Arizona State Film Office

Submitted by dhalver on Thu, 01/15/2009 - 18:39
Monument Valley ~ Home of John Ford Westerns

Arizona, like California, has a vast palette of unique landscapes, Cities, urban landscapes, small towns and spectacular vistas to offer the Filmmaker. 

Here’s the State Film Office: http://www.azcommerce.com/Film/ 
 
Phone: (602) 542-0006
 
Note that this site is actually the Arizona Department of Commerce, but when you contact them, they are extremely helpful in every possible way you can imagine.
 
Also, they have regional offices for handling different parts of the State: Phoenix; Tuscon; Sedona; Page & Lake Powell; etc.
 
It’s a “Right to Work” state, so non-union shoots are not a problem and there are major Tax Incentives and plenty of Film Students there, so getting a PA as an Intern shouldn’t be a problem. Give ‘em a call. 
 
Here’s what I can add from my own experience of shooting there.
 
With numerous types of desert (from flat lands to sandy dunes to rolling hills covered with scrub brush), Two large modern cities (Phoenix & Tuscon) with a wide variety of urban settings, rolling hills, dense evergreen forests in higher altitudes, gorgeous mountains, waterfalls, remote lakes, creeks & rivers; and truly extraordinary smaller towns with fantastic architecture ranging from early Western Ghost Towns to 1880’s Stone Mansions & exquisite Victorian masterpieces. It’s no wonder they host so many film productions…
 
And I haven’t even begun to mention those specific sites that are truly unique Film Destinations all by themselves… Like the Grand Canyon… and Prescott (state Capital in the late 1880’s)… or Lake Powell (undoubtedly one of North America’s most unusual geographical areas ~ matched only by the Grand Canyon, mystical Sedona and the one & only Monument Valley). 
 
And then there’s Flagstaff, truly one of the most unique cities in America. As a quick guide to get an overall feel “of just some” of the many locations available in Arizona, I’d recommend seeing the Robert De Niro & Charles Grodin comedy: Midnight Run (1988). Keep in mind that in that film, they barely scratch the surface of the variety of Locations in Arizona.
 
I could go on and on, but to keep this brief, about 20 years ago I had a great opportunity to work on a Sci-Fi film that was being shot there in two unique Locations that were the creative handi-work of the iconoclastic Architect Paolo Soleri (studied under Frank Lloyd Wright).  
 
And this was the first time a feature film had ever been shot at these bizarre-looking experimental building sites ~ Cosanti and Arcosanti ("click" for a photo of Arcosanti).
 
For those unfamiliar with him, Soleri is known for his radical concepts of combining traditional with experimental building techniques; as well as for his futuristic visions for developing “unconventional” habitats, urban growth and city planning. 
 
His concept is known as “Arcology” – a combination of ecology and architecture. A true visionary, he is one of the Grandfathers of the “Green Movement” as he was an avid advocate of recycling & ecology before most people had ever even heard those words.
 
Anyway, with all this percolating in my head, I suddenly found myself driving a 5-ton Grip & Electric truck (packed with Art Dept. goodies) to Cosanti in Paradise Valley, an up-scale suburb of Scottsdale and Phoenix (that had been out in the boondocks when Soleri built his first experimental home there). 
 
As the very first person to arrive at our Location, to my delight, I was welcomed with open arms by the representatives of the Film Office who were nothing less than fantastic.
 
They helped us "crew up" with local people who were experienced in Set Etiquette and our shoot went very smoothly. After wrapping out of Cosanti, we all headed north to Arcosanti and completed principal photography within Soleri’s incredible experimental architectural community of budding environmental designers and artists.
 
Within a week of wrapping, and as I headed back for LA, I got a call from the offices of Glen Larson (Magnum P.I.) … and soon found myself flying into Phoenix to work as a Location Scout on a post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi TV series called the Highwayman… to be filmed all over Phoenix and the surrounding areas.
 
Again, the Arizona Film Office was “stellar” in handling all our issues… even when we really screwed up big time (and I mean Big Time!). I gotta’ say this, we pulled some stunts that IF they had happened in LA, we would’ve had our Permit yanked in less than a New York minute… and our Call Sheet would’ve become a Black List!
 
NOT that I’m saying you can abuse their hospitality… it’s just that they are more than willing to work with you to help you get your shoot done (within the Law) and if things get a little weird… they’ll do their best to smooth out ruffled feathers.
 
Two examples - out of many… For an interior scene we needed a large office for a Police Station… and we (2nd Unit) somehow (?) actually got to use the inside of the Maricopa County Sheriff Department’s Detective Bureau… BUT, to do this, we had to shoot it in the middle of the night. 
 
Unfortunately, we had some “green” assistant “Set Dressers” working on this “sensitive Set” while the LA Set Dressers got some much-needed sleep… (we were all doing 14-16 hour days) and in the morning, the phones rang off the hook because these “novice” guys had taken files & papers off of the Detective’s desks AND rearranged everything so that when the Cops arrived in the morning, none of them could find their files or paperwork!  Boy, were they ever pissed!
 
Don Klune (notorious chain-smoking UPM that he was (Baby Jesus in King of Kings)), somehow managed to work it all out…(Had his cell phone glued to his ear the entire 13 weeks we were there). Found out later he took the whole Department (and their wives or girlfriends) out for a steak dinner at one of the best steak houses in Phoenix.
 
That was pretty bad… but this was worse… and a lot more expensive. In the 80’s there weren’t a lot of “high tech” looking high-rise office buildings there yet… but there were a few, and we somehow were in the best of them all.
 
Klune had arranged for us to use an occupied law office on an upper floor… a gorgeous, ultra-modern all wood paneled office space… but it was too high up for a “cable run” to go up the 20 or so stories to give us enough juice for lights on that floor… So we had to “Tie In” to the “House Power” to get the lights Hot.
 
A word to the wise… if you’re planning on shooting in a High Rise, just “double” the amount of time you’ll need to “Load In” to get set up & “Pack Out” during wrap… as using a Freight Elevator is a major major bottleneck… and make sure your Location Mgr negotiates it so that Crew & Talent can use the passenger elevators… with the “Freight” being devoted to equipment… or you can “triple” your In & Out times. Beware of that Over Time!
 
Anyway, just as we’re about to “Roll” for our first take (around 10PM), Glen Larson arrives and hates the Location. “Too damn regular looking! Not futuristic enough! What else ya got? What’s up stairs?” 
 
Soooo we’re in the Freight elevator and checking out the various upper floors. Again, it was a night-shoot and by the time we got to this point (Lights, “Gripage”, Props & Set Dressing were all set up), it was close to midnight. The Building Manager was no where to be found (asleep in his office?) and didn’t answer his walkie-talkie.
 
On a floor near the top, six Carpenters were working on an office under construction that was in the process of expanding and taking over the entire floor. An Import / Export electronics & software firm, it was as high-tech as anything I had ever seen up to that point in my life ~ short of the inside of a submarine. Glen loved it. “Okay, this is it. We shoot here!”
 
The Carpenters were looking at us like we just “beamed in off the Enterprise.” Glen introduces himself, then hands each one of them about $500 each to go get a drink, or dinner or a massage… whatever, just go get lost… and they did.
 
Like a Chinese Fire Drill, it was “assholes and elbows” as we hauled up the entire Grip & Electric department to the new Location and “tied into” the House Power. All went well until just before dawn when we were using a mini-Techno-crane for a fight scene.
 
We “blew” the main breaker for the entire floor! It was as dark as inside Carlsbad Caverns without a flashlight! As the Best Boy scrambled to get the power back on, an Alarm “went off” as the “shut down” was so sudden and complete, it had killed the “back ups” to the countless number of “running” computers in the office.
 
Anyway, that was that. We wrapped. The Building manager was fired. We got the shot. Larson got sued… and paid the fine. Got a slap on the wrist from the Film Office and in spite of all the gripes from just about everyone related to that location, the Film Office allowed us to continue filming in Phoenix for another six weeks.
 
In fact, having worked in production for years, I’d have to say they bent over backwards to do everything in their ability to help us out and make things go smoothly for us. You can’t ask for much more than that when working on a show out of state.
 
BTW ~ Here’s a “partial list” of Films shot in Arizona… Wonder why “The Highwayman” isn’t mentioned?
 
 
 
 
 
 

Comments

Great resource.

Audrey Brown's picture
Submitted by Audrey Brown on Wed, 07/08/2009 - 12:23.

This is a really good idea. Glad there is a kind of directory for film offices. Thanks.

Thanks, David

rullrich's picture
Submitted by rullrich on Thu, 01/15/2009 - 20:50.

Another great entry with the type of detail that's very useful to folks considering locations to shoot in.

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