Directors Tell the Story

Chapter 9

Scouting Locations

Part of the director’s prep process is scouting for locations: looking for practical places to shoot that meet the needs of the script. It could be a stadium, a church, a street, a house, a skyscraper, or whatever suits the story. It could be for exterior scenes or interior scenes. It could be for night or day scenes. Sometimes it feels like looking for a needle in a haystack. But the director is aided by the capable assistance of a specific department that focuses on finding that needle.

One of the department heads you will be working with is the location manager. His job is to find potential locations and—once you have chosen them—to negotiate the deal, then to oversee the interaction between the shooting crew and ...