NYWIFT Blog

By Lily Hutcheson

Welcome to NYWIFT, Elizabeth Bendelac!

Elizabeth “Liz” Bendelac is a locations professional. She’s managed, key assistant managed, scouted, and coordinated for film and television across New York and  New Jersey. Her credits? NBC’s  New Amsterdam. Paramount’s Smile. Sony’s Goosebumps: The Vanishing for Disney+. Indie? She’s there too. Ponyboi, starring Dylan O’Brien and Victoria Pedretti. She’s everywhere you need her to be—quietly making it all happen.

Recent work in the Tri-State area? The Home with Pete Davidson. Insidious 5. Manifest. Disenchanted. Resurrection. The Good Nurse. And a standout collaboration with Edward Burns on his sequel to The Brothers McMullen: The Family McMullen.

Outside of production, Elizabeth dedicates her time to Surfers Healing, a nonprofit surf camp for children with autism. It’s a cause close to her heart, combining her love of the ocean with her commitment to community and empathy.

Elizabeth is also an adjunct faculty member at the New Jersey Institute of Technology where she developed and teaches a course on location management.

Elizabeth: She doesn’t just do locations. She produces. And producing, for her, has rules. Collaborate with directors who share her values. Strong roles for women of color. Fresh takes on stories you thought you knew. Films with the elegance of Merchant & Ivory but the punch to succeed in the real world. Films that leave a mark.

To that end, she’s developing two scripts with award-winning playwright Montserrat Mendez. Exploring genre mash-ups. Shaking up narratives. Figuring out new ways to make audiences sit up, pay attention, maybe even gasp.

Because whether it’s a location or a story, Elizabeth Bendelac knows how to map the journey. She knows the destination. And she will get you there.

NYWIFT Member Elizabeth Bendelac

Welcome to NYWIFT! Please introduce yourself briefly to our readers.

Hello! My name is Elizabeth Bendelac, I am a film and television location professional from New York City. I am also a huge fan of surfing, golfing, cooking, spending time with friends and family and traveling when I am not working!

Elizabeth Bendelac

What brings you to NYWIFT?

I was looking for a female driven community that I could be a part of to expand my network and connect with other incredible women in film and television, so NYWIFT seemed like the perfect fit!

Elizabeth Bendelac with friends

How did you become interested in location scouting and management? Can you share a bit about the importance of this role within film and television productions?

I have been wanting to work in the film industry since I was a child. 11 years old is when I figured it out, from that point I was dead set on working in the film business.

When I was in college, I produced a TV pilot with my best friend. I also served as the location manager, and at that point fell in love with the logistics of scouting and permitting a location for filming.

I worked my first real locations job in Los Angeles when I was living there after college. One of my mentors is Kokayi Ampah, who was the LM for Shawshank Redemption, Mars Attacks, and The Color Purple, among many others. He gave me my first paid location job in 2016 and when I moved back home to NYC, I kept doing it, eventually joining my union in 2018.

Elizabeth Bendelac

How has your work on large, studio-based productions differed from smaller, independent projects? What are the benefits and challenges of each?

The biggest difference is most assuredly the budget and manpower. On smaller productions we obviously have less money and in turn not as many helping hands as we would on a studio job, so I find myself having to really push harder for things on the smaller jobs.

The bigger jobs bring on the day-to-day challenges of creating something massive and thus have so many moving parts that the challenge is keeping up. Both are incredibly rewarding and bring about their own lessons.

Elizabeth Bendelac on set

What is one of your favorite locations you have ever worked on?

My favorite would be filming at the Metropolitan Museum of Art while it was closed to the public for the VFX unit of the Percy Jackson TV Series. It was an awesome Wednesday just being able to roam around the Met without all of the crowds.

Do you have any current or upcoming projects you’re excited about?

I am helping a mentor of mine with a personal project of his, so I am really excited about that and shooting the proof of concept for it and I have some exciting projects in development with my producing partner Montserrat Mendez. 

You can connect with Liz on IMDb and on Instagram at @goforliz28.