Sometimes you just land a sweet gig. One of those projects that everything just falls into place, and even as things are shaking out the process is fun as well. About a year ago, I got to enjoy one of those…the creative was skyline shots in the evening. We needed to be able to show the immenseness of the city, so it had to be an angle where the city stretched out into the horizon. After looking at places like Phoenix, Houston, Chicago, and Atlanta, we decided to head down the coast to Los Angeles. We felt that LA had a great size to it, and that on the outskirts you would have a few opportunities to get an overlook back into the city.

One of our post guys, Hiro, does a lot of shooting, and we’ve done a lot of shooting here and there on our own practicing and going after different ideas. So we went out and did some testing locally in Seattle, to see how we could get the best quality images. We wanted to find the right exposure times, and see what different lenses at which f-stops would give us the least amount of noise and distortion. We knew the image would need to hold a lot of detail over a great distance, since the end use was for not only web application, but also some large high quality banners. Keeping things as sharp as you could over a huge landscape at night was a priority.

The next day we were looking over some of the results, and making comments about the right exposure time to get cool traffic lights in the shots, but not overpower the skyline. Meanwhile, also looking into permits, viewpoints, and other production details. It turned out the weather report had rain scheduled for that day, and there hadn’t been rain in southern California for a long time. We decided to book flights and head down there the next day…knowing that the rain would really help the air quality, and from our testing that was going to be essential. We would hit the ground running; arriving early afternoon into LAX, and head straight out towards Mulholland Drive, and find our perches.

I had driven through LA once, but it was late at night on a long road trip that had stops at Big Sur and Joshua Tree…LA was between them, and I passed by mostly on Interstate 10 after coming down the coast. Not really a lot of feel for the city that way, but as long as it takes to drive through LA, it had sort of seemed like I had been there. So, it was pretty cool then to get the chance to visit, and also be down there to capture imagery. Though it was low key, it still seemed fun to be working in LA, staying out on Sunset, and seeing this city that you had seen on television and the big screen all your life growing up, as the backdrop to so many things. Now we were there taking images, and driving out on Mulholland as the sun went down. Pretty cool.

We found a bunch of good viewpoints, and weaved around out in the canyons enjoying the clear skies and warm night time. But we hadn’t really found that one sweet spot. Every time we thought we were going to get there around the corner there would be a house in our way or a fence surrounding private property. We really wanted that sweeping view, but it kept eluding us. After a ton of driving, we decided to go all out, and head up into a dead end road, as we knew somewhere up there was the view we wanted. As we rounded the bend, smack in front of us was a gate to a huge place, right then a few people were walking out leaving a party. After quick introductions, we asked if we could shoot from their property…they told us no, but they could show us on the map where the sweet spot was, as they had grown up in the area, and use to watch fireworks up on a little public out cropping.

Map in hand, and after several wrong turns, we finally found the way through to the road we were looking for. We had to get out, and walk the last stretch, since there was nowhere to park unless you had a garage up in that area. We climbed up the hill, and just at the top we were passed by a car pulling into one of those garages, connected to one of the large homes. We suspected there was a nice view from inside, and struck up a conversation with the driver. Turns out the place had been used in several large films, and carried a hefty price tag (that’s the plus and minus about LA…you can find anything for a price, but everyone knows that everything has a price). We took their number, and agreed to call the next day if we were in dire need.

As we stood there, thinking we had hit one more dead end, and what direction we should possibly try next, up roars a fancy car with tinted windows sliding to a stop right in front of us. The driver popped out, and asked if we were looking for the trail? We were like trail? Of course we’re looking for the trail. The driver said just a minute, while I go back down and park and come up with my friends, and as fast as he had arrived, he was gone. Now we were a little unsure of sticking around…after all, it was well after midnight, and we had all our gear, and everyone around was living behind gates in humongous fortresses. We decided to take our chances and hold tight. After about ten minutes we heard voices and saw a flashlight coming up the way. The driver from the car we had just met, had found his friends, and told us to follow him, he knew the way.

We walked up an embankment and pulled back some shrubs, and there was a little trail that led up to an overlook. At first it was a little bit of where the heck are we going through the bushes, but when we came up on the top, we realized that we were about a 100 feet short of our goal, on a little plateau that was the highest point you could see from every direction. We could hardly believe our luck. Our new friend, the driver, told us this was a small piece of public property behind the house of a friend of his, and that he loved bringing friends up when they were in from out of town. His sister’s boyfriend and a couple of buddies from Moscow were in LA for the day, so they had driven up, to have a quick look around before they went out clubbing. We walked out to the end of the trial, and all of us took in the crazy view. Thanks to the rain the day before, we could see for miles and miles, and LA stretched out like nobodies business.

Now I’ve seen some incredible views living in the Northwest, with one memorable one up on Tabletop Mountain near the Canadian border in the Cascades, with views as far as the eye could see of wilderness 360 degrees all around, and with Mt. Shuksan and Mt. Baker looming large, but this view rivaled that, and any I had seen in the past. LA was gleaming out there like the band of the Milky Way on a pitch-black, moonless night in the middle of nowhere. We set up the camera and proceeded to snap pictures for an hour or so after our new friends shoved off to go clubbing. We couldn’t believe our good fortune, and after we were finished we soaked up the view for a bit longer, even though things were turning into a 19 hour day. The view was just too incredible to pass up, and the feeling of how we had gone from one happy accident to another winding up there. We had found our shot, in the most random of fashion, but also because of the tenacity of always checking around the next corner or sniffing down one more lead—that’s what scouting is all about.

We walked back to the car with a few high fives and holy cows, and drove back down into the valley. Tomorrow night we would go up to Griffith Observatory, and use our permit to gather some more material, but it felt good to know we really had the shot in the can. It had been a crazy long and exhilarating day, with a real cherry on top at the end. We grabbed an early morning breakfast at Mel’s Drive In on Sunset, and then walked back to our hotel, to hit the hay.

The day had been quite an adventure reaching our goal, and as always, it was a lot more satisfying knowing we had earned it. Though it wasn’t easy, and didn’t look like it was going to materialize, at the last moment the day seemed to give back even more than we had hoped for or expected. Sometimes you just land one of those sweet gigs where everything falls into place.