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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LMGI COMPASS | Fall 2026 • 39 bold cinematic format, and each makes grand use of its locations. Sheridan also gives the world's firm visual rules. Producer and 101 Studios executive John Hermansen explains that those conversations can begin even before a first script is distributed. "Taylor knows the terrain he is writing and describes not only a place, but its topography and emotional function. He's almost always been to these places," says Hermansen, "so it's all important to him." The established crew translates those instructions quickly because they've spent years learning the language. On both Landman and The Madison, production designer Charisse Cardenas is a crucial conduit, turning Sheridan's visual mandate into actionable choices for the scouts and then transforming what they find. "Creative drives everything on all of these shows," emphasizes Daniels. "And Sheridan is very explicit about what he wants. It's all there in the script and when we're out looking, Taylor's mandate from the start has always been, 'I don't care if it's four hours away from our base. If it's the best location, I want it.'" Falling in Love With Film Daniels had attended the University of Austin in the midst of a major new wave of cinema in the early 2000s. At the local Alamo Drafthouse, now a famous chain, one could regularly run into globally respected filmmakers like Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez and the legendarily reclusive director Terrence Malick. It began to dawn on Daniels that films weren't only gigantic projects made somewhere else, and perhaps there was a career path into the film industry for the Houston-born native. Eventually, the Drafthouse introduced 'Open Screen Night,' where locals could present their short film projects; Daniels and his friends began submitting films of their own. "You'd go out to the screening and then afterward, you'd meet and talk with the other filmmakers, and we all just loved it. The whole energy of it was really fun. "The Austin Film Society was tied in with the Alamo Drafthouse at that time, and they did a lot of programming and also had an internship program," recalls Daniels. "I joined that program, and it ended up actually being a kind of film industry placement system. So, you do two semesters with the internship program, and then they would help you become a PA on a job or get your foot in the door." While working the front desk at the Film Society, he took a call from an indie producer. "It was a super low-budget thing, and they were like, 'We need some extra help this weekend. Can you put out the APB to anyone around that might be available?'" Daniels volunteered and quickly found himself on set for the Location Department, which led to another gig when Michael Bay's company came to town for a reboot of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. "The Location Department had a position available, so that became my first real gig, and that was three months of all nights on set," Daniels says. "It was a great first project, and I never looked back. I met some incredible people on that set, all old Austin people … guys who had worked on Slackers and stuff like that, and I just fell in love with Hollywood at that point."