Interview with a location scout: How to position your visitor attraction as set location

So it’s no wonder that the places featured in hit series often see a surge in interest when the show screens – and that’s frequently reflected in visitor numbers.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that a show filmed at your attraction will become a global sensation. But your VA doesn’t need to appear in the latest must-see Netflix series or look period-drama worthy to get a piece of the set location action.

We spoke to Rebecca Pearson, a location scout and manager, to find out what location scouts look for when researching their latest assignment, and what visitor attractions can expect if they are chosen as a set location.

Rebecca works on high-end TV and feature films, specialising in locations in southwest England. Productions she’s been involved with include Les Miserables, Iron Lady, Poldark and Bridgerton and she’s currently working on a Jim Broadbent film, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

Let’s start with the basics. What’s the difference between a location scout and a location manager?

The location scout helps the director and designer find the look of the film and find the locations that they’ll film at. We offer a selection of possible locations for each scripted location. The location manager is the logistics, the nuts and bolts of what makes it all work throughout the filming process. Often, the scout will turn into the location manager.

Which locations do you rate, and why?

Berkeley Castle and Chavenage [both in Gloucestershire]. Chavenage has got an amazing courtyard, which you can film 360 degrees in and only see period features, so it can lend itself to being a French port town in Poldark, or a court room in Henry VIII’s time. It can be so many different things.

And they have great parking on site. They're very experienced with filming, so they know that we will be a massive disruption and then, a day after we finish, everything will be left as we found it. That's why they work really well – you have versatility, flexibility and friendly people on site that are willing to put in the groundwork with the film crew.

Puzzlewood is another amazing one. I’ve used it three or four times before, and it's been used in Star Wars. There are other alternatives close by but Puzzlewood gets used so much because the lady there is so helpful and friendly and she keeps her rates at a good level. She knows that if she charges Casualty £500 that location manager might come back in the future and spend £5,000.

How do you find new locations?

It depends what they're asking for in the script. We never know what a writer is going to present us with. I once spent a whole two years looking for fields, and then two years just looking for Tudor buildings.

I’ll do one to two days of research on Google before I go out to see things. Then it’s about talking to other location managers, talking to local councils, filming officers, Creative England, and Googling the images. For instance, I just found an amazing manor house in the southwest. It's got a beautiful lake, it's a wedding venue – and it's on my doorstep but I never knew it. It was only because I was chatting to somebody in a rugby club, scouting for another location, that he told me about it.

What can a visitor attraction do to increase their chances of being found by a location scout?

You can have a quick filming inquiry [contact details/form and information included on your website]. It’s helpful to have photos, too, but not a photo of a random table in a corner of a room. Rather, have decent shots of a couple of the main rooms so we can know what the whole room looks like, not just a little feature.

There are location agency websites that you can get on, too. In London, there's the brilliant Location Collective, JJ Locations and Amazing Space. They're very London-centric, so it's worth looking for local location agencies, as well.

What sort of disruption can a visitor attraction expect when it’s used as a set location?

It depends on the visitor attraction and how they work, how the visitors flow through the building or the areas. If you've got a small photo shoot with, say, five people and a model, it isn't so disruptive. But if it's a large-scale production that needs to be all over the place, then it's often easier to close the visitor attraction down for the day.

It’s often a lot easier to keep visitors separate and sometimes you can reroute visitors. Then it's about selling it to visitors by saying. 'It's really exciting. We've got filming! We haven't got this section open, but we have got this alternative thing for you.'

It works really well if [a VA] usually closes for two days a week and the filming can happen on those days, or maybe they have a couple of months a year where they're doing maintenance and the film crews can go in then.

And how much notice would you expect to be able to give?

Initial recces could be anything from three or four months before filming takes place. But we often don't tie down locations until sometimes two weeks or even one week before filming. That's often down to casting because we don't know the availability of the cast until the last minute. It can be very frustrating because you want to give lots of notice but sometimes you just can't.

What about compensation?

It really depends on the scale of the attraction and what the production is asking to do. Every production has a different budget, and Number 1 Royal Crescent would be different from Chavenage Manor. It really helps to have flexibility in your rates.

Compensation could be anywhere between £500 (for a very small-scale photoshoot for example) to £2,000 to £4,000 a day. Some people do charge more than that but it's very hard for most productions to afford upwards of £4,000 a day.

The production company would also pay the loss of earnings plus the location fee. So if you're taking £10,000 a day, then the production company should expect to pay £10,000 a day plus £4,000. Then we would cover the costs of any removals, including specialists, getting everything in shape and then returning everything exactly back to how it was when we started. We should pay for any additional staffing costs on top of their normal day, such as overtime, too.

How much will the attraction be told about the production before filming starts?

Ask whatever questions you want. Some productions have non-disclosures so they can't talk about it but for the TV productions that I work on, you can usually ask for a synopsis.

For instance, a cathedral might want to make sure that there isn't anything untoward included that it wouldn't want to be associated with. Often you can do a quick Google to find out who's in the production and what's happening.

What are your insider tips for visitor attractions hoping to be used as a set location?

• Not having any experience of being a set location can actually be an advantage. Directors love to be the first to use a new location!
  
  
• Think outside the box. You don’t have to be a period attraction to get used, we need contemporary too. Often an attraction can play something else. For instance, Wembley Stadium often gets used as airport. It's not always about the big places; sometimes it's interesting back rooms as well or we might use the garages! Haynes International Motor Museum, for example, is going to be used as the front of a hospital in a TV program at the moment!
  
  
• We have loads of recces. We love recces! We might have three or four recces and then won't even use the location. It can be time consuming and annoying but even if you don't get that film, the people that have looked around will bank it in their memories and use it in the future.
  
  
• We all get into a daily routine in our work and filming can bring an extra dimension to your work day, which could be really interesting for visitor attraction staff.
  
  

Also read: The Bridgerton effect: what to expect when a production crew descends on your attraction