Harriet Lawrence
https://twitter.com/TheKeyLocation
Production Guild Inspiration Award 2016, in association with Working Title
I have been Location Managing for 20 years starting in commercials in the 1990’s and have found the moon on Earth, Scotland inside of the M25, the Maldives in a Heathrow hotel and Wolverhampton in Central Scotland: I have filmed underground, over-‐ground, on beaches, mountains, prisons and stately homes. I have worked on all sorts of TV dramas, films, stills shoots including Suffragette, Burton and Taylor, Fleming, Parks and Recreation, Henry VIII, all the Outnumbered series, setting up the first series of Downton Abbey and all Stephen Poliakoff’s films of the last 10 years including Dancing on the Edge. I have recently wrapped on My Cousin Rachel, adapted and directed by Roger Michell, shooting in the Home Counties and Devon. I am about to go and spend the next few weeks scouting and filming around a couple of the most famous distilleries in Scotland. On Suffragette, I took the crew into the House of Commons for 4 days filming of rioting suffragettes. The first feature film to ever shoot there – 6 months prep, a few grey hairs later, history was made.
I also run the Assistant Location Managers Training Course for the Production Guild – something I have done for some years previously with Creative Skillset and Film London. I relish training the next generation of LM; about 65+ of them, many who are now moving on up to Location Managing themselves now. My young son who is being trained to put up Unit Signs and understand a schedule and budget thinks I work in a trailer park! My partner, who also works in the industry, thinks I look after parking and toilets. The truth is of course a little more complicated and I wouldn’t have it any other way.