Locations

A friend who is a on the production staff of a TV show asked his location manager for some ideas about The Location and sent me a few of the responses. I will have to follow up with these on Monday. Good news though as this is one of my biggest concerns. It's one thing to need a location for a day. It's another to need it for 4 weeks. That's a lot of time. It's hard to get a studio for less than 1500 a day here - the air conditioning alone almost costs half of that. After 28 days that's $42,000 - and that's going to be too much for this movie. Way too much. I'm aiming for something in the 10,000 range. Like if I were to rent on a month to month situation.

But this is why the location is so key. Not to mention this is one of the first thing actors would want to know - is it close to where they live? They like that. A lot.

New Mexico and I believe New Orleans have some great location deals. But then I'd have to fly out my crew and cast and support them plus per diem - that could get very expensive very quickly. When the time comes, though, I'll have to weigh that against any financial benefit of shooting outside of Los Angeles.

Caltrans (California department of public transportation) has free locations (free plus about 300 a day for the security required) - but I'm not sure if any would match my needs. I'll have to investigate that.

Tomorrow I want to scour the script for important props and set pieces and will talk with a friend to get an idea of what these elements could be made for.