In The Picture: Rock Locations

By Dan Guarino

If there’s a filming location that’s needed in Rockaway, Broad Channel and beyond, Claudia Bloom is the person to see. Since 2016, her company, Rock Locations, has represented an expanding roster of business/homeowners for productions looking to use their properties for TV shows/commercials, photo shoots, music videos and more.

For location scouts, photographers, advertisers and directors, Rock Locations serves up everything from bars to cafes to houseboats and mansions, all with a look they can’t find anyplace else.

Arverne resident Bloom explains, “My background is all in media. I’m originally from Westchester. I started acting in NYC, then moved to LA to pursue it further. I was working on TV and in commercials.

“I did that for seven, eight years. But the parts weren’t getting any bigger.” So she moved into casting, mentored by a well-known casting director. “I moved back to New York and put up a shingle as a casting director,” she said. Casting prospective talents for films, theatre, and commercials, she also launched a business coaching actors, which she still does both virtually and in-person.

Her next direction led Bloom into print media, ultimately as a research editor, working for 14 years at popular women’s magazine “Real Simple.” “They also needed editors to go on TV to talk about stories, which I could do,” she said.

As that industry changed, layoffs brought a move from the Upper East Side eventually to Rockaway. “I’d been coming out here, to Beach 67th Street, for several years, from May to October. Surfing, getting to know the community,” Bloom said. “So my friends were saying, ‘Why not just move to Rockaway?’”

The move also brought creative new business possibilities.

“I knew the owners of one of the surf shops,” she explained. “And one day I said to them, ‘This would make a great (filming) location.’ From there I started to go around to different businesses I knew, asking owners what they thought (of the idea). I had no idea where this would go.

“Everyone said ‘Yes.’ I had like 15 locations to start. The Rockaway Times did a story with my contact information. The next day my phone was ringing off the hook!”

“I had 15 locations, clearly there’s many more now!” Her representation list is now closer to 150, and even includes providing vehicles, props and production pets. There is no shortage where these properties have been seen. Anheuser-Busch, CVS, Comedy Central, Esquire, Fila, the Department of Defense, Augusta National Golf Club, Bloomberg Media, ID, Hinge, Hulu, Kodak, Wells Fargo, Ralph Lauren, 988 Suicide/Crisis Line and more are featured on Rock Locations website, many with links to their spots.

CBS’s “The Equalizer,” which needed a dilapidated, “stash house,” Max’s “Search Party,” A&E’s “Cold Case File,” and SaltyTv’s “vertical series,” an online short-episode drama, have all used Bloom’s services.

“I’m still adding locations,” she said. “I’m always adding.” Rocklocations.com showcases whatever might fill a production’s needs. These include nearly 50 homes, from traditional to ultra-modern, classrooms, a boat club, drug store, beauty supply, hotel, deli, church, gas station, coffee shop, marina, gym, pools, sailboats, doctors/business offices, basketball and pickleball courts, restaurants, surf shops, recording studio, warehouses, even stables.

Each listing has a designation (“House 23,” “Pharmacy,” “Auto Body Shop,” “Beach Café,” “Bakery”, “Yoga Studio,” etc.) and an impressive photo.

Connecting locations with productions, Bloom explains, comes about in multiple ways. Sometimes it is “We looked at your website. We like Office #3.”

Also, “I’m a member of a number of Facebook production groups,” where creators post the types of properties they are looking for.

“Right now, there’s a documentary film I am working with,” she said. The director negotiated for one office, with an older, traditional office feel and look. While in the building a second office she represents caught their eye, which they have since also booked. “The second office with cubicles is not modern, it’s old-school style and the cubicle-style seems to be in demand for production and harder to find.”

Once a location is requested, Bloom has questions for the interested parties. What kind of shoot is it? For TV, an interview, music video, photo session? Then “they say here’s their budget and we try and work within that.”

“There is the deposit to be worked out, a certificate of insurance. Then I talk to the owner. I explain everything to the owner, get their okay,” she said.

She will also visit sets, making sure all goes well.

Agreements might include whether the production company would like to use the property, rooms, or exterior as is. Or redress it for a certain look, color scheme, etc. If so, photos are taken before any work is done so that all can be put back exactly as it was. In one case involving a fence, the owners decided they liked the repainted color better, and requested it be left as is.

“Location scouts, indie films, music directors,” often look for specific location features. “They may be doing a commercial, with kids, a family and they want a big house with bedrooms,” Bloom said. “I get requests for bars, restaurants, houses with modern kitchens…”

Advertisers for a Japanese mayonnaise, requesting an “urban farm,” came out every week to monitor the growth of the background vegetables.

“A new thing which I am doing, I’ve decided I needed to spread out,” Bloom said. Beyond Rockaway, she represents two Broad Channel locations, six in New Jersey, and three in the Five Towns… “as of now.”

“I also now collaborate with three, four other reps in Brooklyn, Westchester, Long Island” and another in New Jersey. “I get a call and we share the job,” she said.

“My dream … is to book a house, an office, that appears in every episode of a show.”

“This is a hip, urban beach. And the train is right there. It’s the dichotomy,” Bloom said. But “with Rockaway, it’s not just about the beach. It has a grittiness. There’s textures, colors, here. It’s the quality. It’s the ocean. The air.”

That’s a look, a feel, she emphasizes, visual creators can’t find anyplace else. But whatever kind of place they are looking for, Claudia Bloom and Rock Locations has it for them right here.

Photo by Dan Guarino.