Becoming a Location Scout

sfoster

sfoster

Staff Member
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I was thinking about this today, and it's not for me, but it seems like being a location scout would be an awesome job.

Just traveling around the world trying to find cool and unknown locations, I'm imagining it sort of like a modern day explorer. Maybe it's nothing that glamorous haha. I know a ton of work went into it for "The Road"

How do people even go about getting that sort of position?
 
I would think a location scout would be country and even city specific.

If I'm filming in Shanghai, I would want someone from that city with 10+ years experience scouting there, finding great locations, getting access to them (!), and sorting permits etc.

Would be an interesting job though...
 
When I was a little child, I was obsessed with the Willard Price adventure books. I was convinced that my dream career would be travelling around the world, capturing dangerous wild animals to take back to the zoo that my family ran. For me it was obvious: that was what I was born to do.

Then I got older, discovered Google, and worked out that's not quite how the real world works. And, unfortunately, I suspect that the job of 'Location Scout' is not quite as glamorous as you're imagining. 99% of location scouting is going to be urban, so, if by 'adventure', you mean 'trying to find a townhouse', then yeah, probably a pretty adventurous job. I reckon that for every location scout on The Road, there are probably a 1000 bored pen-pushing location scouts.
 
Sadly it seems jobs are never as glamorous as we're lead to believe

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As I write this I'm sitting in a fast food joint waiting for some indie film producers to arrive to view a location I have film rights on. It is a huge industrial site (now mostly abandoned) and would be perfect to film all genre of movies at. Since I'm a native of this area I have contacts for many places around the state to include tourists traps, small scenic towns, former military bases and other sites for filming. You can never have too many credits on your resume.
 
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