Inspector McCloud Part 2: Travel & Research

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To kick off the Inspector McCloud Gig, I arranged a trip to the city where it all takes place: Laredo Texas.

Research is a major part of project development, and most of the time you can get away with what Google has to offer… but Laredo is practically a main character in this story, and I knew I wasn’t going to get the same results from a series of crappy photos of the main tourist attractions.

I love travel, I just hate the traveling part. But seeing other parts of the country (and world) is awesome, even when it’s for business.

I really don’t care about driving a sweet car. This is not a lie. I like comfort, pep, and a sweet CD player if I can get them, but I’m just happy if it doesn’t break down between the airport and the first taco stand I see. Sexy body design means nothing. Cars should not be chick magnets.

That said, check out the sweet car they rented to me when I was in Laredo!

It’s some kind of mustang, I believe.

I don’t know what mistake led to this free upgrade from a Ford Fiesta, but I was apparently the first customer to drive it, and didn’t have to pay for it (unless you count the bruises I got on my knees every time I got out of the cramped cockpit).

Coming to Laredo was a fun and educational experience, and not even remotely a waste of time. I derive much of my story inspiration from locations for some reason, so it helps to have been there and know the zone I’m writing about, whether on not I am representing it successfully.

My client, John, was kind enough to take time off to show me around town, to all of the battle fronts where the Stormwater war is being waged. He also gave me a pretty thick history lesson on Laredo. I don’t want to get too deep into Laredo trivia – there’s too much history and info to do it any justice. Suffice to say that Laredo and Nuevo Laredo are international sister cities, and it’s hard to spend time in Laredo without being tempted across that border to see how the wild half lives.

One of my goals for this trip was to get a couple of voice references for Inspector McCloud. Because I wanted to nail the border-town Mexican accent, I had planned to get the appropriate people to speak to my camera somehow… but I am unfortunately shy about asking strangers for such performances.

In my last few hours however, I walked into a local history museum and found that he curator had exactly the voice I imagined for Inspector McCloud. I managed to coax him into giving me the rundown on some key local historical figures (a couple of the Zapata boys among them) while I videotaped him. Under the pretext of consuming a history lesson, I got the voice reference I was looking for.

Another goal was to snap tons of photos. I knew that our story would evolve, and I wanted to make sure I was covering every angle. Here are some images that help contribute to our look and our story:

When you’re afflicted with whatever condition causes me to be a scatterbrain, you have to come to terms with the fact that, no matter how many checklists you make, you will forget something important. When the time came to depict the Environmental Services Department building, the HQ of Inspector McCloud, I realized I had not taken a single photo of the place, despite having been there 3 times. Not really a serious problem as long as you don’t plan on using establishing shots. Which would be stupid.

Thank God for Google Street view, and the army of camera-laden vehicles they must have been sending out over the last year. This is one of the photos I was able to download from Google Maps:

And here’s the rough BG rough that came from it.

Now it's on to production! Next time around, I’ll talk a little bit about the writing & Voice recording process.

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