Stargate Planet recently interviewed former
Stargate location manager
Lynn Smith, wife of
Stargate SG-1 executive producer N. John Smith. Lynn Smith was the show’s location manager from 1999 to 2003.What exactly does a location manager do?”Truly it is a Locations Team (effort),” Smith told the site. “The location manager would receive and review the script, breaking it down with the production designer, producer, [and] director to what would be intended as built sets and what would be actual locations. When I knew what scenes would play at locations I would then send my assistant or scout or both out to look for such.”There are a lot of logistics involved. Lynn said her job required her “to set up for parking, booking police if we need road lock up or gun fire present. There is also city permits to put in place. There are contracts with the owners and surrounding folk if we are setting up different areas for extras holding, lunch rooms, or tents.”But the location manager must balance between going on location and staying in the studio. “Sometimes you can build it cheaper than taking everyone out to the location, paying for the location, parking, travel time — and the Art Department would be building a lot to it anyways, so they might as well build right on a controlled stage.”Taking care of all the paperwork for going to a location is very time consuming. Lynn described it in detail for the bridge scene in Season Six’s
“The Changeling.”“We had a scene for this non-active bridge to have firetrucks on it, an explosion that would be seen from the main highway, and the city was making us go through engineer testing, etc. in order to put a crew on the bridge and the weight of firetrucks.”Read more details about Smith’s job — including dealing with angry neighbors — at
Stargate Planet.