How to get Good Locations like a Hollywood Pro

You don’t have to settle for your best friend’s basement to shoot your next film.  Believe it or not, getting good locations is sometimes as simple as just making a few phone calls.

In some places, like New York or Los Angelos, its very unlikely you’ll get a popular location for free, but in other parts of the U.S. and in rural or small metropolitan areas around the world, its often easy to get unbelievable looking locations, just by finding the owner and sweet talking them.  You might have to put their daughter in the film, or fill some other unusual request, but if your entire film takes place in a bowling alley, and you can get a free bowling alley by adding in a bit character you better believe you’ll do it in a heartbeat.

Location Scouting

It’s usually best to start with your local film commission.   Almost every city has it, or at least has some sort of film leison that you can contact.  Don’t be shy just because you are producing something that is low or no budget.  It’s their job to help you regardless of your budget.  In fact, many film commissioners bend over backwards to help the little guy, so long as you are professional and curteous when dealing with them.

You’re film comissioner will have tons of files with pictures and addresses of all sorts of locations as well as contacts to the property owners.  From there, its more or less a matter of picking up the phone and negotiating.

However, its not always best to take any location that comes along.  Here are some things to keep in mind when picking a location:

1. Appearance – Does it look good?  There really is no reason to use a location that doesn’t fit the look of your film regardless of if it is the right “type” of location.  Don’t use a bright shiney dentists office as the office of your crazed sadistic serial killer dentist.  It’s probably better to find a run down room, and rent or build a dentists chair.
2. Economy – Can the location be used as more than one location in the film?  Does it have multiple rooms that can serve different purposes in the script?
3. Cost – Will you have to pay for this location, and if so…how much per day?
4. Power – You will have to have power to shoot.  Make sure there is a ton of access to power, and that the wiring is modern enough to handle an extra 1000 watts of load.
5. Parking – You’ll probably have to park at least 8 cars near this place.  Two will have to be right outside the door (the van with your equipment, and a car for your PA who will be running back and forth all day).
6. Permits – Will you need permits to shoot in this location?  In some places, no permits are necessary.  Make sure to discuss this with the film commissioner.
7. Size – The size of a room is very important.  You’ll almost always want a room to be 12 feet by 12 feet or larger.  The larger the better.  Remember its not just the action of the scene that needs to be in the room, but also three lights, the camera rig, dolly rigs, and about 6 crew members.
8. Ceiling Height – If the ceiling is very low it can cause your DP and lighting crew all sorts of fits  Low angle lighting with small lights causes harsh shadows on the walls.  Usuaully, the higher up your able to get your lighting the better.
9. Staging areas – If it all possible you’ll want at least one  ‘Staging area’.  What I mean by that is you want a room that you can place all of your equipment and cases that are not in use.  You may also want to put all of your craft services, as well as a room for your make up artists to do their thing.  This can be one large room, or several small rooms.  The last thing you want is to have to put everything in the hallway of an active workplace such as an office area.

With these tips in mind you are well on your way to finding locations that will add production value to your film, while at the same time saving you tons of headaches during production.

Tagged as: location scouting, locations