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... 🧵

A little while back, I did a shoot at Frank Sinatra's "Twin Palms" estate in Palm Springs. It's gorgeous, but I felt a particular kinship with Frank when I saw his bathroom had the same "psych hospital pink" tiles as my first apartment in LA.

Ha, OK, so yesterday's post pointing out that forest filming locations are limited in LA caused some several very upset responses, many insisting that I'm a dummy for not realizing that in fact LA has tons of woodland that can be found as close as Griffith Park / Angeles Crest.🧵

LA has an insane variety of natural filming locations, from beaches to mountains to deserts, but it's missing one major category: the woods. There are very few places in the general LA area that believably pass for a forest...so Disney grew one in the middle of the desert. 🧵

After 20+ years of scouting public schools, I've come to accept that walking those linoleum-floored, locker-lined hallways will forever make me feel like I'm about to get in trouble for being late to class.

Once I was on a film shoot at a mansion, and someone told me that the pool was one of the longest in the world. And I remember staring at it for the rest of the shoot and thinking, "man, what a skinny pool."

Whenever you're working on a studio lot and the tour trams roll by, EVERYONE stares at you with this hopeful excitement as they try to figure out if you're "somebody" - and man is it humbling to watch those expressions turn to sullen disappointment as they all collectively agree: "nah, he's nobody."

A highlight of scouting CBS' midcentury Television City studios is the lobby map, a replica of the one from Walter Cronkite's CBS Evening News set.

Spotted while scouting in Bakersfield, CA: the historic Big Shoe, built in 1947. What a world it would be if all retail architecture was based on the product being sold.

A couple of years ago, I got to scout the historic Vernon power plant, an art deco behemoth built in 1933. When you step through the main entrance, you immediately find yourself in the control room, and it's a fascinating contrast of old vs new... <1/>

And speaking of strip clubs... A few years ago, I was scouting a strip club for the room where they have the private booths, and the manager led me across the main floor and up a staircase, and suddenly it felt like I'd walked into a storage room for the monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Scouting strip clubs for movie/TV filming always makes for some extremely unique encounters, though not for why you'd probably expect... <thread>

A few jobs back, I was scouting for a "mansion under construction" for a movie. The main character was supposed to be as rich and powerful as they come, and the house being built had to reflect the latest and greatest in contemporary design. <1/>

Found some snow in LA

You're going to hear a lot of Rob Reiner stories in the coming days, and I'm sure this will be the most minor. But I had the opportunity to work for him on a small project shot at his home a few years ago. <thread>

Always travel with a friend

You got this buddy

A pleasant Saturday in the middle of nowhere

Ok buddy, my camera flying off the passenger seat when I braked to avoid you probably took a few years off its life, so maybe hold off on eating cats for a few days in return? Cool?

A witch’s house in the shadow of a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece is one of a thousand reasons why I love LA.

Oftentimes, the hardest part of location scouting isn’t the where, it’s the who; as in, who owns the property and can give permission for filming. I’m searching for an alley contained on private property in a particular area and found this one pretty quickly, liked it because it has a curve. <more>

Well that was a crazy past year of scouting!

I’m scouting a mom-and-pop fast food restaurant, the kind that has literally everything on the menu. It’s about 4pm. A man who is clearly homeless walks in and goes to the front counter and orders french toast with a side of bacon, in a voice that sounds both utterly exhausted and triumphant. <more>

Love when LA’s islands in the clouds decide to come out

It is crazy how commonplace it is to find yourself behind a full Back To The Future replica DeLorean in Los Angeles

Given that I literally never, ever see anyone casually hanging out on their balcony at any time of day or night in my scouting travels, I can only assume that having a balcony seems like a wonderfully romantic idea right up until the moment you actually get one.

Wonder what the hours are

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