If I have approached you to shoot at your premises, here is an introduction into what to expect:

​

A Location Manager acts as the contact between location premises / owners, councils, authorities, and the production company.  A harmonious balance of ensuring that the location is happy with the productions intentions / proposal and that all the logistics of access, practicalities are thought through and the production are satisfied that their needs are being met.  A Location Manager oversees the running of the shoot throughout the preparations and shoot day.

​

The Process:  Research:  Finding a location can mean letter dropping specific houses to met a brief, I include all contact details on this letter, and prefer not to cold call at a property, we may also contact you via an agency.   Scout: I often approach a location to do an initial 'scout' of the premises; this involves taking photographs of the location for presentation to the Director to consider as a possible location.  Logistics of the location (such as access, parking restrictions, size, time frame and location budget) are accessed.  A location might be perfect but if it parking is impossible, it is not practical to service.  A selection of locations for the same brief is presented, and several might be shortlisted.  A second visit would be set up with additional crew members, comprising often of: Production Designer (Art Dept.), DOP (Camera/Lighting), Director to see if it ticks the boxes of their intentions, they would then spend time at the location working out how they would creatively dress, film, light there.

​

Preparation: If your premises is chosen as the preferred location. The LM would look at all the logistics, for instance if we are filming in your kitchen we usually require access to numerous other rooms / garage to house; equipment, props, agency/client, actors, glamour dept., monitors/sound crew either in rooms or in 'pop up' tents outside the premises. 

​

Lighting: Often need access to rear garden / side alleyway / flat roof to set up lamps, or tent out / block and control light coming through windows.  Art Dept.: Often need to move furniture and small personal items from the rooms we are shooting in, to give more space for the crew and also to re-create the feel of the character / place we are filming, sometimes this involves very little change, sometimes it could mean wrapping up, storing furniture off site, and re-dressing a whole room, with occasional request to paper, or paint walls.  All of which gets fully re-instated upon completion.  A full list of intentions is talked through with the location owner to see if they are happy with our proposal before proceeding, everything is documented and re-instated as it was upon completion. 

​

Vehicles: A letter is distributed to residents / businesses in the immediate vicinity to inform them of our presence, to make them aware there might be parking suspensions in the road on the day of filming.  All applications for parking are taken care by the LM, we come with vehicles that contain all possible equipment we might need for the shoot, it predominately consists of: Larger Trucks: Generator / Lighting, Camera; Smaller Vans include: Props, Grips, Sound, Video Play-back, DIT.  Facilities such as Catering, Winnebago’s, and Private Cars are parked off site as a large nearby base, and crew are ferried back and forth in mini-buses.

​

Prior to the crew coming into the location, flooring, carpets are protected from any damage on the day, using professional protective light-weight boards and carpet protection, also may put buffers on doors.  We may move / cover any furniture / items that could obscure crew bringing in items to the building. ​​​​

 

Shoot Day: An average shoot day is an 11-hour day, we often ask for possible access to a location around 0730 and finish up around 1900, with some time to vacate the premises.  If there are many props / lighting that need to be removed / replaced either we contract for overtime hours or return another day, dependent on the amount of work needing to be done.   ​  An average size crew on a commercial / drama is around 25-40 people, plus actors; on a large feature this can be much higher.

​

Copies of insurance indemnity, contract and payment are made in advance of filming.   An average shoot day interior location fee starts at around £1000 for a day, set up days are 50% of the shoot fee.  Editorial and photo shoots are often nearer £500-£750 per day, with a much smaller crew of around 6-15 people, very few vehicles and equipment.

 

After finished has been completed, a walk through with the location owner (or representative) is done to ensure everything is re-instated as desired, in the event of any re-decoration, or replacement of items, this is all organised by the production team, and compensated accordingly.

​

This all might sound rather daunting, but crews film on location every day, so they are very used to looking after and respecting other peoples homes, properties, businesses etc.  Many locations owners welcome back film crews after their first shoot.  Often location owners think we just want lifestyle houses, and think theirs isn't special enough, but the most ordinary and ones with original features are the most difficult to find.  There is a big surge at the moment for projects to have a 70s, 80s and 90s.  There is an 80-year old owner, whose house is like stepping back in time, its fantastic, he is enjoying his house being used so often, his neighbours have now caught on, although a retirement area, its now like mini Hollywood!