Location shooting

Location shooting is the practice of filming in the actual setting in which a story takes place rather than on a sound stage or back lot.

In filmmaking, a location is any place where a film crew will be filming actors and recording their dialog. A location where dialog is not recorded may be considered as a second unit photography site. Filmmakers often choose to shoot on location because they believe that greater realism can be achieved in a "real" place, however location shooting is also often motivated by the film's budget. However, many films shoot interior scenes on a sound stage and exterior scenes on location.

It is often mistakenly believed that filming "on location" takes place in a location where the story is set, but this is not necessarily the case.

Most films do a bit of both location shooting and studio shoots, although low-budget films usually do more location shooting than bigger budget films because the cost of shooting at someplace that already exists is much cheaper than creating that place from scratch. In certain situations it may be cheaper to shoot in a studio. In these situations lower budget films often shoot more in a studio.

Before filming, the locations are generally surveyed in pre-production, also known as recce.

Location shooting has several advantages over filming on a studio set:

Its disadvantages include:

Location shooting can provide significant economic development benefits to an area selected for shooting. Cast and crew heavily rely upon local facilities such as catering, transportation, and accommodations. A film that becomes a blockbuster hit can introduce movie audiences around the world to a visually breathtaking location that they were previously unaware of. This can boost tourism for years or even decades.

Location shooting usually requires a location manager, and locations are usually chosen by a location scout. Many popular locations, such as New York City in the United States, Toronto in Canada, and the Isle of Man in the United Kingdom, have dedicated film offices to encourage location shooting, and to suggest appropriate locations to film-makers.

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