After we finished at the pizzeria we pushed a little further out of downtown Detroit. We really were in some impoverished areas. I felt a great sense of responsibility for my companions. Everywhere they went was someplace I took them and they were the farthest thing from safety-conscious. Typically I would pull the truck over and Kar Wai would spring out of it and start rapidly striding off. He could go in any direction and easily get lost. As he was the real artist and the reason we were there I felt most responsible for him.

While he moved quickly, however, Stephane and Darius took forever getting in motion. Kar Wai could be damn near a mile away before they found their hats and gloves, stretched, checked their cameras, chatted a bit, grabbed a piece of fruit, and finally left the vehicle. I was constantly trailing Kar Wai but holding back, waiting for them to leave the vehicle so I could lock it. God forbid either of them ever pay the slightest bit of attention to practical matters. Were I not on top of it those two would wander off with the car doors ajar in even the worst neighborhood. It may seem petty but when you spend months travelling with people and are the only responsible party the resentments do build up.

I trailed Kar Wai down a side street but it turned out to be a dead end. As we returned to the truck we saw Darius shooting an extremely run-down restaurant. It was a pretty ghetto Chinese joint. As we approached he called out to me.

“Sam, can you see if I can take pictures inside?”

I had just started to move when Kar Wai placed a hand on my shoulder to stop me. I can’t say he looked angry but it’s the closest I’ve ever seen him to being so.

“No Chinese. Not in this movie.”

Darius and I made eye contact and held it for a moment. We wordlessly agreed to discuss that one privately.

Moving on, we saw a fairly interesting spot called the Hygrade Deli. In addition to being a potential location it had neon signs advertising hot corned beef. Even though Kar Wai didn’t want Chinese in his film every possible meal we ate was Chinese food. If I had a shot at a nice corned beef sandwich I was taking it.

Inexplicably the doors were locked. Odd, as it was around lunchtime and the place was lit up like it was Christmas. After knocking for a while an older fellow came to the door. He was convinced we were there to rob him. Who knows, perhaps there had been a string of burglaries committed by an American, a Chinese, a Frenchman and an Iranian guy recently. It took a good ten minutes of speaking through a locked door to convince him to open up and let us in. Even when we did he would only let us just inside the door. Clearly I wasn’t getting that sandwich. Things must really be rough in Detroit.

In another of those wildly frustrating moments, Kar Wai took a few steps inside, looked around, shook his head no and strode wordlessly out the door. It’s understandable that a Director needs to have a look at a place before knowing if it is of interest to them. Of course they do. The thing is, the façade of the Hygrade was all glass. There was not a thing about the place that couldn’t be seen from outside. Yet Kar Wai had been rather insistent that I get him in. So I tapdanced for ten minutes, finally convincing some scared old fellow to open up and let us inside, only to have Kar Wai bail immediately. Now my director was legging it quickly down the block and I was stuck making our excuses. How do you quickly and politely explain why you are leaving so quickly after badgering the guy so hard and so long to open up for us.? Harder still when I don’t actually know why.

Peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys. Just when they knock you down they build you back up. In the car again Kar Wai addressed me.

“Sam, if you were not doing this, what would you do?”

“I don’t know. I like to write.”

“No, you would be a detective. You would make a great detective.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You talk to people, all kinds of people, and find out what you want to. And you can handle yourself in any situation. This is very good.”

What a wonderful compliment to receive; especially from someone I admired as much as him. Peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

Any proper journey will leave you a different person than the one you were when it began. That was certainly the case with this trip. And as the hippies liked to say, what a long, strange trip it had been. I had left New York on short notice with two rather odd, foreign strangers and spent weeks on end working long hours with them as we saw every bit of the country we could. Every morning I awoke in a new bed in a new place. I had gotten in the habit of writing down exactly where we were on a pad and leaving it on the bedside table. That helped me re-orient in the morning. Now we had left an extremely odd hotel and set out in the late morning light to explore downtown Detroit. Perhaps it was the journey or else the ongoing sleep deprivation but life was feeling pretty surreal.

Downtown Detroit was deserted. I mean, emptier than empty. Every store was closed and not another car was in sight. You could lie down in the middle of the street and watch the clouds go by if you cared to. The snow was coming down a little harder and the streets were wearing a light dusting of it. The four of us sat in the truck idling in front of the Fox Theatre, waiting for Mark to arrive. Mark was the younger brother of a good friend who lives in Detroit and works for GM. I had enlisted his assistance, as I had no knowledge of the city whatsoever. Also, I knew he could hook me up with some good pot.

Honestly, I smoke on occasion, but would easily go without for the length of the journey. One of my companions had a big appetite for the stuff, though, and sought out my assistance. Though by no means a part of my job I admit to getting a perverse pleasure from the ease with which I scored for him. This was the fifth pickup I had made in a different city on our journey. Mark did not disappoint when he arrived shortly thereafter. He was also helpful in easing my mind about the empty city when he pointed out that it was Saturday morning.

That may be a strange concept to New Yorkers, where the city is always hopping. On the weekends we simply trade out the office workers for tourists and the streets are just as busy. Having grown up in Cleveland, however, I got it. Things shut down on the weekends as everyone was comfortably home in the suburbs. Even The Cleve isn’t this bad, though. This place was dead. Mark explained to me that during the just-concluded All-Star Game festivities the NBA and the City of Detroit had teamed up to create temporary nightclubs out of vacant properties. Otherwise there simply wasn’t enough to do after dark.

Desolate and gray, but also somehow beautiful in a way that struck Kar Wai’s fancy. He and Darius looked truly excited. I suspect that it was partially due to circumstance. The grand old buildings, the empty streets, the gunmetal sky and the fat snowflakes did add up to something special. There was nothing if not atmosphere to spare. The two men wandered off, getting deep into conversation as they shot pictures. I trailed behind, only getting involved to usher them out of the street to safety when the odd car did come along. Part of the job is just putting people in the right circumstances and letting the magic happen. This was the first time I had seen Kar Wai really engage anyone in conversation, so I was staying out of the way.

It was apparent that we were in love with the general aesthetic of the city. We reloaded the truck and began cruising as the snowfall increased. With a little prodding Kar Wai indicated that we needed a cheap motel and a restaurant for Norah’s character to work in. And so we looked.

The restaurant was the first priority, and the heart of downtown Detroit was clearly not the place to find it. With Mark’s assistance we explored the neighborhood around Wayne State University. We talked our way into a combination bowling alley/music venue that had some potential. Whether it was right for us or not it was close enough to be considered. Whenever you can broaden the spectrum of choices and give the director some different ways of looking at a location you are doing the job well. We also saw some great flophouse hotels in the area. These were pretty scary looking places, and we were rebuffed each and every time we approached one. I tried to explain to Kar Wai that we weren’t getting into any of these places as a group but that I knew I could come back alone and work my way into them. In return I got that long blank stare that told me everything and nothing at all.

We also had some success in the area immediately adjacent to the old Tiger Stadium (now gone). There were still a few operating businesses in the area as well as the bones of some defunct ones that showed promise. Much to my surprise, Kar Wai fell in love with a place called Espzz’s Pizzeria. I didn’t get it at first, as it seemed pretty nondescript. Later I crossed the street to get a wide shot and realized that it sat on a corner with an abandoned factory in the background. I see what he saw, but even so I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wide establishing shot in one of his movies so I was still wrapping my head around it.

Old man Espzz was a character. He was into the idea and had such a great look we could well wind up casting him in the film. Isn’t every pizzeria proprietor a short man with wild tufts of hair and a big brushy moustache? Guy looked like he was straight from Central Casting. He even let us come behind the counter and make our own pizza pie. Standing back there I had one of those purely transcendent moments. The realization struck me that my two generations back my family fought their way out of the coal mines and into the steel mills, now here I am helping shape a movie with one of my heroes. Plus, we get pizza! Life is good.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

We left Chicago and started making our way East to Detroit. Kar Wai liked a lot that he had seen in the Second City, which was a relief. There was still only a vague plotline for us to work with, and we were scouting based on hints and rumors. We knew Norah Jones was going to play a heartbroken waitress travelling cross-country, but the rest was a work in progress. Occasionally, however, some new element would slip out, making it clear that Kar Wai had a more developed story than he was letting on to us.

Back in Chicago, for instance, we had passed through a nasty, rusty old underpass beneath the train tracks. When he saw something that caught his attention, Kar Wai would get even more focused and unaware of the world outside his head than normal. Noticing the underpass, he told me to pull over and started reaching for the door handle as he said it. Unfortunately we were hemmed in by fast-moving traffic. If I hadn’t caught his arm and kept him in the truck Kar Wai might well have stepped out of a quickly moving vehicle. He really did get that absorbed in his process.

As soon as I could safely pull over he was springing out and quickly striding back to the bridge. We then spent a few hours photographing it. Kar Wai was like a man on a mission. He walked back and forth beneath the bridge several times while Darius, Stephane and I tried to shoot every inch of it. Occasionally he would point out a specific shot he wanted one of us to get, or else just took a camera from one of us and shot it himself. After some time he turned to address me.

“Can we close this?”

“Close what, the road?”

“Yes.”

Again, this is a city I had never worked in. I took a quick look around, and it appeared that you could easily set up detours on either side of the underpass, so I made an educated guess.

“I believe so, but it probably has to be on a weekend. Any idea what sort of scene we would shoot here?”

“Yes, this would be the auto accident.”

“The accident?”

“Yes, where the cop dies.”

Looking to Darius and Stephane it was clear that they had no idea what he was talking about either. And so it went.

Now we made our way to Detroit, taking the old blue-line roads that served as highways before the interstate freeway system was built. The beauty of the countryside was a bit of a surprise. Gently rolling fields lay fallow for the winter, tamped down by a hard frost. The houses and barns were widely scattered and all appeared to be in good repair. I saw a great looking gas station and pulled in. It was older, homemade and weathered, nothing at all resembling a modern service station. This was more like a small bungalow with a few pumps out front. Yet it was clearly well built and would be there at least as long as it had already been. I thought it had potential as a location and suggested as much. Kar Wai just looked at me with that blank expression. Impossible to figure out what he wanted.

We took our time and arrived in Detroit late. Speaking with my office in New York, we had a hard time figuring out where to stay. They kept suggesting hotels in the suburbs, which was not what we wanted. Finally at my suggestion they booked us into the Renaissance Center. I had never set foot in Detroit but knew of it from several acquaintances who grew up locally. What a strange place it was. Certainly a different environment from the lovely farmland we had been in just hours earlier.

As our difficulty finding accommodations suggests, there’s not a lot going on in downtown Detroit. Large tracts of the city are deserted. Located right in the heart of the city, the Ren Center nonetheless sits surrounded by broad vacant swaths of land. It’s multiple polished glass and steel towers contain offices, a hotel and convention center. Inside you find that it’s built around a central core filled with shops and stores. All soaring, open spaces that somehow feel confined, possibly due to every surface being poured concrete. It was that weird, bad modern architecture that feels oppressive, what I always think of as “Classic Fascist” design.

Odder still was my experience the next morning. I arose after a very short sleep desperate for sustenance. Checking in post-midnight the desk clerk had laughed at my inquiries about getting some food. Now I was up and in search of coffee and some breakfast. The vast interior spaces that had been so hauntingly deserted upon arrival just hours before were now packed with people. Not just people, but young people, all roughly junior high school age. All of them also smiled incessantly and were polite to the point of being bothersome. Eventually I learned that it was the National Young Catholic Convention. It was like being surrounded by Stepford Children, and it was not doing good things to my mindset.

Thankfully the others did not keep me waiting long. The morning air braced us as we waited for the valet to bring the truck around. Stephane noticed a group of soldiers in uniform waiting for a van to pick them up and commented that it made him uncomfortable. That, of course, was the type of thing I could not leave alone.

“Stephane, instead of griping you really should go thank those men.”

“Why ees that?”

“Because you’re not speaking fucking German.”

With that we set out to see what we could discover in Detroit. As we pulled out some plump white snowflakes began lazily drifting down on us. We eased into our scouting day as they eased their way towards the earth.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

There are many elements that make you a good location manager. You need to have a knowledge of history and architecture, an eye for composition, a great sense of direction, and the ability to gain people’s confidence easily, among other things. That last one goes both for the random people you encounter and need access from as well as those who hire you. The better you are at the job the more convinced your employers become of your ability to pull just about anything off. With good reason at times. I’ve closed bridges, driven tanks down New York City streets, and landed helicopters on the West Side Highway. The upshot being that you are often casually asked to do very hard things.

Leaving the hotel in Chicago one morning I asked Kar Wai what else he would like to see. We had already scouted the city for a few days and I was at a bit of a loss as to where to take them.

“Let’s go to the pool hall,” he said.

“Pool hall? Any one in particular?”

“Yes. They shot ‘The Hustler’ here. I’d like to see that place.”

Oooo-kay. I haven’t seen the film in years. Not the slightest idea where it was shot.

“I’m not sure exactly where that is.”

He just looked at me without the slightest change of expression.

“But I can find out. I’m sure they’re not open this early. Anything else you want to see in the meantime?”

“What else can you show us?”

“There’s a great tradition of modern architecture in this city. Would you like to see some of that?”

“Show me.”

And with that Kar Wai resumed his normal position, which was to lean back and stare off into the middle distance, lost in his own head. It was a great relief that he was interested in seeing some modern stuff. I had guessed he might based on his body of work. Good thing as I was out of ideas otherwise. I piloted our group towards the South Side. Not only had I wanted to see Mies van der Rohe’s work at the Illinois Architecture Institute for some time, it had the added advantage of being far away thus buying me time to find the damned pool hall. I called my assistant location manager in New York, Chris Coyne, and got him digging for the location from ‘The Hustler.’ In the meantime I worked on getting us someplace I’ve never been in a city I didn’t know well.

The Institute did not disappoint. We all loved the campus overall, and Kar Wai was particularly smitten with the on-campus El station designed by Rem Koolhaus. So much so that he graced us with one of his rare smiles.

“This is good. Very good. We will shoot here if we film in Chicago.”

Nicely done. I was still sweating the pool hall but Chris called back just as I was at my most nervous.

“Good news, bad news, boss. Bad news is that ‘The Hustler’ was filmed in New York.”

“What the shit?”

“Good news is that it was based on a joint in Chicago called Bensinger’s. Ready to take down the address?”

A Location Manager is only as good as the people helping him or her. Bensinger’s turned out to be way the hell on the other side of town, up in the farthest corner of Northwest Chicago. We started making our way there. It took us a long time to arrive, accounting of course for our inevitable detour to Chinatown for lunch and my mistake in taking surface streets and not the expressway.

Bensinger’s was on the second story of an otherwise nondescript old building and marked only by a small hanging sign. We got out of the car and stretched after the long drive before making our way in. It was immediately apparent that it was worth the trip. The place was the prototypical dingy old pool hall, just bursting with character. Speaking of characters, several of them were spread throughout the room racking them up in the fading grey light of the late winter afternoon.

I approached the old couple working the desk and laid out my regular spiel. As sometimes happens, I was met with cold, dead stares and no words. They just weren’t into it, completely nonreactive to my pitch. Fortunately by this point in our journey Darius and I had developed an excellent rapport. Our eyes met and I gave him just the slightest nod. He understood and began quietly snapping photos while I continued to make my pitch.

When we first set out Darius would have snapped away without concern. Having bumped into some pretty strenuous objections he had learned to follow my lead. Making a quick assessment of the room I didn’t see any real trouble there, at least none that I couldn’t handle. I also sensed that there was no way that we were going to get permission to properly scout the location. So now I wasn’t really trying to convince the proprietors as much as distracting them while Darius got what he needed.

Things were cool for a minute but they sure didn’t stay that way. Some loud, angry words came from across the room. Darius was backpedaling and holding his hands up. He was being harangued by a short, stout Chinese fellow in a porkpie hat. Somewhat amusingly, he spoke in a very thick Chicago accent.

“You don’t just take someone’s picture, man!” he barked, holding his cue up like he was ready to go. “How do you know who I am? Maybe I don’t want my picture taken!”

Darius was twice the guy’s size but I honestly didn’t like his chances. I got over next to them quickly. The guy was getting louder, not quieter.

“How do I know who the fuck you are, man? I got a big problem with that!”

I drew myself up to full height and jabbed a finger at him.

“Hey! He FUCKING apologized. We’re done. You got a problem with that?”

There was one of those long moments where it could have broken either way. Some part of me actually wanted him to make a move. I could have taken care of him in a hot minute, and it would be pretty funny to get Kar Wai into a poolroom brawl. C’mon, I thought, say it. Give me an excuse. Instead he backed down like the putz he was.

“Sorry, man, but that just ain’t right,” he said much softer as he looked away. I threw him a bone in return.

“You’re right, man, and we apologize. We were just leaving anyway.”

We made our way outside and loaded up into the car. I couldn’t help notice that Kar Wai had the ghost of a smile on his lips as we drove off.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

Kar Wai caught an early flight out of New York. It was all I could do to wrangle the Frenchmen into the truck in time to meet his flight. Hopefully having the boss around would light a fire under some asses. Time would have to tell on that one.

As we waited for him to emerge from the airport I realized just how little I knew the man personally. I was intimately familiar with his body of work. Yes, everyone knew 2046 and Chungking Express, but I had loved those so much I had also sought out his earlier work such as Days of Being Wild and the historical epic Ashes of Time. I knew as much as there is to know about his films and development as a storyteller but the man himself was largely an enigma. This was certainly a bit of a cultivated pose on his part, he didn’t do a lot of press and what he had done wasn’t very revealing. Watching him emerge from the darkened concourse area with his sunglasses and his smile I had very little read on him. He sure didn’t give you much to work with.

I also lacked a working knowledge of the city of Chicago. I had passed through a few times over the years so I had a very vague familiarity with the layout but beyond that I was lost. Tough gig, working in a town you don’t know with a director who doesn’t know what he wants to find. In an attempt to prepare myself as well as possible I had been up late the night before studying. I committed as much of the map to memory as possible, wrapping my head around the area. By spending some time with it I was able to figure out the general layout of the neighborhoods, the main through routes, and the better ways to get around. I did some online searching for classic diners and restaurants with character. Worked up a little cheat sheet with promising names and addresses and made mental note of where they sat on the map and how I could make my way to them.

Good thing I did, because Kar Wai hopped in the car and said, “Let’s Go.” It was seemingly assumed that I had the place all doped out and knew just where to go. We started by cruising the perimeter of the city, finding some promising spots right away. The man has a pretty well-defined aesthetic at this point in his career and I was able to steer him to places that fit within it. Although he had little to say we were all relieved by the volume of pictures he took at the places we stopped. As good an indication that he was as happy as he was likely to get.

After a few stops we wound up at a place called Lawrence Fisheries. It was a seafood restaurant hard on the banks of a river on the near south side of Chicago. Perfect location for one of Kar Wai’s films. The exterior photographs nicely as it sits alone in a parking lot surrounded by factories, the river and a bridge over it. The Sears Tower and the skyline framed up beautifully in the background. One shot and you would know exactly how close you were to the heart of the big city but also how far outside of it you were. The interior was ugly enough that I would never show it to any other director, but of course he loved it. The owner was a lovely fellow whose main concern was that we didn’t want to film anytime close to Lent, which was his busiest season. A big part of the job is finding a connection with people quickly so you can gain their trust. The Catholic thing is an easy one for me and shortly we were speaking with the familiarity of old friends.

As we wrapped up our scout of the place the owner turned to me. Nodding in Kar Wai’s direction he asked: “So did you find this place because it’s next to Chinatown?”

“No, we were just cruising around and saw it.” But it was too late; Kar Wai’s ears had perked up. Amazing thing about the man, he could seem so far lost in his own thoughts at times but still nothing got past him.

“We are close to Chinatown?”

“Yes, just cross under that overpass and make your next left and you’re there.”

So off to lunch we went.

We barely stepped out of the car when a young Chinese woman approached us. She recognized Kar Wai and he was quite gracious about speaking with her. This would happen often in our travels; he was frequently recognized in the Asian neighborhoods. We spent a great deal of time in them as Kar Wai always preferred to eat Chinese food. Bummed me out a little in Chicago as it’s such a great eating city. Chicago style hot dogs, deep dish pizza, Italian Beef sandwiches were not for me this time around. Instead it was congee for breakfast and fried rice for lunch. All part of the deal. We did some quick shopping while we were there as well. Kar Wai picked up a case of ramen, some teas, and some weird dried roots that tasted like dirty black licorice. He kept insisting that I eat them, so I did. I bought some DVD’s of kung fu comedies featuring Sammo Hung and Darius scored some sort of virility powder.

We spent a few days scouting the city with seemingly promising results. Late in the afternoon one day there we seemed to be running out of steam. We spent a couple hours screwing around in Lincoln Park, mainly at record stores. Kar Wai showed a surprising knowledge of American independent music and revealed to us that he planned to use the artist Cat Power as inspiration for the film. He went on to reveal that all of his films have a soundtrack that he uses as a sort of creative metronome while filming them, even though the music never actually winds up in the films. Fascinating stuff, the likes of which I’d never heard from another director. I tried to engage him in a discussion about what specific pieces he had used for his earlier films but it must have been a little too intimate of a question. As was his wont, he reacted by smiling silently behind those dark sunglasses and going silent.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

The next week was spent slowly making our way up Highway 61.  Traditionally it was known as the blues highway, the road leading from the plantations of the South to new life and opportunity in Chicago and the northern cities.  Much like the ghosts of the musicians whose paths we followed we carried the blues with us.  Unlike us they at least had a goal and a purpose to their journey.  We were in full drifting mode, surrendering more and more to the malaise of the road.

By now we had been scouting cross-country for a month.  As much as I love being out on the road shooting it only works if it is leading somewhere.  Our limited contact with Kar Wai had seemingly ended altogether.  It was as though we were forgotten.  Every day we drove hundreds of miles and took countless pictures.  We explored every story possibility along the way and submitted our work with nary a word in response.  With no feedback or critique eventually you’re not so much scouting as you are just driving around taking pictures like a tourist.

Compounding the issue was the endless list of petty resentments we were building against one another.  That much time in close quarters can turn even the most amiable types against each other.  Every inch of space in the truck becomes a battleground; every statement a potential provocation.  For example, Darius was making me insane with the music.  He would control the iPod for hours on end, playing the same songs over and over at high volume.  When I would manage to wrest control of the music he went totally passive-aggressive on me.  It would start with him asking what the song was, complimenting my taste, and then asking if he could turn it down just a little bit.  He would then proceed to lower the volume gradually until it was just barely audible.  He did this every time I tried to play music that I favored, and it was completely maddening.  I’d shortly give up and turn the music completely off.  Minutes later he would play something he liked and crank the volume all the way back up.  In retrospect, he honestly might not have realized what he was doing, but at the time I wanted to bash his face into the windshield.

Stephane was equally annoying.  He would fiddle around on the computer in the backseat all day long.  If Darius or I saw something of potential interest to us we would point it out to him.  Invariably he would ignore us, engrossed in the screen as he was. Once we were past whatever-it-was Stephane would see it out the rear window and yell for us to pull over.  Usually when we were barreling down a one-lane highway with a truck hard on our ass.  Had I heeded his direction every time he yelled for us to stop we would have died a dozen times.  He yelled for me to stop in the passing lane of the interstate highway, mid-span on bridges, in every perilous situation imaginable.

Surely I was an annoyance to them as well.  I was weary.  Doing all the driving was arduous enough.  Driving twelve hours a day while navigating, attempting to scout, maintaining the truck, finding nice enough lodging and restaurants to satisfy those two on top of everything else was brutal.  Also, any time we did stop to scout a potential location I had to jump out and do my spiel.  No matter how exhausted I may be I was the initial public face of the company.  It takes energy to approach random people and explain who we were and what we were up to.  Virtually no one we approached had any dealings with being filmed before so it was never a short conversation.  Frequently one of my companions noticed something and yelled for me to pull over, only to face something that I knew wasn’t worth wasting our time on.  Nonetheless it’s my job and I was obligated.  Even facing a location that I considered unfilmable or useless to us I had to haul my weary ass out of the driver’s seat and talk our way in.  More often than not I would be well into the conversation when the boys would realize as I had that it wasn’t worth the effort and yell for me not to bother with it.  I’d grit my teeth, smile and make my exit as quickly and politely as possible leaving a befuddled stranger in my wake.

We had been going like this seven days a week and were all on the edge when the call came.  Stephane wandered around speaking excitedly on the phone while Darius and I watched from the truck.

“What do you think, we shutting down?”

“I almost wish we would. “ Darius replied, “I’ve never worked like this before.  The director really should be here.  We don’t know what to look for.”

I had to agree.  It just felt all wrong.  Stephane hopped back into the car and we prepared for the bad news.  What we heard instead rather surprised us.

“Kar Wai loves the stuff we are sending him.  He is able to join us. We’ll meet him in Chicago.”

Fantastic. We were actually just outside the city in Skokie, Illinois.  We took our time getting into the city and ate at a wonderful old steakhouse there called Gene and Georgetti’s.  After a good night’s sleep we would be picking Kar Wai up at the airport.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

I’ve always thought of New Orleans as a whore you could take to Church.  It’s a dirty old city that gladly seduces the willing. She’ll take you as dark and deep as you’re predisposed to go.  There’s also a deep strain of faith present.  There was many a Sunday that I barely scrubbed the stink of the night off of me before attending old-rights Latin mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  At more than one mass I laid eyes on men who were fine upstanding pillars of the community in their Sunday best; men who I had seen hours earlier wearing a dress and doing lines off of someone’s ass.  It’s that kind of town.  My night out with Darius and Stephane ran late.  Having crashed at the hotel for what seemed like minutes I was up and at ‘em and ready to scout early the next morning.

The many story possibilities New Orleans offered had me excited to do some scouting.  What an appropriate milieu for a Wong Kar Wai film.  Its history is such a rich tapestry, one that likely has its share of stains and cigarette burns.  The old buildings stand unbowed in the French Quarter.  Much as modern life has tried to impose its will on them, their past can never be erased.  Each layer has its own stories to tell.  And what a past it is.  So many different cultures and traditions intermingling as can only happen in a port city, a transient, itinerant city.  A place shaped and formed by all those who have passed through.  It seemed to me as good a city as could be hoped for to do what we wanted.  After all, isn’t that the world Kar Wai inhabits?  His characters populate the margins and that is a marginal city if there ever was one.

The place that came to mind first as a location was the Clover Grille.  The Clover was an Edward Hopper painting come to life.  Wedged into a 17th Century row house on Lower Bourbon Street it was open 24 hours and saw more business after dark than it ever did in the daylight.  The stainless-steel 50’s vintage interior somehow fit naturally within the ancient hand-plastered superstructure.  The Clover was far enough downtown on Bourbon that it was well clear of the raucous, 4-for-1 drink special stretch of the street.  It was even beyond the brief gay-friendly patch of the boulevard.  You only wound up there because you wanted to, not because it was convenient.  It’s a place that attracts strangers and outcasts and makes them feel at home.  Put the camera across the street and point it towards the picture window.  The people passing in and out will tell the story for you.

As perfect as it might be, I also ransacked my mental files to find other possible locations in town.  I imagined Camelia Grill, or the Half-Moon, or Miss Mae’s or any number of others might provide great options for our director.  Regrettably it was not to be.

“So we should check out and get on our way, yes?” was how Stephane greeted me in the morning.

“Check out, really?  I figured we should spend at least one more night here, there’s a lot of scouting to do locally.”

“No, no, we cannot shoot here.  I hate this town, it is so dirty.”

Ummmm, wow.  We had polished off a bottle of whiskey last night while planning our great crescent city adventure.  Now suddenly the rug was being yanked out from under me.

“Dirty?  Really?  There are so many amazing stories to tell here.”

“It is not for Kar Wai.  I have discussed this with him and he is not interested in filming here.”

I’d like to say that I respectfully disagreed but that would be overstating my estimation.  Before I could dig my heels in Darius came rumbling into the lobby rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“My friends, are we going on the tour?”

Huh?

“What tour would that be, we going to see the alligators in the swamp?” I bit off the words.

“Swamp?  What ees thees swamp?  I want to see the damage from the hurricane.  You know, how do you say, the Banlieue?” fortunately (or not) Stephane was able to translate.

“The ghetto, Sammy, where the black people live and the hurricane hit.  You promised last night we would get to see the damage.”

Now that absolutely did not strike a bell.  No part of me at all remembered promising such a tour.  That being said, I have made plenty of drunken promises in my time.  If held to them I’d be married five times over and four of my wives would be strippers.  With my history I was not inclined to argue the point.  A tour they had apparently been promised so a tour they would get.

Much later I spoke to Kar Wai about the city, and all the reasons it was a perfect place for him to work.  He indicated that it was too rich a subject for just one segment of a film, and that he would love to make an entire film based there.  I was willing to accept that and even a little excited at the prospect of doing a full show with him there.  In the meantime we had a nice look at the wreckage that used to be people’s lives and moved along.  My disappointment was tempered by the fact that we were heading north on the blues trail.  Highway 61 re-revisited.  Time to follow Robert Johnson up to Mississippi and look for the devil himself.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

My disappointment at bailing early on Cajun Country was tempered by the anticipation of a night out in New Orleans.  Stephane took the wheel and put it on the floor headed east on Highway 10.  My companions didn’t do a lot of driving, but when needed Stephane was great at taking the stick and piloting us home.  I’m an excellent driver and therefore pretty particular about whom I’ll ride with when I’m not in control; I had no issue with ceding the truck to Stephane.

Good thing, too, as I needed to get on the phone and set us up in the city.  My job can be social in many ways, and it was time to work the phone.  We were unexpectedly headed to New Orleans for a night of relaxation and enjoyment followed by a day of scouting, it was early evening already and I had a couple hours of highway driving time to make arrangements.

As well connected as I am in that town, it was only five months post-Katrina.  I had not been down since the tragedies connected with it.  Having been involved a bit in some relief efforts I knew who was back in town and who was still stranded elsewhere as part of the diaspora that had been created.  Still, one couldn’t be sure how our visit would go.  It worked out, though, and soon we were set up in the Renaissance Hotel in the Warehouse District.  A truly great Hotel and definitely the right place for a comfortable night.  A few more calls and we had plans for drinks and dinner, and someone was waiting in the lobby for us with some excellent pot.  New Orleans here we come.

The Katrina effect was apparent as soon as we wheeled into town.  Five months later and most of the traffic signals on Poydras Street weren’t functioning.  No police working the intersections, it was fend for yourself time.  Trees down everywhere and not many people to be seen.  It felt so odd overall.  This was going to take a little getting used to.  At least the valet stand at the hotel was manned, but even there we were told that they didn’t have anyone to cover the late shift.  They would be shutting down at 10.

“Don’t worry sir, I’ll leave your car right out front and the keys will be at the front desk,” I was reassured.  “But you want to be careful going out too late, things are still a little sketchy at night here.”

The hotel may have been half-empty and down to a skeleton staff, but my guy was still working and greeted me with a big hug and a smile.  As we made the exchange he held me at arm’s length.

“Thanks for coming back, man, we appreciate it.  The city needs your support.  Bring the film here.  Tell everyone we’re back and to come see us again.”  Yes, it’s the kind of city where even the drug dealers are civic boosters.  You don’t find that everywhere.  Says something about a city.

After settling into our luxury rooms with 600 count Frette sheets and steam showers we re-convened in the lobby.  My companions were truly pleased by the accommodations for the first time since we left New York.  In short order we were burning a joint as we drove slowly up Magazine Street.  It all came back to me in a rush, how much I love the city.  Amidst the damage the bungalows still lined the street, their weathered stoutness hidden beneath riotous bursts of color.  I found myself tearing up with joy and love for my surroundings.  My God I love New Orleans.  It is a city of music and magic.

We picked up my friend Mario in one of the many low-key bars that would instantly be the coolest place in most cities I’ve been in but was just another gin mill there.  A few drinks later we were in Jacques-Imo’s.  If you are reading this and have not been there you should turn off your computer, fly to New Orleans, and have a meal there before finishing these words.  It’s that good.  Nothing I write can quite convey the full experience but I’ll try with an illustrative story.

My first visit there many years ago found the place three deep at the bar.  I somehow found an empty stool and squeezed my way into a glass of Stoli.  Johnny Cash was singing “Ring of Fire” in the background.  A drunken mess of a man next to me dug his elbow into my side.

“Hey man, you know this song?”

“Yes.”

“Bet you didn’t know he wrote it about Jimmy Carter.”

“Are you an idiot?  He wrote it about June Carter.  His wife.”

“Oh.  Really?  Huh, I guess that makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it?”

Having a hard time believing anyone could be that big of a drunken fool I turned to get a look at the guy, and what a sight.  He was a short, bearded guy wearing chef’s whites, boxer shorts and sandals.  He was guzzling a good Bordeaux right out of the bottle.  Extending his hand, he said:

“Hi, I’m Jack.  This is my restaurant.”

Common sense would have taken me right out the door, but sometimes a lack of such is your best asset.  Now, years later I returned to see Jack and brought my new friends.  Even though the rest of New Orleans was a ghost town his joint was hopping.  He greeted us with big hugs; made sure we had drinks and whisked us to a table.  Dishes started magically appearing on our table.  Fried oysters, spinach salad, alligator cheesecake, chicken livers on toast points, steamed mussels, etoufee, each more delicious than the last and those were just the appetizers.  Jack grabbed a bottle of wine off of someone else’s table and filled our glasses.  It would have been an even more memorable meal with a few less bottles of wine, as it stands I know we had a great time even if the details are a bit fuzzy.

We wound up in Mario’s bar, the now-defunct King Bolden.  The drive there from Jacques-Imo’s was a little sobering as we saw how banged-up the rest of the city still was.  We hatched our plans over a late-night bottle of whiskey.  Mario and I both pushed New Orleans as a location for our film.  Katrina or not, there are so many stories to tell there.  We went late into the evening toasting one another and kicking around ideas for our film.  Stephane and Darius were starting to fade a bit when Mario pulled out an illustrated highway of Route 61, the blues highway.  We ended the evening with a drive through the deserted streets while excitedly discussing Robert Johnson and the deep south.  Good times and great material were at hand.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

D.I.'s restaurant

A few weeks earlier I had sat in my office and worked out an itinerary.  Not a particularly easy task as our goals were so unclear.  Kar Wai had attempted to explain what he wanted us to find for him without success.  Truth be told, he clearly was still working story ideas out for himself.  He knew that he wanted to make a road movie; he knew that he wanted to follow Norah Jones as she travelled cross-country.  Beyond that he was looking for our assistance.  I was happy to provide it.

My original plan was set up to see as many different parts of the country in as short a time as possible.  I set up a complicated itinerary that had us starting in LA and heading east.  Every three days or so we would dump our rental truck at an airport, fly to a different region of the country, and start another leg of the trip.  I thought it was the smart way to go about it.  Darius and Stephane had braced me the other night and expressed their unwillingness to continue on the route I had laid out.  I had mixed emotions but didn’t fight too hard.  Though I had spent weeks arranging the ideal routes through America they had a foolproof counter-argument.  Simply, we had a great truck and were well-settled into it.  They were right, too.  The Armada was holding up well and we had all staked out our space.  Everyone’s IPod, cigarettes, sunglasses and camera had their established nook; starting over would have caused innumerable arguments.  Distance grants perspective, of course, but at the time not having to fight about which cup holder was mine was more than enough reason to keep driving.

Prior to this trip I spent nearly a year working in New Orleans and have that city dialed up as well as anyone.  I took weekend trips out west into Cajun country; I was wired in for a hundred mile radius.  I was the next thing to a local.  Still you know what I didn’t know?  Louisiana borders Texas.  Wow, embarrassing, I know.  Thing is, western Louisiana goes pretty far west.  I had no occasion to explore it when I was based in New Orleans.  I had no reason to study the maps as my itinerary had us ending in Dallas and flying to Denver to spend some time in the high desert.  Once our plans were discarded, however, it was the three of us and a map and due east of us was Louisiana.  So we rolled on, putting miles behind us as quickly as possible.

The landscape changes pretty dramatically as you cross from Texas into Louisiana.  As you move east the foliage becomes increasingly full and lush.  The last of the desert falls off behind you and starts feeling more like low country.  The Gulf of Mexico and its swamplands and estuaries factor into the equation.  Humanity is less and less apparent as you move away from Houston but are still far away from approaching a city of any size.  More than anything it felt as though we were transitioning from the southwest to the south.  I was glad of it.  I felt optimistic about our chance to find someplace worth scouting.  The back roads snaked through the edge of the swamps, punctuated by the occasional paper mill and not much else.

I had run through my rolodex the day before, calling everyone I knew in the area looking for leads.  One of my contacts came through and called me with information about a place called D.I.’s.  Apparently D.I. was a crawfish farmer who ran a restaurant out of his ancient weathered barn in the middle of the swamp.  Everything about it sounded great.  Supposedly it was the real thing, not a tourist trap of any sort.  I loved the idea of it, feeling it provided a vastly different milieu from anything else we had seen.  Better yet, the directions my friend PJ gave me indicated that it was just off Gator road. Exciting.

We pushed hard through the swamps, feeling better and better about where we were headed.  Travelling with people in such close quarters everything becomes infectious, more so when you are hungry to find something good.  Every clue we saw led us in the right direction.

“Look at that old farmhouse!”

“These trees look great with the Spanish moss; we can do driving shots here!”

“Maybe we can shoot something with her in the swamps!”

By the time we actually crossed Gator Road we were like kids on Christmas morning.  We turned a corner and there it was, D.I.’s authentic Cajun Restaurant.  It sat almost perfectly amidst the landscape, set off on its own in the midst of vast fields carved out of the low swamp.  One problem, however.  Instead of the old weathered barn we were expecting we were looking at a large, recently built aluminum sided monstrosity.  The place was a perfect example of recent, cheap construction.  One would be hard pressed to find something uglier or less interesting to film.  A subsequent conversation with D.I. himself revealed this gem:

“Oh, no, you would have hated the old place.  Beat up, ramshackle barn.  Needed a paint job.  Nothing but an open kitchen and a bunch of old picnic tables.  My nice new place is so much better for your movie.”

Stephane at D.I.'s

In other words, exactly what we were looking for.  To compound matters, we got stuck taking the extended tour.  D.I. and his wife were as nice as you could hope for but I was disappointed and eager to get back to our search of Cajun Country.  After laboring through en extended family history and being pressured into buying a CD of his grandson, Briggs the Wee Cajun accordion player, we were back on the road.

“What ees the plan for tonight?” Stephane wanted to know.

“We should spend as much time as possible scouring this area and wind up in Lafayette for the night.”

Lafayette was close by, and I figured staying there would give us plenty of local scouting time.  D.I.’s might not have been the right place but I was sure we would find an old gas station or general store just around the next curve in the road, or the one after that.

“Lafayette?  Non, we must go to New Orleans.  We need a nice night out for a change.” Darius piped in.

“But we’re hours away.  Driving there means we have to quit scouting here and head east.  That’ll take us right out of this area.”

Once again I was outvoted.  It’s not often I’ll argue against a night on the town in New Orleans, but I really wanted to scour western Louisiana for locations.  Once the decision was made, however, I bought into it fully.  I let Stephane take the wheel and push us eastward while I got on the phone and planned a night of recreation in one of my favorite cities.
….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

On the road to Houston

We finally could see the light at the end of Texas when we got to Houston. Arrived late, checked into the Doubletree Hotel downtown and crashed hard. We must have been quite a sight as we were road-weary from a couple hard days blasting through dust, sagebrush and ignorance. We encountered what was becoming a running joke at the registration desk with Stephane’s name. The clerk kept referring to him as “Stephanie” and insisting that he had been expected to be a woman. It only got funnier as he became more frustrated and insisted on the correct pronunciation of his name. Watching Stephane argue about the pronunciation of his name in his thick French accent all across the South provided endless amusement for myself and Darius.

Same old song and dance the next morning. I rose early, checked all three of us out, settled the room charges, brought the truck around, gassed it up and then sat and waited impatiently for my companions to materialize. I was desperate to get out of Texas but I sat there waiting. Eventually I pulled out a map and started to daydream. That’s a big part of what I love about scouting; I love maps, I love looking at them and imagining what they represent. I have well-developed instincts and a vivid imagination and scouting allows me to exercise both. Looking at the map of southeast Texas I saw lots of oceanfront land and places I knew to be rich in mineral resources. My mind ran to images of places much like Blade Runner just more industrial. I pictured nights full of vast oil fields, lonely roads snaking through brightly and colorfully lit landscapes. Constant rain and mist beneath towering metal derricks both onshore and off. I was probably far off from the reality but I imagined a lonely café hugging the roadside in such a place just waiting for us to find it.

Darius & Stephane

Of course reality intrudes. Stephane and Darius appeared and insisted we scout Houston proper. I fought to bail immediately and drive towards Galveston where my waking daydream led me but I lost the argument. The fact that Galveston was at the end of a long one-way road sealed the deal. I tried to BS them on that one but they knew me well enough to insist on seeing a map before agreeing to anything. Amazing how intimately you know someone after even a week in such close proximity. I’d gladly fib a little in service of what my gut told me was the right choice; they already knew that about me. It was set, then. We would explore Houston before driving east. I braced the concierge for assistance.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for the ‘hip’ neighborhood.”

“Huh?”

Allow me to point out that we were in a relatively nice hotel and the concierge ought to be expected to have a decent working knowledge of the city.

“You know, an interesting part of the city. Someplace where people walk around, go to cafes, antique stores, bookshops?”

Blank stare.

“Maybe by a university? Someplace with thrift stores? Older buildings? There must be a college district? Used bookstores? Record stores?”

Blank stare. I was getting impatient and becoming the stereotypical New Yorker America loves to hate.

“Where the hell do people go when they want to walk around and shop?”

The concierge’s features brightened.

“Oh, you mean the Galleria! It’s…”

I cut him off at the pass.

“Fuck that, no not the fucking galleria. Where’s the bus station?”

I might as well have pissed on his shoes given the look on his face but I couldn’t care less. He then made a big show of acting superior to me. After all, I was either travelling by bus or at least consorting with those who would deign to do so.

“I wouldn’t know, sir, but I assure you I can find out.”

He opened a yellow pages and verrrrry slowly went about locating the information for me. What a stunning disconnect. We stood a foot apart but there were miles between us. Perhaps it was me. Surely it was. New Yorkers are obnoxious, right? I was being obnoxious, yes, I was. At the same time some under-educated, over-moussed douche is judging me for my interest in the bus station. I’m no runaway teenager or sad salesman, Jack. I’m looking for filmable locations for an international genius filmmaker, and I represent his vision. I’m the tip of the spear and you’re just flesh in my way.

Clearly I needed to get the hell out of Texas. Fuck the bus station. I put the pedal on the floor and we were Louisiana-bound. No one tried to stop me.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.