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/976986
LMGI COMPASS | Spring 2018 • 23 Stevie: HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING IN LOCATIONS? HOW DID YOU START & WHAT DO YOU PRIMARILY WORK ON? Andrew Hodge: I was born in New Jer- sey and grew up in Wisconsin and New Jersey. When I was a kid, I thought I wanted to be a fireman or stuntman. I first got into photography after a high school filmmaking class. We made our own movie with clay animation, cutting, splicing, editing, etc. I moved into still photography. My mentors were all attending the Rochester Institute of Technology. I started working as a still photog- rapher in Plainfield, NJ, and at night, worked in many wet darkrooms so I could play during the day. I traveled around the country on a photo sabbatical in 1990: 20,000 miles, seven months and more than 30 states. I hooked up with American Peace Test and Seeds of Peace. We set up the logistic base camps for feeding and camping protesters in Mercury, NV, for the nonviolent activism against nuclear testing. After that, we traveled to Honeydew, CA, to set up similar base camps for Redwood Summer, the long nonviolent protest against the cutting of old-growth redwood trees in Northern California. All these logistics would later serve me well in locations. I met my daughter's mother in Utah and I decided to relocate from the East Coast. I was always a skier and had previously researched Salt Lake City (SLC) as a possible location to land. I have had a house in Utah ever since. It serves as a perfect base camp for every- thing west of the Mississippi. I have been working in locations since leaving still photog- raphy after traditional darkroom work ended and the digital age took over real film. After 10 years working in still pho- tography and darkrooms, I started working as an assistant on local TV shows and movies. I asked a friend who worked on the TV series Touched by an Angel if he knew any lo- cation managers looking for help. He put me in touch with a location manager who gave my name to another location manager who hired me as an assistant LM. It was a perfect fit! I have worked on numerous jobs with him over the last 20 years. Currently, I work on a variety of media from feature films to TV series and commercials to print ads and internet YouTube-branding commercials, original content movies, series and videos. Stevie: WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE PRIMARY DRAW FOR FILMING IN & AROUND SALT LAKE CITY & ITS SURROUNDING AREAS IN GENERAL? WHAT KIND OF "LOOKS" ARE THERE? AH: The primary draw to Salt Lake is the landscape. We have gorgeous mountains with aspen and pine tree forests, beau- tiful red rock canyons like nowhere else in the world within an hour of Salt Lake City. The Salt Flats and the Great Salt Lake, which is so big it has doubled for the ocean. Des- ert landscapes and some great urban looks downtown with buildings made from indigenous granite to modern glass architecture. Stevie: WHAT TYPES OF PRODUCTIONS FILM IN SALT LAKE? AH: We currently have a couple of series being shot here: The Taylor Sheridan-directed TV series Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner, Disney's Andi Mack and Studio C-BYU TV. Salt Lake also has a couple feature films being prepped and there is always preliminary scouting with producers not sure of where to take their project. Stevie: WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU FACE IN YOUR JOB? AH: Scheduling and short prep times. Often, the permit requests from the film companies conflict with a jurisdic- tion's permitting deadlines. And since technology is con- stantly changing, another challenge is keeping up on the newest tools, apps and camera gear. Filing images can be quite time-consuming. One image could be filed in 10 dif- ferent categories for one specific part of town. Multiply that by neighborhoods, towns, counties, regions and the state. All photos by Andrew Hodge/LMGI, except as noted. Photo courtesy of Andrew Hodge/LMGI Co-editor Stevie Nelson gets a tour of Salt Lake City from member Andrew Hodge "Salt Lake City ... serves as a perfect base camp for everything west of the Mississippi."