Filmmakers Offer Old Location Photos to Help Fire Victims — And Prove Insurance Claims

Filmmakers Offer Old Location Photos to Help Fire Victims — And Prove Insurance Claims

As people begin to assess what they lost in the Los Angeles wildfires, producer Amanda Rohlke and production designer and art director Amelia Steely are encouraging industry colleagues to share images with property owners to help with insurance claims and offer sentimental value.

The idea came to Rohlke and Steely on Monday when they were texting with a friend whose family lost their house in the Palisades. Rohlke suddenly remembered she had shot a film at the house in 2013 and that the crew took lots of photos. She contacted the art department from the shoot to try to find the photos, and when Rohlke updated her friends, Steely realized she too had photos from various locations. 

“It occurred to me, wow, there are all these resources that homeowners may not know about,” Steely said. “Often the homeowner’s absent and doesn’t know that somebody has taken hundreds of photos of their home.” She estimated that she’s documented 50 homes in Los Angeles, five to 10 of which are in areas the fires have impacted.

These photos go beyond wide shots and location shots, according to Steely. They are also “reset” photos that detail exactly how something appeared so a crew can return items after moving them or in case of damage.

After that initial conversation, Rohlke and Steely decided to spread the word in their industry circles. Rohlke posted on Instagram: “Actionable idea for film crew especially art dept: Have you filmed at businesses or houses in the Palisades or Altadena? Do you have photos from scouts and filming? Compile them for the homeowner. This could help them with insurance claims/inventorying and provide sentimental clean images they likely never would’ve taken on their own.”

Rohlke, whose producer credits include the Apple doc Deaf President Now!, which will screen at the Sundance Film Festival this year, also included in the post a message for homeowners: “If you lost your home and hosted a film shoot at some point reach out to your contact on the team. They may still have photos on file.”

Word spread quickly within the Hollywood production world. Among those who responded on Instagram or reposted Rohlke’s call to action were writer and director Ally Pankiw, filmmaker Kelly May, and Marissa Nodar, who worked on the location teams for films including Oppenheimer and Nope.

“I had recently scouted in Altadena last year, and so it felt very sad because I’d met so many of those people,” Nodar said. “But I didn’t think of that connection, that we could use these photos for potential insurance claims or just the sentimental value.”

When Nodar saw the post, she realized how helpful this could be. “For our records, we have a full view of what that home has,” she said.

Nodar said she’s since been in touch with colleagues to figure out the best way to connect with property owners, since some might be represented by location service providers. 

May, the filmmaker who also responded to Rohlke’s post, said she scouted in Altadena in November and has been contacting locations to see if they could use the photos. She has been comparing a digital map of where she took the photos to the wildfire map on the app Watch Duty. At least one property owner responded that the place, a cabin in Altadena, is gone.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Palisades Fire, which has burned more than 23,000 acres, was 19% contained, and the Eaton Fire, which has consumed more than 14,000 acres, was 45% contained. More than 12,000 structures have been destroyed in those two fires, according to official estimates.

As property owners consider next steps, images could be useful. While Google Maps might provide street and satellite views, a filmmaker or crew member’s documentation could go much further.

“Our department is full of scrupulous visual note takers, and that is part of the job,” Steely said. “We’re really well-poised to get information to the people that need it.” 

Beyond insurance claims, to have images of “their furnishings and all of their belongings, I think it’ll be incredibly sentimental,” Rohlke said.

It was unclear to Rohlke and Steely on Wednesday how many production people and property owners had connected. They were working on setting up a “hub,” perhaps through Google Forms, to help with those connections, and they were thinking about privacy concerns, Rohlke said.

“They’re very personal photos,” Steely said. “It’s not just a wide shot of somebody’s house with a grand piano in it. People from our department will go by and photograph every book on a bookshelf. They’ll photograph people’s closets.”

One hub is already online. Inspired by Rohlke’s post, Eric Hernandez and Chris Fenner, each a director of photography, launched SafeFrame, a platform for people to upload photos in fire locations, or search for photos by location. Hernandez and Fenner were not immediately available to comment.

For people in the industry who have been eager to help, this has felt like a way to do so, even with limited sources, Rohlke said.

“So many people in the film industry, obviously location managers and scouts and people on the art team, but even producers, directors, we’re all taking scout photos,” she said. “Even if we don’t end up shooting at these places, we all have thousands of photos of strangers’ homes and all of their belongings.”