Scouting Minnesota Locations for Film

Basketball with Emilio Estevez, ice fishing with Charlize Theron, and dredging the Ohio River with Tommy Lee Jones? All in a day’s operate for Anne Healy.

Healy and her husband, Tobias Shapiro, make a living scouting locales for movies, commercials, and photograph shoots beneath their business, Healy Areas. You’re almost certainly wondering how a gal from Minnesota received her foot in the Hollywood door. Years and decades back, Healy, then a journalist, took a holiday from her job at the WCCO news desk to assistance a buddy scout hockey rinks for The Mighty Ducks—and she by no means went back again.

“I had no camera or movie practical experience and not the slightest idea of how to choose pictures indoors,” states Healy, who wound up as the output assistant on the movie, getting lattes from the snack truck and viewing the Ducks Rollerblade by way of the downtown skyways.

Healy may well be our resident scout for movies set in the Land of 10,000 Lakes (she labored on legendary flicks like Grumpy Previous Adult males, Fargo, Lovely Girls, Drop Lifeless Lovely, and North Place), but she has not been limited to tasks established in our fantastic state. In actuality, Healy scouts about the world for esteemed producers and celebs, such as Luca Guadagnino, Johnny Depp, and Billy Bob Thornton. But Minnesota’s the latest introduction of a tax credit history for film and television output ups the enchantment of considering places closer to property.

Yet another pillar of do the job for the husband-and-spouse group? Locating homes for commercials and even now pictures. “We have a lot greater houses listed here than any place in the country,” says Healy, who loves to wow out-of-town producers with Minnesota’s surprising treasures—like the crew working on a Squarespace business in Winona with, yep, Winona Ryder. “They cherished it right here and can’t believe that all that we have. Minnesota is not incredibly very good at bragging about how good it is. We want to improve that!”

One particular of her favorite areas to scout? The North Shore. “There are so a lot of magical time period cabins that have been created in the ’30s and ’40s,” she states. “Duluth has so numerous amazing structures that just sit and hold out for an individual to learn them again.”

Healy’s regularly maintaining her eyes peeled for potential web sites, no matter if it is for a distinct challenge or only to make her Rolodex of locations—she normally has a little something in her back again pocket. “You see so substantially much more when a spot is absolutely new to you.”