LMGA-Compass-Spring-2015-New-1

well enough to ask for advice.In the end, I simply jumped inand never looked back.I have had many highs andlows in my quarter century inthis job. One that stands out inmy memory happened duringhalftime of an NFL game atRavens Stadium in Baltimore,Md. Ninety thousand peoplewere in their seats. A regularseason game was in full swing.In the tunnels of the stadiumwere two complete footballteams for The Replacements,Keanu Reeves as quarterback,Gene Hackman as the coach,400 background artists, sixcamera crews, two Steadicamcrews and various other crewmembers. Once we were letonto the field, we would haveexactly 10 minutes to film 10plays.As the two-minute warningsounded on the field, the crewwaited. But penalty flag afterpenalty flag was thrown—thelast two minutes of the secondquarter lasted 25 minutes.Suddenly, as if in a dream,the stadium crew yelled intomy earphones: “Go, Go, Go!” Ithrew out the signal to the firstAD and the entire platoon ofThe Replacements personnelran onto the field. The crowdwas on their feet cheering. Thestadium vibrated with noise.And as if on cue—exactly atthe end of our 10 minutes—Keanu’s character threw theball for the scene-endingfinal touchdown. The real NFLteams ran onto the field. Thecrowd roared. And so did thelocation crew.The Replacements illustratesthe complex details a locationmanager has to deal with.The Ravens’ ground crew andNFL wanted to make sure thatduring our two-week shoot, thefield was kept pristine for theSunday games. Twice a day,at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., I wouldwalk the field with the Head ofGroundskeeping and a memberof the Model family, theRavens’ owners. During thosemeetings, we would decidewhich grass turf tiles neededto be removed and replacedand which could be salvaged—which required constantnegotiation: “they” wanted toreplace all of them and “we”didn’t want to spend the severalthousands of dollars per tile. Inthe end, the production spentclose to $1 million on repairingthe field, a compromise.While shooting Richie Rich atthe Biltmore Estate in Asheville,N.C., we dealt with all thenormal issues associatedwith filming in an activemuseum as well as the specialrequirements of the museum’sadministration. The Cecil family(the heirs of George Vanderbilt)insisted that the entire crewconform to the same dresscode as their staff—long pantsand shirts with collars. Thelocation department had theonerous task of enforcingthe dress code despite thepredictable objections of thecrew. “S--- Happens” T-shirtswere definitely a no-no.On HBO’s Curb YourEnthusiasm, filmed in LosAngeles, the consequences offilming in HD Video without ascript in public places becameextremely clear. While actorsimprovised during exceptionallylong takes, merchants andhomeowners still insisted ongoing about their everydaybusiness. The locationdepartment (which consistedof me and Andrea Morrissy-Keener) had the pressure andpleasure of trying not to breakthe creative flow of the actor/writers while still trying toallow the general populationaccess to merchants andhomes.Cold Case filmed almostentirely in Los Angeles,however, the series took placein present-day Philadelphiawith all the “cold cases”taking place from 1920s to1990s Philly. These movieswithin the show requiredpainstaking attention to detail,transforming the streets androads of contemporary LA intoa variety of period locations inand around Philadelphia.Set in Washington, D.C., butfilmed entirely in Los Angeles,ABC’s Scandal has benefitedgreatly from the advances ingreen screen technology. Withever-evolving scripts andschedules, along with multipleepisodes shooting concurrentlyand last-minute changes, thelocation department’s chargeof finding beautiful, East Coastarchitecture that tells the storycan be extremely challenging.Teamwork between alldepartments on any projectis important—on this one it isparamount.My experiences are shared bymany location managers. Theyknow, as I do, that the behindthe-scenesstories are usuallymore grit than glamour. Thejob that I started at 29 yearsold is not the job I do today.When I began, all that wasneeded was a wad of cash, aLeft to right: Andrea Morrissy-Keener, Veronique Vowell, Jasmin Parisand J. Hanna.18 • LMGA COMPASS | Spring 2015