I had a location scout this week for an upcoming shoot and was reminded of how helpful assessing a location ahead of time is to production. In a given situation, I don’t know that certain areas of the venue make moving the camera difficult. I don’t know the ceiling lights can’t be controlled independently. I don’t know there is a refrigerator that makes a loud humming noise. None of that is clear from photos, but it’s abundantly clear when I step into the space and talk to the manager.
At a basic level, I can meet in-person with the location manager as well as the client. Sometimes the client and I have only talked on the phone or via video call, so I think it helps to meet everyone face to face. I can ask questions and move in the physical space, which helps everyone see and respond to any suggestions I’m making.
The first thing I look for are camera angles. For this particular location, there were some good angles in the main part of the room that would allow us a lot of depth and area to maneuver. There were some other potential spots that would box us in, put talent up against the wall and generally make it much harder to produce a good looking video. When I can spot those pitfalls and have a conversation early about why certain angles will hinder us, it’s a lot easier than trying to communicate that on the day.
The next thing I look for is lighting. Do we have places to put lights available in the angles I’m proposing? Are there any environment lights that we would want to keep or exclude? How much control do we have over the light? Are they on separate banks with dimmers or is everything just on/off on one master switch? This helps me prepare better with the gaffer in terms of what gear we need and also a basic plan for how we might set up.
I also want to check sound. How does the room itself sound? Is there echo? Are there any beeps or buzzes from installed machinery? Do we have control over the air conditioner? Are there any noises in the venue that we can’t control?
This came up in a scout a long time ago, where the client wanted to do an interview in a room that had a big generator humming in it. We assumed we could turn it off, but I asked the location manager if that was indeed the case. Turns out we couldn’t! So that was a deal-breaker; we moved to a completely different room that was much quieter. These things are so much easier to solve when we’re not in the middle of production.