pre-pro Location Scouting / Stills

Hi there,

I'm currently in pre-production on a project and am wondering what is the best way to go about location scouting.

I'm intending to shoot the film in the area in which I live, across all four seasons, and over the last few years (since I got the idea for the project) I have taken a lot of stills of potential places to shoot.

As the only cameras I have at present are the one on my smartphone (fairly cheap) and a heavy cinema camera -- a lot of the shots I have taken have been with the phone. I'm wondering if stills for pre-prod/locations should at least be taken with a similar lens to what will be used in production/various scenes or if using a phone is enough to get a sense of the right spots to shoot in?

Also, some locations are large, such as wooded areas. Is it enough to roughly know where each shot was taken, or do I really need things like GPS coordinates for each potential sub-location?

Also, I am wondering if I should be doing as much of this kind of work as possible before I get other people on board, like a DP, or if I should wait until the production team/crew is secured? (I presume that getting a location scout might not be necessary as I know the area very well). I'm guessing that the seasonal considerations might make things more tricky (e.g. if we need "early winter" for a forest scene, it probably doesn't make sense to visit the location with the DP in the summer, so we'd have to do it as the right time approaches, which could potentially present problems...and I could do some or all of this work beforehand myself when the time is exactly right).

FYI this project has very little dialogue, so taking things like the noise levels in various locations into account is not the highest priority.

Any thoughts or tips in general are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
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At this point the quality of your photos or the lens that you use is not important. You are using the photos as a blueprint of each location. For example, in the case of interiors, are there windows?...where are they?...how many?....color of the walls?...ceiling height?....how big is the room?...etc. So you would want to take photos in all directions. In the case of exteriors, shoot photos in all directions. One direction may look nice whereas there may be power lines or other unwanted items in another direction. (For the reverse angle). Once you have selected your locations, your photos will help you in preparing storyboards and otherwise planning your shots. It would be extremely helpful to have your DP see your locations before the shoot, as he will be looking at possible camera angles, distances, dimensions, and where to place lights.
 
I'm wondering if stills for pre-prod/locations should at least be taken with a similar lens to what will be used in production/various scenes
There's no need. Your DP will decide what lens/es to use depending on how each scene/take is framed.

Is it enough to roughly know where each shot was taken, or do I really need things like GPS coordinates for each potential sub-location?
Well ... if you're sure you know how to find that path again, or that clearing or that tree-stump, then you don't need pin-point coordinates. More relevant will be all the other details, like how long/straight is the path, will your actors disappear around a bend within 2 seconds, are there so many trees that you'll be forced to shoot all close-ups.

I am wondering if I should be doing as much of this kind of work as possible before I get other people on board, like a DP, or if I should wait until the production team/crew is secured? ... I'm guessing that the seasonal considerations might make things more tricky
Your DP will see things differently to you, but there's nothing to stop you using your library of images to prepare a story-board, and it would be more efficient to have this done before you get (many) other people involved. The seasonal considerations will indeed make things tricky, and if the story takes place across four seasons, you will have to build in a lot of contingency: will that stony trail have turned to mud when you come back to it? The babbling brook that you saw after a wet spring my be a dirty dribble the following year after a drought.

It's going to add to your production costs quite considerably if you have to shoot in different locations at four different times of the year, even more so if you have to look for/change locations and re-frame your shots/rewrite your shooting schedule at the last minute because of exceptional weather. Think about whether the story really needs to evolve over four seasons - is there a way that you could re-write it, or at least creatively shoot it, over a shorter timespan.
 
I don't think you need to worry about the seasons. You are shooting in all four. You visit once (with DP), in any season. You can easily imagine the other 3 if you are from there.
 
Getting locations is EXTREMELY hard if you have no cash. Plan for a single location to take up to around a month or longer to solidify.

Depending on where you live, the going rate is between $300 to $3,000 per day. This includes College campuses and places you wouldn't expect, like storage lockers (which overcharge above to regular rate, just because you are filming).

Before you immediately fall in love with a spot (or bring a film crew), make sure you do your research on who owns the property. Then get ready to pitch your idea and discuss what is needed.

Otherwise, guerrilla style that shit, and film it without permission with a small camera and a very small crew.

If these are just scenery shots, then you are an amateur video photographer, and you don't need all this. If you will have actors/crew, that is when you probably need all the negotiating bells and whistles.
 
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