SCOUTING LOCATIONS FOR TV COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION


Shortly after leaving the Ansel

TV commercial production

company staff job I was hired by Steve Horn, the hottest TV commercial director in New York, for two or three days to scout locations. I ended up working with him off and on for several weeks.

Here’s an excerpt from my TV commercial production book, Circumstances Beyond My Control.

“Most of this scouting was ‘cold’ by which I mean that I was sent to … suburbia … and told to find an upscale dining room … This is the most difficult kind of scouting because it’s without local contacts or leads. I was totally on my own. …

“I would … head for an area such as Great Neck … and drive around until I saw a likely looking house then ring the doorbell. (As I write about this now I find it hard to believe that I actually did it.) When the woman of the house (it was always a woman) came to the door I would introduce myself and explain why I was there. I got turned away most of the time but what’s amazing is how many times I didn’t. On a typical day, after seven or eight hours of this bizarre activity I’d return to the office with interior shots of four to six houses.

“There were hazards to this work which I learned early on one day in Scarsdale. I’d been fruitlessly ringing doorbells for an hour or so when I was pulled over by the local fuzz. It seemed that in such a neighborhood behavior like mine was suspect. All I had in the way of bona fides was some business cards from Steve Horn Productions and I narrowly avoided being taken to the station house for further inquiry. I was advised that in the future before cruising around casing Scarsdale I should register my intentions, backed up by a letter of introduction from the company, before engaging in such practice. I immediately headed for the next town. …

“Steve Horn was (probably still is) a wonderful character. Totally focused on his work he at first seemed cold and unfriendly but that was an illusion because he was neither. He just needed time and exposure to get to know you. … Unpretentious yet intense he was brilliant at his job and had the level of business appropriate to his skills. … you didn’t work with him more than once if you couldn’t cut it and when he got to know and trust you he was a delight. …

“[My] next call from Horn … was a doozy. [The spot] was for Amtrak. The idea … was the futuristic design of their new trains. There would be a few pass-bys but it was to be shot mostly on a moving train. The scouting job was three days. Two days were driving the route and finding picturesque places for the pass-bys and one day riding the train to Albany and back and shooting film inside with various filters on the lens. Steve needed to know what the frosted glass in the windows did to the color temperature on film.

“Finding the picturesque places was fun and easy. I found half a dozen excellent sites and Steve was pleased. The next morning I boarded the Albany bound train with an Arri IIC and a 400’ load of film, several lenses and filters. Amtrak had given me an empty car to shoot in and a white woman employee to shoot because skin-tone was a factor in the color temperature question.

“… I shot half the roll on the north bound trip and half in the afternoon coming home. I repeated each shot with a different filter making notes of the time, direction of the shot, filter and exposure. I tried to make the shots as ‘artistic’ as possible panning from inside the car to the exterior etc.

“The next day Steve looked at the footage and said something like, ‘When we do the pass-bys would you like to shoot second camera?’ I couldn’t believe my ears.

TV Commercial Production with Steve Horn

Shooting with Steve Horn

“Talk about big boys and big toys: We had an entire train at our disposal. On the exterior day we started at sunrise. The crew was just Steve, myself, two ACs (camera assistants) and a couple of his staff PAs. We had a walkie-talkie on the train and one track was reserved for our exclusive use. Steve was a ‘just get the shot’ kind of guy and to that end his car was a Jeep wagon painted military green with a stenciled sign on each door saying OFFICIAL USE ONLY. His idea with this vehicle was that he could get to places for a shot where he otherwise wouldn’t be allowed and it usually worked. By the time whomever was in authority in a given place figured out that we weren’t ‘Official’ we had the shot and were gone. …

“He kept me on for the interior day and I functioned as a line producer although the call sheet listed me as location manager.”

Lots more tales of TV commercial production will be found when you click here and get Circumstances Beyond My Control.

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