Location

Location

noun | Production

Any real-world environment outside a studio -- a building, street, landscape, or other physical place -- used as a filming setting. Shooting on location means filming in actual existing places rather than on purpose-built studio sets or soundstages. Locations provide authentic environments that are difficult or expensive to recreate on a soundstage, but they introduce logistical, acoustic, and creative challenges that studio environments do not.

Quick Reference

The Explanation: How & Why

The choice between shooting on location and shooting on a studio soundstage is one of the most consequential decisions a production makes, with implications for budget, schedule, aesthetic, and crew experience.

Locations provide authenticity. A real hospital, a real street, a real farmhouse carries details -- the specific wear on surfaces, the particular quality of natural light, the proportions of real architecture -- that a constructed set rarely matches completely. Audiences may not consciously notice the difference, but they feel it: real environments have a lived-in quality that contributes to the film's credibility.

Location shooting also provides scale. Recreating a city street, a mountain landscape, or a functioning airport on a soundstage is prohibitively expensive. Shooting on location acquires these environments at the cost of access, logistics, and permits rather than the cost of construction.

Against these advantages, locations introduce challenges:

Acoustic problems: Real locations have uncontrolled acoustic environments -- traffic, aircraft, HVAC systems, other tenants. The production sound mixer cannot control the ambient noise of a real location the way they control a soundstage. Dialogue recorded on location may require more ADR work.

Access and control: A production does not own a location. The space may be in use by others, subject to interruption, or inaccessible for safety or business reasons. Controlling a location's access for a full shooting day requires negotiation, permits, and often significant disruption fees.

Weather: Exterior locations are subject to weather. Lighting conditions change; rain, wind, and sun may not cooperate with the production's schedule.

Logistics: Moving a full crew and all equipment to a location -- particularly a remote one -- requires transport planning, accommodation, catering, and local production infrastructure.

The location manager is the department head responsible for every location-related function: scouting potential locations based on the script's requirements, negotiating access agreements and fees, obtaining all necessary permits (filming permits, parking permits, road closure permits), managing relationships with location owners and local authorities, and overseeing the logistical support for location shooting days.

Historical Context & Origin

Film production began primarily on location -- the earliest films were shot in streets, parks, and real environments because studios did not yet exist. As the studio system developed in the 1910s and 1920s, controlled studio shooting became the norm for narrative film. The Italian neorealist movement of the 1940s (Rossellini, De Sica) deliberately returned to location shooting as an aesthetic and ideological choice, using real streets and real environments to tell stories about real people. The French New Wave of the late 1950s and 1960s adopted location shooting as a practical and aesthetic strategy -- lightweight cameras and faster film stocks made it more practical. Contemporary cinema uses a combination of studio and location shooting, with the balance determined by script requirements, budget, and aesthetic intention.

How It's Used in Practice

Scenario 1 -- Location Scout (Location Manager): The script requires a working-class family's home, a mid-century apartment building, and a busy market street. The location manager scouts 15 properties for the home, narrows to 4, and presents options to the director and production designer with photographs and measurements. The director selects a specific terraced house in the east of the city. The location manager begins permit and access negotiations with the homeowner and the local council.

Scenario 2 -- Location Day (1st AD / Location Manager): On a location shooting day, the crew arrives at a restaurant at 6am to begin setup. The location manager has arranged parking for 12 vehicles, confirmed the restaurant will be exclusively available from 6am to 8pm, and briefed the restaurant owner on the crew's presence. The 1st AD runs the day from the location manager's logistics plan.

Scenario 3 -- Location Problem (Location Manager / Producer): Three weeks before a scheduled location day, the building owner withdraws access. The location manager immediately begins scouting replacements, working with the production designer to find a space that can match the established visual requirements. A replacement is confirmed within 48 hours; permits are expedited. The schedule holds.

Usage Examples in Sentences

"We are shooting on location for the first week -- the studio sets are not ready until week two."

"The location manager found a Victorian warehouse that matches the script's description perfectly and costs a third of what a set build would."

"Every location day adds logistics. Budget extra time for load-in, setup, and the inevitable surprises of a space you do not control."

"The authenticity of the location is what gives this film its texture. We could not have built what we found."

Common Confusions & Misuse

Location vs. Set: A set is a constructed filming environment, either on a soundstage or in a practical space dressed by the art department. A location is a real-world environment used as-is or minimally dressed. The practical distinction can blur when a location is heavily dressed by the art department to look different from its actual identity -- the location provides the shell; the set is what the art department makes of it.

Location vs. Soundstage: A soundstage is a purpose-built, acoustically treated studio space. A location is any real-world environment outside a studio. Both are filming environments; they offer different creative and practical trade-offs.

Related Terms

• Soundstage -- The studio alternative to location shooting; purpose-built and acoustically controlled
• Back Lot -- An outdoor studio area that bridges location and studio shooting
• Pre-Production -- Where locations are scouted, negotiated, and permitted
• Call Sheet -- Each location day's address and access details appear on the call sheet
• Second Unit Photography -- Often dispatched to capture location scenics independently of the main unit

See Also / Tools

The Production Schedule Calculator helps plan location shooting days within the overall production schedule, grouping scenes at the same location together to minimise company moves and maximise the efficiency of each location day.