France Myung Fagin: Locating "The O.C."

While an economic recession isn't a great thing for a country as a whole, it can make for interesting personal stories. In fact, if it wasn't for an economic downturn and a lay-off from a sales career, a then-thirtysomething France Myung Fagin may never have entered the television/film industry and become a successful Location Manager. Yet that's exactly what happened and "The O.C." is all the more beautiful for it.

We always hear the stars ask how they got their start, but it's really interesting to know how the important people behind-the-scenes of "The O.C." got into their roles. How did you get in the business and pursue the role of Location Manager?

FMF: I started as an intern. I had originally come to the West Coast selling leather goods for Anne Klein, and had been laid-off because we were in a recession. So, at the age of 35, I made a major career change. I was living in Marina Del Rey and saw a little ad in a beach newspaper about film production and how $75 could possibly get me a job in the business [laughs]. I mean I didn't know a soul in Hollywood; not a soul.

Anyway, I took this film production course, because I thought it would be fascinating, and learned all about all the job descriptions that you see during the end credits of a show or a movie. But I also learned, that-and-the-$75 wasn't gonna get me a job [laughs].

So they offered another course two weeks later for $150-typical Hollywood scam, right? But I took the course, which was on budgeting and scheduling, and the guy who taught the course called me three days later and offered me a job. He was the Unit Production Manager [UPM] for two movies-of-the-week for Fox called "Alien Nation."

That was a long time ago, but they were basically cop shows that had to do with aliens from outer space, so my early experiences involved a lot of special effects, heavy make-up and aliens wandering around downtown Los Angeles.

But based on your extensive credits, that early experience seems to have really paid off...

FMF: Well, yes, I kind of graduated onto a bigger cop show called "Profiler" and then I graduated to a bigger alien show called "The X-Files," and then I did a bunch of feature films-I've worked with the Cohen brothers and I did another science fiction project. It sounds like I've done a lot of science fiction projects, but they were all very-character driven things.

Generally speaking, the Location Manager is the person finding the exterior locations that we see in a film or a television show. What most excites you about the job?

FMF: I guess what I like about the job is that we make everything old look new again. We really do. I mean, people have been making movies in Los Angeles from the beginning of television and film, and everything has been shot at least once. So the challenge is to see those things through different eyes and different colors.

I think of Location Managing as sort of a three-part job: we provide the backdrop or the canvas from which the director and the production designer can paint their picture; and then there's the financial and the managerial parts of the job.

So describe your role on "The O.C." in particular....

FMF: I would say that our objective is to create a world that simulates Newport Beach and the lives of these characters more than anything else. With each character we discover where they live and where they hangout, and that actually adds dimension to each of the characters. The Cohens live in a particular type of neighborhood, in a particular area. Ryan comes from somewhere else and hangs out and works in different places than that, and so our challenge and our objective is to create a beautiful and interesting place for them to tell their story.

Most hardcore fans of "The O.C." know that the show is largely shot on a soundstage in Manhattan Beach-about 30 miles north of the real Newport Beach-but where are you finding the exterior shots that represent Newport Beach?

FMF: I don't like to divulge too much, but we do love Redondo Beach [laughs]. We shoot exteriors there almost weekly. It is a beach community that just works really well for us and provides us with many different canvases to tell our story. We've got the pier, we've got shops in Redondo Beach, and we have the Esplanade which is a beautiful stretch of road that on one side looks to the sea and the other side looks to homes and townhouses that could very well be in Orange County.

Are any scenes shot in Orange County?

FMF: We did go out once last season to Seacliff Country Club in Huntington Beach and shot there. We are always scouting for things that may be usable, but we are restricted by the "30-mile zone," which is basically a 30-mile radius from a designated point in Hollywood wherein production companies can travel and film without being under a penalty of mileage or excessive travel time. And when you go out of that zone, it costs the production company money and time. I will say that we have actually scouted in Orange County this season for very special locations, so who's to say what the future holds.

There are also a lot of school campus scenes involving the characters. What real-life campus did you choose for that?

FMF: We actually film at a private woman's college in Brentwood called Mount St. Mary's College. They've been very, very gracious and generous to us in that they let us actually film there when school is session, which is really great.

In the opening episode of Season Two, Seth and Ryan and Sandy are in Portland, Oregon. How did you capture the Pacific Northwest here in Southern California?

FMF: When you think of the Pacific Northwest, you think of lots of green, lots of trees, and the textures of the homes can conceivably be of redwoods versus stucco and red tile like you have in some beach communities here. So you look for locations that could have that kind of architecture.

We looked for a house that was so contrasting to what Newport is and you look for things that would be iconographic for a different type of geography, so we search and find something that represents that, and we did.

I assume that goes for the scenes that represent Ryan's hometown of Chino, correct?

FMF: Yes, that's also shot somewhere in the Los Angeles "zone area." When you have some place that is a little bit more non-descript, you have a lot more flexibility in scouting for those locations.

How much time are you given to actually find locations that are needed for a particular episode or scene?

FMF: It's usually eight days or less. When we're fortunate, we can get a little bit of an outline outside that eight day window, but until that finished script hits we're flying a little bit in the dark. So it's pretty fast.

It all depends on what's written and what we're given, and sometimes it changes mid-stream. It's a creative process, so sometimes things get re-thought or it's decided that a certain location doesn't work for whatever reason and we go back out and find something else.

What is the greatest thing about your job on "The O.C." ?

FMF: The greatest thing about this show, first and foremost, is that rather than shooting in Los Angeles and making it look like some place else, we get to shoot Southern California as Southern California. So we can shoot the palm trees and the red tile roofs and the beaches. Whereas when I've worked on other shows and movies, we'd be trying to make L.A. look like Cincinnati or New York, so you couldn't use those things.

It's really a welcome change and it's quite nice, and the fact that it shoots mostly on the Westside and the South Bay and the Long Beach area. I mean the last picture I worked on was "Daredevil" and I spent almost a year downtown, so on a personal level, this is great [laughs].

On the other side, what are the difficulties associated with the job?

FMF: I don't think of this job in a negative way at all. I think of things as challenging. The fact is that if we do our job well, the location shoots are seamless and nobody knows we were there. The trucks pull in, they set-up, they do their work, and then they pull out. And when it's not done that well or not as well planned then it's even more of a challenge for each department to do what they need to do at each location.

It's a multi-faceted job that involves knowing what every department's needs are-how much room they need to park, how many feet of cable they need, where they need to put their lights-each thing is specific to every location. So it's a huge task.

Shooting on location also involves dealing with various city governments. Is that also part of the job?

FMF: In our areas, we don't have a centralized permitting agency as they do in Los Angeles, so when we pull a permit we have to pull them in El Segundo, in Redondo Beach, in Malibu, in Palos Verdes, in Long Beach, and that's a big, big job, but we have formed tremendously wonderful relationships with all the municipalities to the point where even if some places require ten days notice, they'll do it for us in a day.

How often do you find the prime location and for whatever reason you aren't able to secure it or get the permits necessary?

FMF: It sometimes happens, but most Location Managers don't pitch what they can't deliver [laughs]. And sometimes being forced to get something that is "impossible" raises the bar and when you do get it, it's a very nice surprise.

If someone was interested in getting involved in your line of work, what would you say are the general personality traits that being a successful Location Manager would require?

FMF: I would say that you have to have very good communication skills, be willing to listen, and definitely have vast organizational skills. And I also think a good sense of humor, because you are asked the impossible and you say, "Okay," and then you have to make it happen.