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As you reach the end of a movie’s credit sequence, usually long after everyone has
left the theatre, you start to get to some of the names of people that might not have
written the script, might not have played the characters, and might not have operated
the camera, but were crucial to the success of that film.
Quite a few of the names might not have dealt with filming at all, but rather dealt with
getting those who did housed, fed, and transported to where they need to be.
As much of a challenge getting the story and picture right in a movie is, another distinct
challenge that only escalates as budget does is the logistics.
While most movies will film quite a few of their scenes in a studio using sets, green
screens, and other tactics to portray the supposed location, still most film a number
of scenes on location, all around the world.
Filming on-location is an enormously complex, multi-month or sometimes multi-year process
that all typically starts with one person—the location scout.
We’ll use the example of what is now the most financially successful movie of all time—Avengers:
Endgame.
As one of the biggest-budget films of all-time, this movie had a whole location department
that wrapped many of the location-based functions into one.
For smaller films, though, locations scouts tend to be more separate, freelance roles
working temporarily for a given production.
Essentially what they do is take the wishes of the writer or director of a given movie
and do their very best to fulfill them.
If a scout is asked to find a sunny yet run-down street in a small coastal Mediterranean town,
they do their best to find a location that looks like that, but it doesn’t necessarily
need to be sunny, run-down, coastal, Mediterranean, or even a small town.
Some of that can be fixed in post, some can be fixed with decoration, and some doesn’t
show up on film at all.
There are a lot of reasons a film might use a stand-in for the real location they’re
trying to depict—cost, time, practicality, availability, bureaucracy, logistics, even
down to tiny reasons like weather, lighting, noise-level, and more.
A film set in a small Greenlandic town might choose to film in Iceland just because it’s
easier to get to, has better infrastructure, and has a larger and perhaps most experienced
local labor force.
At the same time, a film set in Antarctica might choose to film in Greenland for the
same reasons.
Once the location scout finds the perfect location, they then have to make sure filming
is actually possible there.
If it’s a privately owned location, they have to figure out who the owner is and negotiate
with them, which isn’t always easy, while if it’s public space they have to work with
the government, which also isn’t always easy.
In the case of Endgame, some location scout at some point was asked to find a location
to serve as New Asgard—the fishing village home of Thor.
For this, they settled on the Scottish village of St Abbs.
Now, there are a few reasons why this was a smart choice.
One was that it’s in a country with an upstart film industry promoted by its government so
government approval was likely easy, two was that this village was small enough that they
could essentially entirely take it over, and three was that it was relatively near Edinburgh.
The proximity to Edinburgh served two important roles.
One was that it meant there was a big city nearby with the facilities to host a large
production and two was that, for the previous Avengers movie, Infinity War, they spent months
filming a complex action sequence in Edinburgh.
The two films were shot back-to-back and, in some cases, simultaneously, so this way,
the production could easily move from Edinburgh to St Abbs for a few days after rather than
completely moving to a new country to film this relatively simple scene in New Asgard.
In practice, a location scout typically presents the movie’s director a variety of options
for where to shoot—for New Asgard, there almost certainly were quite a few locations
on a short-list before they settled on St Abbs.
Once a location is selected, though, the job is then handed over to a location manager.
Now, sometimes the location scout and location manager are the same person and sometimes
they are different people, but they are always distinct roles.
The location manager is in charge of navigating all the legal and logistical aspects of organizing
an on-location shoot once the location is selected.
One huge aspect of this is getting permits to film from the local government.
A lot of cities, states, regions, or countries that are in high demand for filming, such
as New York, have government agencies dedicated to both promoting and organizing filming activities
in their location.
In New York’s case, for example, the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting fills
this role and handles the permitting process.
An agency like this wants to balance its role of promoting the industry, which can be a
fantastic boost economically to a city, and serving its city’s population.
Filming, especially when part of a big production, is a burden on local residents so any government
that wants to stay popular with its constituents wants to manage this burden.
For this, New York’s agency has a rotating list of locations where filming is prohibited
simply because these locations have had too much filming recently.
That way even the most popular spots won’t have their residents disturbed too much.
Negotiating a filming permit in places less experienced in this matter can be more difficult,
though, as that will require a bespoke deal.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg of the planning a location manager has to deal with.
One other huge complexity can be just simply getting equipment to the location, especially
if that location is in a different country than where the production company is based.
You see, when Avengers came to Scotland to film, they needed all the same cameras and
equipment as in the US so the film stayed consistent in quality.
With big budget-productions such as this, that means they need to bring hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of equipment into a foreign country.
The difficulty then is that, typically, when goods originate from outside of a country
and are brought inside that country, one has to pay import tariffs on them.
As an individual entering a country through an airport one has certain duty free allowances
and typically there’s a provision that personal articles can be brought in tax-free, but when
traveling as a business, like a Hollywood production company, if they were to bring
equipment into a country and keep it there, for example if they were setting up a studio
there, then an import tariff would be assessed.
Avengers likely travelled with hundreds of thousands of even millions of dollars worth
of equipment so you can imagine the kind of financial damage a 20% import tariff would
have.
Of course, though, there are a few ways to get around this.
The first would be to get an ATA carnet.
This is essentially a passport for goods.
For a fee and security deposit, these work as a customs mechanism for many countries
in which one can import goods temporarily without paying any taxes.
These are complicated, though, because once issued there’s little flexibility as one
has to list exact travel dates and destinations and must also list all equipment including
its exact serial number.
Since the security deposit scales to the value of the goods, it can also tie up a lot of
money.
The other option is to just rent equipment within the location country.
While this is only an option when filming in countries with top quality rental companies,
even Hollywood productions will quite often rent their equipment.
Another thing the location manager has to think about is staffing.
While the top positions in a production will obviously need to travel to each filming location,
many of the rank and file members just do not.
If you can get a lighting technician in the destination country rather than flying one
out from the US, it would obviously make sense to hire the one in-country since that would
lower cost.
In the case of Avengers: Endgame, the film shot in four main locations.
The film’s studio was outside Atlanta, Georgia so many scenes were filmed in there and many
that weren’t took place in the greater Atlanta area.
That’s where everyone here, the bulk of the names in the credit sequence, were based.
There was then a partially distinct production group for the film’s scenes in New York.
You’ll notice that there are a not a whole lot of names in this group and they mostly
correspond to location management roles and some other production management roles.
Many of the bigger roles, such as director of photography, director, producer, and more
would be filled by those working back in Atlanta traveling out.
The far larger and more distinct unit was the one dedicated to filming in England and
Scotland.
The movie had two major scenes filmed in the UK.
One was in that small, Scottish village of St Abbs, playing New Asgard, and the other
was in Durham Cathedral which played the role of a part of Asgard—Thor’s home.
Now, these two locations were not insignificant in the film—they involved some of the film’s
lead characters and accounted for about 12.5 total minutes of screen-time which, in a movie
as big-budget as this, is a decent amount.
Therefore, the on-location productions were sizable.
The UK unit therefore had quite a number of specialized staff—it had its own graphic
designers, set decorators, costume supervisor, sculptors, prop-master, sound effect technicians,
it even had its own administrative staff like a network and IT technician and payroll accountant.
Sometimes, though, those in charge of a movie don’t need to be involved with filming at
all.
All of the logistics mess can be avoided if they just don’t travel.
Further down in the credits, you get to the section titled, “plate units.”
These are distinct production units that are in charge of gathering footage that will end
up being used by the movie’s visual effects department, often as background in green screen
sequences.
When Marvel needed footage from a Brazilian national park to act as the landscape of the
planet Vormir, they just hired a company called Brazil Production Services to go and film
that for them.
For the most part this company was just left to get this footage on their own.
When Marvel needed shots of the Philippines to serve as the landscape around Thanos’
hut in the final movie, they once again just hired a local production company, Indochina
Productions, to do the work for them since the character was added in post.
Even for the biggest productions like this, when actors aren’t involved, they can usually
reduce complexity and cost by hiring outside production companies to do the work for them
rather than flying one of their production units all the way out to Brazil or the Philippines
or wherever to get that one shot.
In addition to those two, Marvel also hired production companies in Tokyo, Iceland, Chile,
and San Francisco to each capture footage that would end up as assets used by the visual
effects department.
When it actually comes time to film a scene on-location, all the planning is finally put
into practice.
One important aspect of the implementation is making sure that the community where one
films walks away from the experience feeling like it was fun and cool, rather than a burden.
This is also crucial for the government of a given area which will typically want the
economic boost from a film production coming while also wanting to keep public favor.
Again using the example of St Abbs, Scotland, such a big production coming meant the town
was basically completely shut down for two days.
They cordoned off essentially the whole town so only residents and workers could come in.
Marvel made a lot of smart decisions to win over the residents of St Abbs.
For one, many of the residents were used as extras which certainly turned it into an experience
for them.
In addition, for feeding the crew, rather than bring in some catering company they hired
a local cafe to serve food.
That way they’re seen as supporting local businesses.
In addition, the stars were reportedly generous with their time, meeting many of the locals,
and Marvel made a financial donation to the St Abbs lifeboat crew.
In all, this made for a win for both the town and Marvel as Marvel got a location with a
supporting public and good press and the town got a cool experience and economic benefit.
That economic benefit has even kept coming after the shoot as St Abbs has apparently
experienced a tourism boom since the film’s release.
No matter where a film shoots, a huge part of the location manager’s job is to try
to keep the production as low impact as possible.
They have roles as minute as parking managers just to be sure that a given production can
get in and out of their location as cleanly and efficiently as possible.
With tightly packed schedules, films just don’t have time for a dispute with the local
population and a local government will often be quick to side with their constituents if
they get too burdened by Hollywood coming to town.
When successfully pulled off, though, big-budget Hollywood productions can bring jobs to an
area, bring attention to an area—they can really transform a place so the focus that
many cities and countries put on attracting them is truly well placed.
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