a lot of those shit sitcoms were situated in new york right? isn't friends situated in new york? all of those series have at least one opening shot with the little bricked buildings and the fire escape stairs. a taxi driving away in the background, on a wet street. i guess maybe if you move in to those neighbourhoods and having grown up with all those television shows you start to believe you're a sitcom character.
I read an interview with a guy whose job it is to scout locations for film. As an aisde, how do you get a job like that? I'm sure the careers teacher never mentioned it when we had our one-on-one interview at age fifteen and we had to choose our A-level speciality subjects and thus, more than likely, our academic future and potentially the jobs we would end up doing in the dim and distiant future, I'm sure that I would have remembered this conversation
"If you want be an actuary then yes, I do recommend Maths and Further Maths, in fact that will stand you in good stead for many careers, though if you want to be a location scouter then I would probalby consider dropping the Further Maths. If you want to go in that direction then if I were you the A-level choices I would suggest are to stick wtih Maths as it's such a useful allround subject, take Location Scouting obviously and round it out with an A-level in Knowing Famous Film Directors* - another subject that is good for many jobs incidentally - and, if you are one of the people who chooses to do four A-levels then the last one should be Woodwork".
In fairness, another job that I thought you don't just get into in the normal way is sealion trainer, but I do remember a few years back there was a vacancy at Edinbugh zoo offered in a national newspaper and it turned out you didn't really need much in the way of qualifications other than enthusiasm. One of my brother's friends applied and got an interview and ultimately they were just like yeah sure, so he chucked in his office job in Kidlington or wherever and moved to Scotland - so maybe location scouter does just get offered like that and you have to keep your ear to the ground. But somehow I doubt it.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I read about how there aren't half so many of those really arechetypal New York streets with the fire escapes and all that as you think there are. At least that are available and suitable for shooting in. The piece claimed that nine times out of ten they are shot in the same few places though of course I have no idea how true that is.
*I know someone whose job is actually as a top level hollywood caster type thing. I doubt they have final say somehow but they do have interviews with, I dunno, Brad Pitt or whatever. Their career path was quite an interesting one, their first step was to be the granddaughter or niece or something of Anthony Mingellha who won a best director oscar for The English Patient and then they went to university and did some sort of degree I think, and then when they graduated, they said to Sir Anthony "can you get us a cool job in hollywood?" and he said "For fuck's sake you lazy cunt - alright then" and now they have an office near Mayfair where they play at choosing lead roles and then it goes above their head and someone else actually chooses.