WITH MICHAEL DELLHEIM
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SFR: So, how does a person get to be a location manager for movies?
MD:
Well, I only know my own story: It came because I'm good at maps. I was in LA working on a film and the location guy drew up a map and he sent the [production crew] the wrong way down a one-way street and it caused all kinds of havoc. The unit manager started ripping into him about the time and money it wasted and he actually started to cry. That had a big impact on me. I thought I could do a good job at it. That's my thing: 'He does good maps.'
How have you been able to do your thing in Santa Fe for so long?
I worked in Los Angeles, doing a lot of low-budget films, things like
Hard Bodies
, when I got a call to do
The Milagro Beanfield War
in '86. I've stayed ever since. And recently there's been this boom…
You've worked in film for over 20 years-what do you think of this boom?
I was deputy director of the Film Office when the first incentive was passed by [former governor Gary] Johnson in '95. I was opposed to that. I thought it would take the Film Office away from its traditional role. In the last six years it's been the leading film incentive program in the nation. In some sense it's good-people are collecting a salary, people are collecting paychecks.
It's also changing the economy of film. Where it used to be two shows a year, now it's two shows a month, so prices are rising, greed is more of an issue, from a locations perspective. I've also seen these huge booms in other cities-Austin, Orlando, New Orleans-and we're in it now. It's a cycle and it's gonna stop and upset me terribly.
Do you think that's inevitable?
I think the downturn is inevitable. They say in film you're only as good as your last show. Right now producers are enjoying the money and incentives, but it's counter-balanced by the quality of the work crews. We don't have enough crew to support so many films so producers have to import them from Los Angeles. So the union here is not very selective about who they take in to fill the need; as a result, there's very little concern about quality.
How has that affected your work?
Here's an example: When I started the Coen Brothers film [
No Country for Old Men
] I realized I needed some assistants, and they gave me a three-page list of people [to choose from] so I started calling and calling, and it quickly became apparent they weren't really location people. It was, 'Actually, I'm a set dresser, but I've always wanted to do location…' Producers are finding that the crews aren't qualified and that ends up costing money. That's the underside of all this.
What's a typical work cycle like for you?
It goes in phases: finding a location, if the script says, 'three people are having coffee in a café,' which café? Is it going to be called 'Sage Bakehouse' [in the movie] or something else? Then doing contracts with every location, securing the location, then actually filming. At first I thought if I could get the company whatever they wanted then they would like me and I would get more jobs. So I wouldn't say I lied, but I'd minimize. But I learned to lay it all out to the owners [of the property].
Have you ever had a giant freakout?
The biggest freakout was at Black Lake when I was working on
Lonesome Dove
. We had been filming for six weeks in Texas, in Del Rio, and it was hot and miserable. It was that part of the story where they get to Montana, the promised land, and in reality [leaving Texas and entering New Mexico] mimicked that for the crew-there was a light snow falling…So a lot of the guys got in their trucks and did donuts, you know, on this Spanish land grant. And I had courted this guy for like two months and he comes to me, very upset. He was like the Indian in that commercial, with the single tear. So I went to the company and their reaction was, 'How much does he want?' And he said, 'nothing.' And it hit me: In New Mexico we really are particular about our land; I feel like it's my responsibility too.
That seems really stressful, to have responsibilities to both the owners and the production company.
It is, it's very stressful. I used to make myself so crazy, I would throw up. I used to smoke back then, I was a total wreck. And I realized I would never make it that way. I had to learn to stay level. Like with the Coens; they do extensive storyboards, they go back to the location and walk through it, it puts tremendous pressure to have everything in place. We're filming up in Vegas this week and we're blowing up a car, the windows shatter, and then another car turns the corner and T-bones a car, it's a period piece so I have to make sure there's no newer cars on the street. It's gotta go like clockwork.
It sounds like the mañana culture of New Mexico and the high-stress pace of LA wouldn't work so well together…
You know, I used to enjoy the old cycle-you'd work on a film all summer, then hibernate. We had equilibrium; now it's competitive. At least people here in Santa Fe, at the end of the day, can go to El Farol and life's OK.
