Aquiles Montalvo has made Baton Rouge look like New York and San Francisco. You name the place, and he’s probably recreated it.
Montalvo has worked as a location manager for 14 years. He’s witnessed a thing or two working in the film industry, including the production of 21 Jump Street, Captain Marvel, Looper and Django Unchained.
Montalvo works in the places he knows well. He was raised in Mid City New Orleans and moved to Baton Rouge in 2006. Growing up, he was fascinated with the way films come together and always knew he wanted to do something creative. He graduated from University of New Orleans with a bachelor’s degree in film, theatre and communications, hoping to direct or edit.
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He got his first gig as location assistant on Jonah Hex. He was never taught location management, but he wanted to get his foot in the door. So he haggled with the Jonah Hex location manager for weeks until he gave in and asked Montalvo to go to set. Like most, he learned on the job.
WHAT HE DOES
[As a locations manager with nearly a decade-and-a-half of experience, Aquiles Montalvo scouts, secures and helps build out film and television sets.]
Stories from set
Aquiles Montalvo shares a window into the world of locations:
• National Treasure: Edge of History features the Alamo, which was actually shot in the State Capitol Park. Montalvo found the park’s old oak tree as the perfect location.
• Montalvo and the crew of Blood Out stood in front of the State Capitol in the middle of the night. It was 2010, Montalvo was fresh in the industry, and the producers called asking to shoot a scene within 15 minutes. The scene called for a flipped car, so Montalvo and the crew flipped a rental SUV by hand. They paid for the damages, of course.
• The devil is in the details. Film shoots become chaotic in a second, and as a member of the production crew, Montalvo tries to stay one step ahead. He says he organizes as he goes with lists and calendars, over-preparing as much as possible.
• It’s all about who you know. Film industry names call each other to see what’s up. One thing leads to another, and they’re working side-by-side. “It’s a box full of people,” Montalvo says. “I have binders of (business) cards. … There’s people that you go to, that you’ve worked with before.”
• Ideas for a set begin formulating when the line producer shares notes. They’ll send reference photos and (ideally) the script to the location manager. When the locations manager in turn finds the perfect spot, the film starts coming to life. “The groundwork for the locations department is securing what’s on the printed page… and making it a reality,” Montalvo says.
• The location department is given a budget for every film. Depending on the circumstances, some locations are much more expensive than others. Montalvo says most state buildings fees average about $3,000 a day. The fee does not include security and other needed rentals, such as space for equipment. And although filming only lasts a few days, building and taking down the set adds over a week at each location.
• Much of the budget goes into creating set props. After the filming wrapped on National Treasure: Edge of History, the 13th Gate even bought some of the set pieces. But Montalvo says there was one piece he could not let be thrown away. He took home a tombstone from season four of the TV series Claws to use as a Halloween decoration.
• Being on set means getting to know the actors beyond their on-screen personas. Montalvo most recently was assistant location manager on The Iron Claw. The production team was filming in a cul-de-sac off of Jefferson Highway when Zac Efron spotted a mom and her 9-year-old daughter waving. Efron was exhausted from a physically demanding scene but stopped what he was doing to meet and greet the two anyway. No surprise, Tom Hanks is one of Montalvo’s favorite actors he’s worked with. He says Hanks has funny stories to tell the crew. He remembers the first time he saw Bruce Willis on set, too. “He had a machine gun in his hand and he’s screaming ‘mother-effer,’” Montalvo says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s cool.’”
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• Montalvo’s all-time favorite location is Third Street. But second to that, it’s The Cinclare Sugar Mill & Historic Site in Port Allen, which has made its way into a number of films he’s worked on. He says the industry is always looking for something gritty, like an abandoned warehouse.
• “I remember my (first) little movie that I made,” Montalvo says. “It was just a little black-and-white, 3-minute long assignment for whatever film course I was taking. … It was about a guy that loses his girlfriend, and she comes back in the end. I put credits on it and everything. It was an achievement for me. It was like: ‘I can do this.’”
This article was originally published in the February 2023 issue of 225 magazine.