Location Scouting: A Producer's Checklist

Location scouting is where a place that looks right gets tested against everything a shoot needs: sound, light, power, parking, access, permits, a signature, and a fee you can afford. The checklist below is what to look for, listen for, and ask at every candidate location, and how to score them so you choose with your head before your heart gets a vote.

What is a location scout?

Before the scout

• Know which scenes the location is for, with their page counts and whether they are day or night. That decides when you scout and how long you need the place.
• Bring the director and the DP if at all possible. A producer alone will approve a place the DP cannot light.
• Bring a camera (a phone is fine), a tape measure, a notebook, and a copy of the scenes.
• Book the scout for the time of day of the scenes. Night scene, night scout.

The checklist

Eight things to check at every location, in roughly the order you will notice them.

1. Look: does it match the script?

Period, geography, social register, the view out of the window. A diner that looks right from the booth but has a 2026 espresso machine behind the counter is a dressing cost. Stand where the camera will stand and look in every direction the lens might. Photograph each one.

2. Sound: stand still and listen

Two full minutes, no talking. Traffic, HVAC, a fridge compressor, a flight path, a school bell, a neighbor's dog, a church clock. Then ask what changes at the time you will shoot: deliveries at 07:00, the bar next door at 22:00. Sound is the check most often skipped because the location looks great, and it is the one that post cannot fix cheaply.

3. Light: where is the sun, and where are the windows?

For a day interior, which way the windows face decides when the light is usable and when it blasts the set. East windows mean hard morning sun and flat afternoons. For an exterior, sunrise and sunset times on the shoot date, and what throws shadow across the set at which hour. The DP will want to know where the sun is at the start and end of the day, and whether there is anywhere to hide a large light outside.

4. Power: what is there, and what can you bring?

Find the panel. Note the amperage and the number of circuits. A domestic 100-amp panel runs a small lighting kit if the gaffer is careful; a 200-amp panel with a tie-in option runs a proper one. No usable power means a generator, which means somewhere to park it where sound cannot hear it, which is its own scout item.

5. Access, parking, and load-in

• Trucks: where they park, whether they fit, whether that needs a permit.
• Crew parking: for 15 to 25 cars, within a five-minute walk. Half the late arrivals on a shoot are people circling a block.
• Load-in: the route from truck to set. Stairs, a freight elevator, a door width. A rooftop with a 2,500-pound freight lift is a different shoot from one with a stairwell.
• Holding, bathrooms, a place to feed twenty people that is not the set.

6. Permissions: who signs, and what does the city need?

Confirm who owns the property and whether the person you are talking to can sign for them. Ask about neighbors: a night shoot in a residential building needs their goodwill and sometimes their signatures. Then call the local film office: even on private property, trucks on the street, a generator, or lights visible from the road can need a permit, and permit lead times run from days to weeks.

7. The fee, and what it covers

Ask for a day rate and ask what a day is: 10 hours, 12, or “while you are there”. Ask whether prep and wrap days are the same rate or less. Ask about overtime, restoration, cleaning, and whether the parking lot is included. Write the answers down; a fee with no scope is a fee that grows.

8. Safety

Heights without rails, open water, traffic, a hot kitchen, old wiring, an unlit stairwell. Note anything that would need a rail, a spotter, a stunt coordinator, or a safety briefing. It goes on the tech scout list and on the call sheet.

Scoring the locations

Put every candidate on the same list and score them side by side before deciding. It is the only reliable defense against booking a beautiful location that has no power and a fridge that hums.

Then the scorecard, one column per location, same questions for each:

In Nightfall's scout, the market came out “pending permit, over budget, only usable before 10:00”. It was still the right location; the scorecard just turned those into a permit filed early, a negotiated fee, and a 07:00 call. That is what the list is for.

After the scout

1. Write up the notes and photos the same day, while you remember which building was which.
2. Send the DP and the production designer the photos and the sound notes.
3. Get the agreement signed by the owner and file the permits. Both have lead times.
4. Put the tech scout in the calendar for about two weeks before the shoot, with every department head.
5. Add the location to the schedule and the crew contact list, with the address, parking, and the nearest hospital for the call sheet.

The free location scout template has both tabs above, filled in for Nightfall. For where scouting fits in the wider plan, see the pre-production checklist.