Written by Murray Ashton on Oct 14, 2016. Posted in Interviews

On location in Portugal with Made in Lisbon's Head of Production, Carla Liziario.

As part of the Made in World production service conglomerate, Carla Liziario heads the company's Lisbon branch and works daily with productions hoping to utilise the sunny locations of Portugal. In this exclusive talk with The Location Guide, Carla discusses how she got into the industry and some of the more difficult productions she's had to face to date.

Where is your favourite place in the world and why?

My favourite place in the world is Sagres in Portugal, probably because it is the one I know better and to which I connect more easily. Its roughness and wildness is what attracts me the most and the fact that the city overlooks the vast North Atlantic ocean.

 

How did you career get started and what was your first big break?

A good friend of mine was always teasing me to get into production, because according to her I had the profile. After working at an expo in 1998 I was offered a very uninteresting place in my employer’s marketing department, so I negotiated my way out and decided to give it a go in the wild industry of production.

What do you like most about your job?

It may sound brash but it comes down to three things: the interesting characters you meet along the way, having specific time-frames on projects to get them finished and being well paid for what is essentially a lot of fun!

What is the best piece of advice you’ve heard?

This job chooses you and not the other way around, meaning that either you have the appropriate skills or you’re out of the equation.

Where have you filmed in recent years?

As a Service Provider, always in my lovely country of Portugal.

Strangest production request?

Being asked to buy a very specific car in the interest of getting the main actor to arrive on set in time. The amazing thing is that we found it, even in the right shade of blue!

Your most difficult production moment?

We were shooting a big campaign for an online betting client and the day before production was about to begin when we were supposed to enter the house location (our main location for a four day period) for dressing and prepping (three trucks of furniture and props parked outside and two major cranes in position for 18k projectors), we were informed by the owner that we could not shoot there anymore, because her brother in law just died and the sister lived in the building and the all family wanted to mourn and be left alone. Under these circumstances, understandably we weren’t welcome.

It was a very hard moment since it was too late to find alternative – the following four days were already scheduled and this was the first one. A few hours of diplomacy later and we managed to shoot there and it ended up being a great success.

If you weren’t in production how would you like to earn a living?

As a politician or an actress. Although with that said, given that politics are no longer treated seriously anymore, most likely an actress.

What was the last great film you saw?

I don’t go to the cinema as much as I would like and I am not a fan of home cinema. But I love cinema and it’s a tough question to answer. One of the last films I saw and liked was Lucy, but I have some all time favourites like Gran Torino, Madison Bridges, Se7en and Interstellar, just to mention a few.

What was the last great book you read?

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk.

What do you do to chill after a long production?

It always helps to get a relaxing massage to round out a production, soon followed by a nice glass of Portuguese red wine with some Portuguese cheese to go alongside it.