Tips for Shooting on Location
[by Gail Mooney]
I’ve been shooting “on location” for over 30 years. That’s all I do – location shoots. Each job and location vary greatly, and that is the challenge of location shooting. So the key is to be prepared for a variety of issues, problems and challenges that you may encounter on location.
Here’s a typical pre-production list of needs that I work from:
- Travel arrangements – Arranging for flights, rental cars, hotel rooms, carnets, visas
- Crew – finding and lining up assistants, sound guys, additional shooters, stylists, hair/makeup
- Talent – casting
- Special Job needs – rental equipment, backgrounds, generators
- Permits – many times a location requires a permit like shooting on the streets of NYC
- Insurance – I always call the building management prior to a shoot to ask them if I need to name them on my insurance policy. Many times I need to add them to the policy for that time period and add additional coverage.
- Talk to my client and/or subjects in advance and prepare them for what we’ll be doing – what equipment we’ll be bringing in – how long our setup will take
- Prepare a solid shoot list – this helps make the shoot efficient as well as keeps you on track so that you get all the shots you need
- If shooting outside – find your location geographically and what may be around it – which way does it face etc.
- If shooting inside – find out about any shortcomings they may have as far as power supply or lack of. I’ve actually shot in fairly new commercial skyscrapers in NYC where we thought we were covering ourselves as far as plugging into different circuits – only to find out that we weren’t – after the circuit blew and left the Board standing in the dark! So now I always have a building electrician standing by.
Ultimately I try to think of everything I may need on location before I ever get there. A client once said to me “the more I see you worry about the details – the more I know that I don’t have to and that you’ve got it covered.”
4 Responses to 'Tips for Shooting on Location'
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Great post, details are everything. I am tired of hearing about jobs that went wrong because of a lack of time put in before hand.
Great post Gail, thanks. You can never be to prepared. Great list of things to think of in your prep phase too.
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