TV Commercial Production Location Scouting
- Posted on 23rd May 2017
- in entertainment books, Film Production, film production book, Hollywood memoirs, Production Management, TV Commercial Production
- by Ben
As I mentioned in a previous post, 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 another excerpt from my TV commercial production book, Circumstances Beyond My Control.
“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 [Camera] 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.
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.”
More stories (mostly funnier than this one) are to be found when you click here and get Circumstances Beyond My Control.
Tags: entertainment book, Hollywood memoirs, Jerry Ansel, Steve Horn
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