I've been making short silly films with my friends for several years now since i graduated high school and i've finnally decided to make a real movie. I've written many scripts that have been writted, scraped, re-written, filmed parts of and never finished, never really taken them anywhere. I've decided that it's time to film a real movie that i can seriously show to people and that may take me somewhere if it's good enough. A dream, but i'd rather try and fail than never try. I bought a Canon HV30, will be picking up a 35mm adapter and proper sound equipment for the technical side of the project. But the problem with our scripts is that we have always written around what is available and what we can do. If we need a location we find a dry creek bed to film in which doesn't always work.
So what i need help with is how to get permission to film at locations around the city. I live in a fairly small city, Chico CA. We don't have much of a film program and no film commission to speak of that i have found. Most of my previous attempts at film making have either been done in deserted fields, or by tresspassing somewhere i shouldn't have been like an abanonded warehouse, farm, unfinished housing developments, etc. Anywhere that i could find that people weren't around. Of course none of the filming requires damaging anything, we just need to use it as a backdrop, and the willingness to film at these places for free is required for the most part.
Our town is also at a standstill in development and we have little to speak of in heavy industry as we are mostly a college town and farm community. There are no deserted neighborhoods or warehouses much anymore that havn't been burnt down or are home to people that i don't want to be around for fear of my life. We are about 2 hours away from Sacramento so if they provide any sort of film assistance this is possible to use as a film location.
Can anyone provide some insight as to how i should proceed on getting help from the city for filming an indepdent film? Do the police provide free services for blocking off streets, would the local military base be willing to provide limited supervised access at all since we could promote them some how? What can i use to my advantage, what kind of places should i look for? And what should i absolutely not do? Thanks.
So what i need help with is how to get permission to film at locations around the city. I live in a fairly small city, Chico CA. We don't have much of a film program and no film commission to speak of that i have found. Most of my previous attempts at film making have either been done in deserted fields, or by tresspassing somewhere i shouldn't have been like an abanonded warehouse, farm, unfinished housing developments, etc. Anywhere that i could find that people weren't around. Of course none of the filming requires damaging anything, we just need to use it as a backdrop, and the willingness to film at these places for free is required for the most part.
Our town is also at a standstill in development and we have little to speak of in heavy industry as we are mostly a college town and farm community. There are no deserted neighborhoods or warehouses much anymore that havn't been burnt down or are home to people that i don't want to be around for fear of my life. We are about 2 hours away from Sacramento so if they provide any sort of film assistance this is possible to use as a film location.
Can anyone provide some insight as to how i should proceed on getting help from the city for filming an indepdent film? Do the police provide free services for blocking off streets, would the local military base be willing to provide limited supervised access at all since we could promote them some how? What can i use to my advantage, what kind of places should i look for? And what should i absolutely not do? Thanks.
