Easy Pre-Production Cost Saving Tips p.2

My second tip for ways to save money in your film budget during pre-production focuses on locations. While you breakdown your shooting script, you should be creating a list of all the locations. Hiring a location manager is usually worth the expense but remember that beyond a certain point the benefit of a more expensive location manager is negligible. Instead of immediately hopping in a car and driving aimlessly, first go to your state film commission. The commission and probably commissioner usually has a database of filming locations for any need. This databases is useful not only because it makes your search easier and more organized but also because these locations have owners who have allowed filming on their premises in the past. Hopefully, they had a good experience so they want to rent out their location again. A veteran location owner understands what filming requires and has less of a chance of freaking out unexpectedly and throwing your film off his/her property. You run this chance when dealing with a property owner who has never let filming take place and thinks that filming is glamorous, quick and easy.

Once you have compiled a list of locations from the database, call the location owners and schedule a time to visit. When you get to the location, think about how versatile the location is and whether you could film more than one film location on the property. A rookie filmmaker mistake is to schedule a film shoot with too many company moves. This kills your production because you spend too much time and money on gas, moving and wrapping instead of actually shooting.
Hopefully, you have found as few locations as possible to accommodate all your filming. My last suggestion is to be cognizant of how long it will take your actors to travel to each location from where they are staying during production.

For a guide on how to much to budget on locations and location managers, visit www.quickfilmbudget.com