On Locations

December 1, 2023

Kamine worked, principally as location manager, on all seven seasons of The Sopranos. He's also an Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning executive producer of The White Lotus. His modest memoir primarily details his life when he worked on The Sopranos. Being a location manager requires quick decisions, and not everyone he worked with was easy to get along with. He describes intense periods of working on the series, alternating with months of under- or unemployment between seasons. Readers learn something but not a lot about The Sopranos producer/writer David Chase (whom Kamine describes as a genius but no one to cross) and the show's actors. Kamine says that Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli, and Drea de Matteo were great to work with, and he portrays James Gandolfini as a great actor but one whose stress about the series weighed on him. Kamine wasn't buddies with any of them, but he shows himself to be an observant and collegial colleague. VERDICT This tale will grab readers from the first to the last page. It's an interesting take on what went into making The Sopranos, the Rolls Royce of cable TV.--David Keymer

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2023
An in-depth account of one man's experience with the film and TV industry from the point of view of the crew. Kamine, award-winning executive producer of The White Lotus, chronicles his career through various set locations. He started in 1993 as a location assistant for the film Quiz Show, and he later moved on to become the set location manager for The Sopranos, on which he worked for all seven seasons. The author describes the ups and downs of balancing a family life with the demands of "a typical roving movie career," which began with moving from job to job with little initial pay or stability, to a successful career working with David Chase on The Sopranos and on films such as Men in Black II, which, at the time, was projected to "have the biggest budget of any movie in the history of the world." Film buffs will be fascinated by Kamine's focus on elements that viewers are never meant to see--location scouting, gatekeeping politics, "the blurring of professional and personal lines that people in power often cross," and even the occasional surprise, such as the author receiving a small speaking part in an episode of The Sopranos. The author shows exactly how much work goes into scouting, securing, and filming a location, ensuring that all those involved are appeased, often with cash, and how the costs go up significantly when the film or show becomes increasingly popular. "I don't mean for anyone to think that I am claiming, based upon the fact that I worked on what is widely regarded as one of the best series in the history of television, personal credit," he writes. Nonetheless, his detailed examination of the behind-the-scenes work on these projects is illuminating. An engrossing, unique look at one man's journey through the production of film and TV.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 1, 2024
Kamine, an executive producer of the television series The White Lotus, got his start as a location scout on the 1994 Robert Redford movie, Quiz Show. Since then, he's worked on dozens of films and television shows, but his longest gig, and the one that taught him the most, was his seven-season stretch on The Sopranos. This forms the backbone of this absolutely wonderful memoir, which focuses mostly on his professional life. Although many famous people appear, few are named, leaving the reader to guess or perform online detective work to ferret out the person's identity. This kind of discretion is unusual in a Hollywood memoir, and it's refreshing as Kamine focuses on what he learned and the people who inspired him. Sure, there are behind-the-scenes stories about Redford, Sopranos star James Gandolfini, and director Barry Sonnenfeld, but much more interesting are the stories about Kamine's scrambles to find perfect filming locations, his long-time side job as a book reviewer, and his evolution from location scout to location manager to production manager and beyond. Although the book will definitely appeal to Sopranos fans, it should also interest readers who enjoy a well-written, entertaining book about how movies and television shows get made. In an increasingly crowded genre, this is one of the best.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.