busy company with lots of directors, one of the ladies suggested I go see one of their principal line producers who just happened to be in Phoenix at the time working on a project. They thought he would be interested to look at the diversity of locations I had shown them and that we might hit it off. When I met Philippe Rivier he seemed to be impressed with my work and during our conversation he told me about an upcoming project he was planning for the next summer; he would produce his first feature film in Denmark. (Woo-hoo!) I had been to Copenhagen once a couple of years before and was planning to visit my girlfriend there that summer, the year before production would begin. So I may have made it sound like I knew more about the place than I actually did, but listening to his enthusiastic pitch about the project (as producers and directors are so adept at doing) I immediately saw an opportunity for myself to actually – possibly – live in one of the coolest cities I have ever visited, if only for the life of a film's production. While on holiday I ran through Philippe's synopsis with all my friends and each was, of course, familiar with their country's efforts in saving their Jewish population from the Nazis during World War Two. I made pictures of the old docks and warehouses in Copenhagen, back-alleys and dark apartment courtyards, old neighborhood streets and parks – things I thought might help tell a story about people hiding, then fleeing by boat to neutral-nation Sweden.

When I got back from vacation I quickly edited 14 rolls of film and sent the best series of location folders to Philippe with a short note. Before the end of the week he surprised me with a call, 'I showed your pictures to the director, Kenneth Madsen. Without having read the script you seem to have found most of what we need to tell our story! What do you think about working with us next summer?' Bingo! This is what I most-love about this business! If you have an idea and you work hard – most importantly, put your ideas to work in an inventive way – magic happens! I had the best summer of my life working with Philippe and Kenneth and their merry band of Danish filmmakers. And because Danes work to live, unlike here in America where we live to work instead, I had each and every weekend off to celebrate life to its fullest in the party-center-of-the-universe, Copenhagen! (Oh yeah.)

Everything has a shelf-life. For the first 16 or 17 years I was involved with the production of pictures I worked as a location scout and a location manager. Instead of looking for an opportunity to segue into the camera department and work towards one day becoming a cinematographer I just kept jumping from one teevee commercial to the next, occasionally landing a couple of days scouting for still photographers as well. Hey, I got to make wonderful pictures of intriguing places someone else paid for me to travel too. I got comfortable