Finding locations to shoot for TV consists of a whole lot more than just turning up on the day with your actors, crew and cameras. Location managers are an integral part of TV production as there’s an extensive process that transforms directors’ visions into reality and allows audiences to admire the stunning visuals on screen.
Dee Gregson is a supervising location manager who has scouted prominent settings on some of the UK’s most iconic TV shows, like Casualty, I’m Alan Partridge, Sanditon and Alex Rider.
Gregson says, “There’s a lot of research that goes into it and it can be a grueling process. We produce these massive documents with hundreds of locations with all the details ranging from permits to availability to visual descriptions.
“It involves me speaking to all sorts of people in charge of these places. But I do enjoy the research.”
“I love the freedom that comes with it, travelling and learning new things and meeting new people”
A location manager’s journey begins with the script. After a thorough reading, they’ll meet with the production designer, who they work very closely alongside throughout the process all the way up to the end of filming.
How do you find a good location?
Gregson says, “I talk to the production designer about what they think they’re looking for in terms of style and feel of each of the locations. I have to ask questions about these characters too. How well off are they? What’s their personality? Are they obsessively tidy or slightly deranged?
“So I have a big database of locations with all these details, but we do try and not reuse the same places. If it’s a room in a house I’ll be scouting around all the available houses we can shoot in to find that perfect room that fits the character best.”
Gregson says: “For one show we were looking for a steam railway for a 1920’s period drama, so I was researching steam railways all around the country and even up in Scotland. It involved me speaking to the people who ran those railways and going, “What are the chances we can come and film with you for a week and close you down in the middle of summer and take complete control and have stunts with people running along the top of your trains?” There’s about 190 steam railways across the UK and I’d crossed off pretty much all of them, because it was so logistically difficult.”
Location Managing can be fun:
Not every gig is so arduous, however. Gregson recalls the fun she had working on the Disney show Galivant: “We had to hire a boat called The Matthew, which is a reproduction of this 15th century sailing ship in Bristol. They had plenty of money so when I suggested the idea to do this boat reconnoitre (a ‘reccy’) down the coast they just said: “Yeah, go hire the boat.” We sailed it down to Minehead, which I’d found had the most unspoiled bit of coastline. The scene involved pirates on the boat and because they were filming it from a helicopter, we had to dress all the crew on the boat as pirates as well!”
Often, location managers will resort to unique measures to scout new sets. Gregson jokes: “There’s this handy website if I’m looking for a church called Church Crawler which has tried to photograph every single church!
“If it’s something very particular you consult with the experts in that subject and sort of pick their brains about it.
“I’ll also take the balance of whatever location features heavily in the script and prioritise that. I visit those first and get loads of photographs and share those with the director and the production designer. It’s a case of them trying to visualise whether the scenes in the script can be played out in these locations.”
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