Hollywood Sets

A location scout makes a killing in LA’s red-hot film business. BY D. HEIMPEL

In LA, there are people making millions finding shooting locales for studios and independent producers. Sherri Milligan is one of the best, and she just got a new client: the owner of the 2,000-square-foot Hollywood Hills condo that housed Johnny “Drama” Chase and company on the aforementioned “Entourage.”

Her company, Sunset Locations, has more than 6,000 properties on its books, ranging from $500,000 track homes in the San Fernando Valley to $100 million mansions in Beverly Hills. She’s found locations for “Nip/ Tuck,” “Beauty and the Geek,” and used her Rolodex to find Michael Jackson suitable digs while he dealt with his latest lawsuit.

In seven years, Milligan has built a multimillion-dollar business, banking on the city’s continued strength as the movie and television capital of the world. With her extensive contacts, Milligan has the leverage to demand a high percentage of the fee production companies pay to homeowners, who in turn benefit from their homes’ fame. Realtors point to the increased value of a home that has been associated with a prestigious movie or TV show.

So how did a woman like Milligan get involved in this little-known area of show business? In 1997, Milligan was a mortgage broker. One day a producer stopped by her door and offered her $60,000 to film in her home for a week. She immediately started calling studios, trying to book more work for her and her friends’ homes. “By 1999, I realized this was a business,” she says.

In 2001, Milligan opened up shop in the heart of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. By 2003, she was making $2.7 million and had four employees. The next year she made $3.3 million and was up to a staff of 12. While mum on actual figures, she says the numbers continue to rise.

She books an average of 60 locations a month, reining in $1,500 fees for print photo shoots and up to $50,000 a day for filming in SoCal palaces. “We love to see these fairy-tale deals happen… where a home is rented and the owner makes $300,000 in a few days,” she says.

That $300,000 is before Milligan takes her 30% finder’s fee. But homeowners don’t have to pay a thing before their home gets booked, making location renting a risk-free form of extra revenue for property owners.

The first step is sending out a photographer to shoot the place. In Milligan’s case, it’s New York native Cris Nolasco, who has worked for Architectural Digest and has shot homes designed by renowned architects like Richard Neutra and John Lautner. Nolasco, who shoots for Milligan four days a week, was impressed with Sunset Locations’ “Entourage” condo.

The unit is stark with gray walls and a deep brown walnut floor. It is equipped with a $50,000 entertainment system and a 110-inch projector screen that drops from the ceiling to hide a 50-inch plasma screen.

The previous owner earned $63,000 for a season’s worth of “Entourage” episodes filmed in his home. An additional $45,000 was spent keeping the homeowners association at the posh Franklin Towers happy.

Jeff Hobgood, the Beverly Hills estate agent who sold the condo, says that a home that has been featured on TV can be good for resale. “It’s a huge selling point,” he says. “You say you have the ‘Entourage’ condo and it is much more resalable. People know the place, and that makes them want it that much more.”

While the owner, a 25-year old Englishman who works in the entertainment business, admits that a famous condo is a novelty, he is quick to point out that he wouldn’t buy a place simply for that reason.

But other people have paid a premium for the status of a high-profile residence. Paris Hilton’s home, right between the Sunset Locations office and the “Entourage” condo, sold for $4.2 million—a price Hobgood says is inflated because of the name behind it. And with that inflated listing, similarly sized houses in the area have jumped up, too.

Hobgood says that the craze for celebrity homes started with MTV’s “Cribs,” which showcases homes of the rich and famous.

“It wasn’t about having your house in Architectural Digest; anymore, it was about having it on TV or in a movie,” he says.

While there is a clear migration of big screen and television filming to other states that offer tax incentives and other benefits to producers, Los Angeles’ location business continues to grow. In 2006, LA County logged 56,152 production days, according to the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, up 1.1% from 2005. And when Milligan started, she says there were only a handful of full-time location scouts. Now she estimates there are at least 300 in the area.

Eduardo Martinez, an economist with the LAEDC, says that much of that activity is in the cheaper realm of reality television. “Th e economic impact of a reality show is a lot less than ‘Desperate Housewives,’” Martinez says.

But Milligan isn’t worried. Th e home in Pasadena she just placed for a Sandra Bullock film is one of those $300,000 fairy tales.

What you can expect if your house is picked up by a location scout:

HOW MUCH YOU MAKE depends on what type of media your home is being used for. If it’s for a print ad campaign or a magazine shoot, the payoff is relatively low. While television commercials and music videos can be lucrative, the big daddy is feature films, which can pay hundreds of thousand of dollars.

THE TYPE OF HOUSE is the biggest factor in how much you will get. Depending on value, square footage and design, you can expect the following rates (per day):

$500,000 track home: $1,500 Multimillion-dollar penthouse: $3,500-$6,000 $20 million mid-century Hollywood Hills villa: $15,000-$25,000 $100 million Beverly Hills mansion: $40,000-$50,000

A SCOUT like Sunset Locations takes the finder’s fee, which can be up to 30%.