The Worst Place for a Location Manager

By Lance Hoffman

Early in my career I did posting for “Crazy Like A Fox”. I worked for a retired San Francisco policeman who was a real character. He was on the force for over thirty years, ran the permit bureau for a decade and went to work for Quinn Martin on “Streets of San Francisco” the day after he retired from the SFPD. I used to stop by the location after posting (around lunch) to see if there were any changes or updates. But, he was seldom around. One time I saw his car and had to search for him, he was not on the radio. I found him a block and a half down Columbus Avenue. He was talking to a barber; the barber used to play clarinet when he did not have any customers.

I asked the location manager why he was not on the set or the radio. He replied, “The worst place for a location manager is on the set. You can’t get any work done. You can’t set anything up. You can’t say anything or they’ll tell you to be quiet. They just want you to do crowd control and keep people out of the shot". He went on, “ The best thing to do is open the door, get them started and get the hell off the location. And, get rid of the radio as so as you can. No good news even comes over the radio. It not like they announce that you won the door prize or something that you would like to hear. Its always bad news or something annoying like "the sound man hears a noise- locations check it out and see if you can make it stop.” Finally, he said,“ When that radio plays music-then I’ll listen to it. The only thing I want to hear is " IT’S A WRAP.” As I get older, I kind of agree with him.