Back Lot

Back Lot

noun | Production

The outdoor area of a studio facility located behind or adjacent to the soundstages, containing permanent or semi-permanent exterior set constructions, open land available for set building, and controlled outdoor filming space. A back lot bridges the gap between the fully controlled interior environment of a soundstage and the uncontrolled authenticity of a real location -- it provides outdoor filming space within the managed security and infrastructure of a studio facility.

Quick Reference

The Explanation: How & Why

The back lot occupies a practical middle ground between soundstage and location shooting. It offers the controlled access and studio infrastructure of a soundstage -- no external permits, no public management, studio electrical and equipment facilities nearby -- while providing outdoor filming space for scenes that require exterior environments, natural light, or open-air scale that a soundstage cannot accommodate.

Major studio back lots contain a range of permanent constructions:

Standing sets: Permanent exterior facades of building types that appear frequently in film and television -- a city street, a Western town, a small-town main street, period domestic exteriors. These standing sets can be dressed, repainted, and modified to represent different specific locations across multiple productions. The New York Street back lot at Universal Studios, the period streets at Pinewood, and Warner Bros.' standing New York exterior sets are among the most used back lot environments in cinema history.

Open land: Large areas of cleared outdoor space where sets can be constructed and struck as needed. A production requiring an outdoor environment not covered by standing sets can build a temporary set on this open land within the studio's infrastructure.

Water tanks: Some studio back lots include large outdoor water tanks for filming ocean, river, or lake scenes. Pinewood Studios' famous 800,000-gallon outdoor tank and underwater stage have been used for countless water-based productions.

Exterior infrastructure: Power distribution, equipment staging areas, lighting mounts, and road access appropriate for large equipment vehicles.

The back lot's primary advantage over a real location is control. A back lot is owned and managed by the studio; access is completely controlled; there are no members of the public, no competing businesses, and no noise from adjacent uses that the production cannot manage. The studio's electrical infrastructure is nearby, reducing generator requirements. Equipment and crew can move efficiently between the back lot and adjacent soundstages.

Historical Context & Origin

The back lot was a defining feature of the classical Hollywood studio system. The major studios of the 1930s to 1960s -- MGM, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, RKO -- maintained extensive back lots with permanent standing sets representing every environment their productions regularly required. MGM's back lot at its peak covered 167 acres and contained streets, buildings, lakes, jungles, European villages, and period city environments that were used and reused across hundreds of productions. The economics of the system were straightforward: a permanent set costs money to build and maintain but produces a return across every production that uses it. The decline of the studio system from the 1960s onward led to the selling of many back lot properties for real estate development -- MGM sold most of its back lot in the 1970s. Contemporary studio back lots are smaller but remain in active use, and streaming-driven production demand has created renewed interest in new studio facility construction worldwide.

How It's Used in Practice

Scenario 1 -- Standing Set Use (Production Designer / Director): A period drama requires exterior Victorian street scenes. Rather than finding and closing a real period street -- requiring extensive permits, traffic management, and public control -- the production designer dresses the studio's permanent Victorian street back lot set. The studio infrastructure allows overnight set dressing without the logistics of a real location. The director shoots the exterior scenes over two back lot days.

Scenario 2 -- Back Lot Construction (Art Director): A production needs an exterior farmyard environment for three shooting days. The art director builds a temporary farmyard set on open land at the back of the studio lot. The set is constructed in two weeks, shot over three days, and struck in one day. The total cost is comparable to finding and dressing a real farm location, but the controlled environment saved two days of location logistics.

Scenario 3 -- Weather Day (1st AD): An exterior location day is rained out. The production moves to a pre-prepared back lot alternative -- a scene that was originally scheduled for the back lot is moved forward, and the rained-out location scene is pushed to a weather-permitting slot later in the schedule. The back lot day proceeds in the rain because the covered studio access allows equipment to be kept dry between setups.

Usage Examples in Sentences

"The exterior street scenes are back lot -- we are using the period street set and dressing it for 1940s London."

"The back lot gives us outdoor space with studio infrastructure. We can light it overnight and have it ready for the morning call."

"No permits, no public, no noise restrictions -- that is what you get on the back lot."

"MGM's back lot was a city in itself. They had everything from a Western town to a New York subway."

Common Confusions & Misuse

Back Lot vs. Soundstage: A soundstage is an interior, acoustically treated, covered shooting space. The back lot is an outdoor area of the studio facility. Both are part of the studio complex and share its infrastructure, but they are physically and functionally distinct. Soundstages provide complete environmental control; the back lot provides controlled outdoor space.

Back Lot vs. Location: Both are filming environments, but a back lot is within the studio facility's managed perimeter. A location is any real-world environment outside the studio. The back lot has the studio's controlled access and infrastructure; a location requires permits, logistics planning, and management of a space the production does not own.

Related Terms

• Soundstage -- The indoor studio equivalent; the back lot provides outdoor filming within the same studio infrastructure
• Location -- The real-world alternative; the back lot bridges studio and location shooting
• Production Design -- The department that dresses and sometimes constructs back lot sets
• Pre-Production -- Where back lot bookings, set construction, and dressing are planned
• Principal Photography -- The shoot for which back lot sets are prepared

See Also / Tools

The Production Schedule Calculator helps plan back lot and soundstage days within the overall production schedule, grouping scenes at the same studio environment together to maximise the efficiency of set construction and dressing costs.