GLENDALE — The frozen-food section of a local grocery store isn't exactly the first place that leaps to mind when it comes to artistic inspiration.
But amid the Haagen-Dazs and TV dinners at Jons Supermarket on Glenoaks Boulevard, Tim Hillman is taking his best shot.
He aims his Pentax 35-millimeter camera at the drab linoleum aisle shadowed on either side by massive glass display coolers.
Reeling off a few frames at the intended target, Hillman snaps away from every corner of the store before pausing briefly to capture the image of smoked meats dangling from above the deli counter.
If all goes as planned, the store and its freezer aisle will provide the ideal backdrop for a three-minute scene in an upcoming New Line Cinema drama starring Al Pacino. Then again, maybe not.
Filmmakers can be as finicky as they are creative. And when scouting a location, experience teaches it pays to cover all your bases.
"The director is looking for that one shot," said Hillman, who will visit 15 or more grocery stores before making a final selection for the three-minute scene. "I try and shoot everything because the director can see things other people can't."
Hillman, 44, knows all about it. For the past decade, he has been a Hollywood location manager and scout for such films as "Scream 2," "Feeling Minnesota," and 1999's "Magnolia."
For every hour of images that flicker across the silver screen, it's a good bet Hillman and his assistants have spent hundreds of hours on the ground working to make it all come together.
Keeping His Eyes Wide Open
A native of Sandwich, Mass., Hillman often can be found in his Blue Ford Explorer with his essentials: a camera, cellular phone, day planner and the first weathered Thomas Guide he bought when he moved to Los Angeles in 1990.
To choose the 18 to 50 locations for a typical feature film, creative thinking is required as a matter of course, he says. And as he cruises local streets and freeways--his eyes are always peeled for the next cinematographic gem.
"In Los Angeles, it's very, very hard to find a spot that hasn't been filmed at least once," Hillman says. That means taking the standard location and turning it into something completely different.
In the 1996 film "Most Wanted," for example, Hillman needed to come up with the location for a library.
After scouting the downtown Central Library, the main library at USC, and the Pasadena library, he said a light went off in his head.
