At Tribeca Festival, ‘The Scout' Spotlights a Typically Low-Profile Role

New York Times

2 days ago

It's often said that the city a movie is set in is like a character in the story — think New York in Martin Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver,' or Hong Kong in Wong Kar Wai's 'In the Mood for Love.' But it takes a location scout to find the ordinary streets and houses that create a complete, lived-in picture of that place. This largely invisible but important role in moviemaking provides the lead character of 'The Scout,' which premieres Thursday at the Tribeca Festival.
Paula González-Nasser wrote and directed 'The Scout' after toiling as a location scout for around six years. The filmmaker, who grew up in Colombia and Miami, got into the business after moving to New York in 2016, when a scout left the show where she was a locations production assistant. What followed were busy stints on the shows 'High Maintenance,' 'Search Party,' 'Broad City,' and films like 'Never Rarely Sometimes Always' — driving around, knocking on doors, and leaving fliers in neighborhoods in search of the perfect locations for scenes.
She started keeping a diary of her appointments, if only to preserve more of the memories of all that she saw. When the idea struck her to tell a story about her job through a movie, she knew she didn't want to show the hustle-and-bustle on set that meta movies about filmmaking often focus their energies on.
'You never see the boring, drab, behind-the-scenes part of making a movie,' González-Nasser said during an interview in a cafe in Crown Heights, a Brooklyn neighborhood where she had scouted locations for the HBO series 'High Maintenance.'
'But,' she continued, 'I also wanted to show a character in a job that was blending the personal and professional and pulling her in many different directions.'
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