One of the most hauntingly beautiful properties I've ever scouted is this abandoned chapel, located just north of NYC...🧵

When I first moved to LA from NYC to continue my scouting career, I assumed it would be the major differences that would be hardest to get used to. But in fact, it’s the elements that are sort of similar, yet VERY different, that still hit me as strange. One example: Patriotic Hall...🧵

Nothing like scouting a creepy abandoned property... No power, lights out... World is silent except for your footsteps... Step into what was once a child's bedroom... AND THEN TWO BIRDS LEAP UP SQUAWKING CRAZILY AND FLAIL OUT THE BROKEN WINDOWS.

Once upon a time back in my NYC days, I held a contest on April Fools asking readers to guess where I went on vacation from a series of pictures. The answer: the American Museum of History! 🧵

Contest time! Guess where I went on my big vacation, and every correct reply will be entered for a chance to win the first 3 issues of my zine, Scout Stories. Deadline is tomorrow at noon pacific. Good luck! (Hint: reminder that I used to be a location scout in New York City...)

I once had the opportunity to scout a Brooklyn apartment I'd always loved called The Astral, built in 1885. Later, as I was doing some research, I learned that a kindergarten had once been located on the corner where a coffee shop now was, and found a class photo taken in 1895.🧵

Backrooms 2: League Night

I might be biased, but I def thought the show looked pretty darn good this season... Congrats to the entire production team for making this possible!

In Los Feliz, there's a place called the Harvard House Motel, and I like to think that at least once in its 79-year existence, someone booked a room believing it to have some association with the university, if only in grandeur. And I would pay quite a bit to see that check-in.

A while back, I was in the middle of taking scout pictures of an office building lobby when I suddenly noticed something: a security guard staring at me from his booth in the back, arms crossed, clearly not happy with what I was up to.🧵

Want to take a quick peek at the projection room in an abandoned movie theater? Come on in… 🧵

Had an odd memory come to me of having once scouted an historic mansion in Long Island with palm trees lining the drive...but palm trees? Could that be right? So I dug thru my files...and there they were, at the old Woolworth Estate! Only turns out, I'd been tricked...🧵

If you're looking for something to do this July 4th weekend and enjoy visiting environmental disaster sites, why not take a hike to beautiful Nuclear Lake?? (Yes, this is real, and yes, it got this name for exactly the reason you'd expect...) 🧵

Well damn. I had NO idea that yesterday's post about a decommissioned nuclear power plant would be so popular, so I just fully overhauled the original article with high res versions of the old pics, and added in dozens more I forgot I had on file. Enjoy! nickcarr.com/scouting-a-d...

Field notes from the time I scouted a decommissioned nuclear power plant... This is the control room, and if you look closely, you'll see a dark stripe in the carpet running the perimeter of the room. This was referred to as the "velvet rope," and absolutely NO ONE was allowed -🧵

Sometimes I see pictures of old Hollywood, and I just can't believe what this place used to be.🧵

While we're on the subject of gas stations, this is one of my favorites in LA, of the historic variety: AMT Motors in Montecito Heights, dating (I believe) to 1943.🧵

When I'm watching a movie/TV show, sometimes it's hard to shut off the location scout part of my brain that's analyzing every scene and thinking about how they pulled off their shoot. One location that always triggers instant anxiety is The Gas Station...🧵

Look closely at the grand Park Plaza apartment building in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium and you'll find this panel, which depicts an architect offering up a model of the building itself to the Parthenon for approval.

As a location scout, I love visiting classic movie locations, because it's a fun exercise to consider why this of all possibilities was chosen. One great example is the toll booth scene in the Godfather where Sonny is gunned down... 🧵

How about a bit more Euphoria S3 locations chat? One of my absolute favorite locations that I helped scout, the ominous Hotel Los Gatos, was also the most surprising for me to see on screen…because I thought it’d been rejected! 🧵

Once, I was scouting a decommissioned wing of a still-active prison when the guard asked if I wanted to try being locked in the solitary confinement cell with the lights off to see what it felt like. Nope.

When I've scouted desert properties with old mines, the owners will tell me how people trespass and break into the mines in search of undiscovered gold, with no regard to deadly odorless gases or cave-ins. Later, owners will find tire tracks, discarded tools, and liquor bottles.

I'll never forget a prison I once scouted that had frosted windows opposite the cells. Pigeons kept landing on the ledge outside and it made me think how torturous it must've been for prisoners, to see these small creatures peer in, then fly away with all the freedom in the world.

When a film shoot ends, you often get a wrap gift or two, and Euphoria delivered exactly as one would expect. Thanks Sydney!

First time I've had my credit appear over a location I scouted, so that final shot in Euphoria was pretty special. But I get uneasy revealing the locations I've found for shows, because people take that to mean you were "responsible" for them. Which couldn't be less true.🧵

One of my favorite walls in LA is at the Hollywood Rec Center Pool. PERFECT shade of aqua-teal, love the three bubble-like windows, the geometric minimalism... Just exquisite.

Backrooms is opening this weekend, and it’s awesome to see people so excited about a movie for its location! It also gives me an excuse to talk about the very strange time when a bunch of BR fans became convinced I'd actually visited the original backrooms myself...

Sometimes, I wonder what percentage of LA is actually just a leftover movie set. For example, if you go up to Mentryville State Park, you'll see a number of historic buildings from its days as a 19th-century oil town...and this small cottage, built for the 1985 Disney film One Magic Christmas.

Impossible-to-find-near-LA location #512: the Multi-Level Cell Block. You see this one all the time in 90s action movies like The Rock, Face-Off, and Con Air. But if you're filming in LA, please do not put this in your script, because it simply does not exist! 🧵

On Euphoria, I ended up doing a LOT of desert scouting, and I'll never forget an eerie encounter I had while taking pictures of an abandoned golf course in the middle of nowhere, which I had thought might make a good parcel of land for the border crossing scene...🧵

People often ask if there's a favorite location I've ever scouted for a movie, so here's one. You likely didn't see this film, and you definitely wouldn't remember the scene, but this is why finding a place called Dead Man's Tunnel was so special...🧵

Euphoria location scouting notes continues! In ep 4, Lexi invites Jules to the WB lot to paint an original piece for the "LA Nights" show. She leaves Jules to work in a vast loft space, and I imagine few viewers realized they were getting a rare glimpse at true film history... 🧵

Around the Valley, you occasionally come across this sort of "rustic cabin"-inspired home from the 1940s. And the location scout in me always just sees a place that's a quick set-dress away from becoming the cabin in Evil Dead.

Spotted while scouting in wealthy Hancock Park...and seriously? Like I get the No Sitting part...but was the irritation of seeing the occasion runner use your brick wall for leg stretches REALLY so bad as to necessitate multiple custom metal signs?? Will never understand how you become This Person.

Millennial deep cut, I’m scouting by the tar pits today and this is roughly the spot in My Girl 2 where Vada’s new LA boyfriend pretends to throw Thomas J‘s mood ring into the tar. To this day, I don’t think I’ve hated a fictional movie character more. Never forget you, Thomas J! #ihatebees

Euphoria fans: anyone else notice Maddy's basement apartment exterior get its hero shot moment in ep 3?? OK, if you were a bit distracted by the wedding insanity, I get it... But Maddy's Apt Ext was particularly special for me, because of all the locations we scouted for...🧵

Ha thanks to all who congratulated me yesterday on my finding a hundred dollar bill blowing down the street, nice to know I wasn’t the only one tricked by a pretty solid movie prop! Ah, the soaring highs and crushing lows of Hollywood, all in one moment…

Just found this blowing down the street, such a perfect Hollywood moment to start my Saturday

Being a location scout makes you realize that all of us carry, deep within our brains, a vast catalog of location archetypes. Picture an alley, an office space, a carnival, and an image INSTANTLY jumps to mind. Except, weirdly, finding such places in reality is really hard! 🧵

Scouting cemeteries for filming is fun, because you quickly learn there are 3 types: 1) No filming, this is a place of mourning, how dare you ask 2) Yes, but only if the scene respects the sanctity of our space 3) Fuck yeah, do whatever brah! I learned this scouting on a movie years ago...🧵

Euphoria location scout chat continues! At the end of S3 Ep 2, we see Rue bring her friend to Alamo's rehab. The location looks incredible in the episode, so perfectly haunting and foreboding...But honestly? It's the last place I ever expected to get picked... 🧵

My laptop cover gives a pretty good clue about what I do for work! Took a minute to find all these, but man, no other genre loves its fictional movie locations like horror fans... How many do you recognize without checking??

As a location scout, you visit a lot of properties that are vacant or abandoned. And once in a while, you get this strong feeling that you missed out on something very special by just a short while. One such place is this bar way out in Lancaster that I scouted on Euphoria as a club exterior... 🧵

Euphoria S3E2 locations! 530 days after I took scout photos of a vacant strip mall on the side of a lonely highway, here it is in all its glory as Alamo's Silver Slipper club. NEVER could've imagined it'd turn out looking this great, thx to some insane production design work...🧵

I’m scouting a craftsman home for a small advertising job when the homeowners give me a warning. “Just so you know, our neighbor hates that we do so many shoots,” they say in hushed tones. “He can be difficult.”

Often as a location scout, you come across extraordinarily minor mysteries that will nevertheless frustrate you because you’ll never know the why. Today’s example from an abandoned classroom: a packaged cuttlebone for a pet parrot, with a Post-It warning that it is in fact a fake cuttlebone. Why???!

So that story I told yesterday, about the time I nearly lost my job on a Tony Scout movie by suggesting a roof without an elevator? I did indeed find a replacement Tony liked … But that’s NOT where we filmed. Because there’s one more very unexpected part to the story…

People think the hardest part of being a location scout is finding the perfect location, but the tricky thing is actually understanding what "perfect" is. I learned this the hard way on one of my earliest scouting assignments... 🧵

I spent basically all last year as the lead location scout on Euphoria S3, and it was easily one of the craziest and most rewarding shoots I've ever worked on. First ep alone features some of the best places I think we found... 🧵