On Location: Combining 2 Locations into 1

Michael Pressman (left) and Carlo Fiorletta

 "Detours" is a road trip movie, and one of the decisions we made early on is that we'd shoot the interior scenes in New York and New Jersey,  then many of the exteriors while on the road to Saint Petersburg, Florida.  The road trip portion of the shoot would include only the 2 lead actors and a skeletal crew (about 1/3 of what we had for the NY/NJ portion).

Jennifer  Giraldi (played by Tara Westwood) is moving from NYC to Florida to make a career change:  she's gotten an MFA in Theater Management, and is giving up her acting career to be the assistant director of a theater company.  The audience has to feel how big this decision is for her when she shows her dad (played by Carlo Fiorletta) the theater she'll help to run and introduces him to her new boss (Michael Pressman)

A year before we started principal photography, Tara (who is also one of the producers) and I traveled to Florida (and Savannah, and Myrtle Beach, and North Carolina...) to check out potential locations.  We found several nice theaters in Saint Petersburg, but our favorite was always The Palladium.  It had exactly the look we wanted, and their exterior decorations were their own - meaning we wouldn't need to get releases from other artists or companies.

While Tara and Carlo would be on location in Florida, the actor playing Jennifer's boss would not be, nor would the crew that would be needed for such a complicated interior scene.  So we had to find a theater in NY or NJ that met these criteria:  (1) could pass as the inside of the Palladium; (2) had a raised stage and a large audience seating area; (3) wasn't in the middle of a production; (4) didn't have artwork or signage around the stage, which would create licensing issues; (4) was willing to let us use their space for a half day shoot; (5) was geographically suitable relative to our other locations; and (6) most importantly - wouldn't cost a fortune.  This was by far the hardest location for us to get.

To say that we were running out of time to shoot the scene inside the theater would be a (very) polite understatement.  Our terrific location manager Audrey Lorea had almost run through the (long) list of possibilities - none of which worked for one reason or another - when she reached out to the terrific people at The Strand Theater in Lakewood, NJ.  Not only was it aesthetically perfect for the scene, it was close to where we were then shooting in south Jersey.

We spent a morning shooting at The Strand, and it went beautifully.  It was another 3 weeks before we got to Saint Petersburg and shot the beginning of the scene, walking up the steps to the Palladium.  But it works!