What location scouting is
Location scouting - the recce - is the process of visiting a potential location and confirming it will actually work for the shoot, not just look good in a photo. A place can be perfect on camera and impossible in practice: no power, a flight path overhead, nowhere to park the trucks, no toilets for the crew. The recce is where you find that out while you can still change your mind, instead of at 6am on the shoot day with a full unit standing in the rain.
Before you go
A useful recce is driven by the script. Pull the scene's breakdown and know, before you arrive, what the location has to deliver: how many cast, what time of day, any vehicles or stunts, how much space the action needs. Take the shot list if you have one. You are not looking at a pretty room, you are checking whether specific shots can happen in it.
The on-site checklist
Walk every location against the same list, every time:
- Power. Is there enough, and where are the outlets? A lighting package can pull more than a domestic supply can give. Note whether you will need a generator, and where it can sit far enough away to be quiet.
- Sound. Stop and just listen for a full minute. Traffic, aircraft, a nearby school, air conditioning, a fridge you cannot switch off, a motorway you cannot hear until playback. Sound problems are invisible in photos and ruinous on the day.
- Light. Where does the sun rise and set relative to your windows? A scene written for morning light needs the room to face the right way. Note the windows, the times, and whether you are fighting or using the daylight.
- Access and parking. Can a truck get down the road and turn around? Where does the unit park? How far is the carry from the vehicles to the set - the "load in"? Distance is time, and time is money.
- Space. Room for the camera to get back far enough, for the lighting to rig, and for cast, crew and equipment to exist off-camera. Rooms shrink dramatically once a unit is in them.
- Facilities and holding. Toilets, a space to hold cast and extras, somewhere to feed the crew, somewhere dry.
- Safety and the nearest hospital. Log the nearest A&E or emergency room and the route to it. This is not optional - it belongs on the call sheet, and a location without it recorded is a location you should not be calling a unit to.
- Connectivity. Phone signal and data, for the day itself and for anyone who needs to be reachable.
Photograph everything
Shoot the space methodically: every wall of every room, the approach and access, the parking, the power, the view out of each window, and a clear reference of the sun's position and the time you took each frame. You are building a document your heads of department will plan from without ever having stood there. Wide, honest coverage beats a few flattering angles.
Permits and permissions
Almost anywhere public, and most private property, needs permission to film - a permit, a location agreement, or both. These take time, cost money, and sometimes come with conditions on hours, noise or road use. Log the permit status of every location and treat "we will sort it later" as a red flag. Filming without the right paperwork can shut a shoot down on the day.
Logistics: getting everyone there
A location is only as good as your ability to get the unit to it. Map the travel from base or from the previous day's location, work out call times that account for the journey, and flag any location that forces an expensive company move mid-day.
Red flags
- No confirmed power and no room for a generator.
- A sound problem you cannot control or schedule around.
- No parking or no truck access.
- No nearest-hospital on file.
- A permit nobody has actually started.
Where StoryboardCanvas fits
The Locations app is built to hold exactly this record: photos, permits with a status you can track, logistics and a travel matrix between locations. Because it shares the project file with the schedule and call sheets, a location's details flow straight onto the day - and a location with no nearest hospital recorded is flagged before it can be called, so the safety line is never blank on the sheet the crew reads.