There have been plenty of iconic films made in Alberta over the years, and some of the most iconic ones were made with the help of a Calgary man.
Fresh off the success of the Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson-led film Die My Love, Daily Hive spoke with Edsel Hilchie, a location manager for the film who has more than three decades of experience in the Alberta film industry.
We know what you may be thinking — what does a location manager do, exactly?
Hilchie walked us through his process when looking for a location for a film, with the first being breaking down a script into locations, scenes, sets, and page counts.
As Hilchie reads the script, he forms a base of the vision the team behind the film is looking for, and being from Calgary, he knows a certain number of areas that he starts with to see how they feel, and what they’re thinking about it.
He’ll often pull stuff out of his library, content out of the Film Commission, or stuff other location managers may have, and he’ll start presenting those locations to directors and designers, and they’ll begin narrowing it down.
“You remember places you’ve been. You keep every picture you’ve ever taken. And you may not use those, but you just keep them,” Hilchie added.
If his job is done right, when he shows up on set, nobody should know who he is, except for his crew, the producers, and the people he works with.
“If I am walking on set, you’ve got problems. Theoretically, by the time you get to a set to film, I’ve solved everything for you, or my department has solved everything for you, so you’re just there. And it should be seamless, and I’ll be there, you know, for the designer and the director and the crews to get in first thing in the morning, to make sure that everything’s fine,” Hilchie said.
He got his start in the film industry after being a production manager for the Alberta Theatre Projects for a number of years, and after that, he worked for the City of Calgary doing large corporate events, like producing the parade route after the Flames won the Stanley Cup in 1989.
But as the city got further away from the 1988 Winter Olympics, the events became smaller, and Hilchie debated a career change. He met a woman who was associated with film over lunch, who suggested he become a location manager.
“I said, ‘What’s that?’ She explained it to me. I then went out and researched it, found some other location managers, you know, talked to them, and when I got hired to be an assistant and sort of worked from there. So it’s doing the same kind of job, it’s just the same skill set, just applying it to a different industry.”
Over the years, Hilchie has worked on some Oscar-nominated films and ones that attracted some serious star power, like 2015’s The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, 2020’s Let Him Go, starring Kevin Costner, and was a location scout for 2005’s Brokeback Mountain, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger.
“I had a great time on Brokeback Mountain, because I was just a scout. It was a terrific time because it was just working one location, and I didn’t have to look at the whole big show. We didn’t have to worry about, you know, where the trucks park, where the garbage is going to go, what permits are needed to get things in here.”
Hilchie shared a story of when he worked in Blackie, a small town just east of High River, where the “Black and Blue Eagle” bar in Brokeback was located. The very bar where Ennis Del Mar, played by Ledger, has a heated argument and a physical fight with a truck driver after storming out during Thanksgiving with his wife, Alma, played by Michelle Williams.
“We did that on the hottest day of the summer,” he quipped, mentioning how the crew had to create snow in the town to fit the scene, laying down snow blankets and artificial snow in different places.
The community hall was also rented for the film, and Hilchie had a woman come over to speak with him, joined by another woman who was almost in tears. The upset woman was set to get married that upcoming weekend, and she was distraught over the snow appearing earlier that week.
“She thought we were ruining her wedding. I told her it would be all cleaned up and taken care of by the time the wedding arrived, and it took a long time to calm her down, but she eventually did calm down.”
After the scene was shot, Hilchie added that it was a beautiful summer day, and the last portions of artificial snow were being swept up, when the soon-to-be bride approached again, looking slightly disappointed
“She said the snow was looking so good, and was actually hoping for some pictures with the snow before it got swept away,” Hilchie laughed.
When it came to working on The Revenant, a role that would net Leonardo DiCaprio his first Academy Award win and nab the Oscar for Best Picture, Hilchie called the time around that movie “challenging.”
“The thing about The Revenant was that the weather, the weather landscapes were a character in the show, yeah, and he [Alejandro González Iñárritu] wanted to shoot it in continuity. So that was a challenge just in terms of what was happening,” Hilchie said.
As for what it’s like to see a location he helped pick make it onto the silver screen, Hilchie called it exciting to see every time, especially in a movie theatre with an audience.
“You get that feeling of ‘this is the location we found, those vistas right there.’ And when you get the people who react to it, yeah, then, you know, you found the right place. And I get that a lot of times from directors and designers when I show them places, they are wowed. So I do get that satisfaction that.”
