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Lauren Taylor, Location Coordinator

Lauren Taylor knows that the success of a movie or TV shoot can hinge on the tiniest details. The angle of a streetlamp, the contact information of an animal handler, a prop cigarette — they’re all part of an impossibly complex, constantly shifting equation that must be solved before production can even begin.

Taylor is a location coordinator, most recently on the Hulu series, Wu-Tang: An American Saga. Her job is to make order out of the chaos that is television pre-production. She handles the contracts for locations. She navigates Byzantine hurdles set up by mayors’ offices. She procures permits.

Taylor began working in the New York City film industry after graduating with a film and electronic arts degree from Bard College in 2010. Knowing she loved movies, but unsure exactly how to translate that into a career, she began working as a PA in different departments. She dabbled in wardrobe, casting, and construction before settling on locations.

Now, nearly a decade into her film career, Taylor is a member of the Teamsters Union and has worked on a mix of critically acclaimed independent films, Hollywood movies, and high-profile TV shows. Before entering the Wu-Tang, Taylor was location coordinator on If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) and location manager on Swallow (2019) and Before You Know It (2019), which premiered at Sundance.

Taylor’s work, in some ways, hides in plain sight. You can see the fruits of her labor — successfully acquired locations — in the background of every shot, but there’s a world of effort that goes into finding and locking those places down. In this interview, Taylor breaks down exactly what the locations department does — and what it takes to become a coordinator. But first, we start with semantics. (more…)