case with finding the exterior of the home of the Dylan character. "We wanted to have it close to Severance at Minnewaska State Park Reserve. Photo by Ryan Smith/LMGI