Monday, July 9, 2007

Location, Location, Location



Our film was heavily dependent on two principal locations - one was the cemetery, which we already discussed, and the other was the shithole diner in the desert.

Various cities, counties, and even the state of California, have film commissions which offer a library of available locations. You can search for anything from a quarry to a convent to a morgue. You can specify a preference for architectural details, time period, and in the case of outdoor locations, type of terrain.

I found the Four Aces in Palmdale (4-aces.com) at the Antelope Valley Film Office web site. This was a fantastic facility used exclusively for filming, although to casual passers-by, it looked like an authentic 50's diner, gas station, and seedy motel.


You've probably seen this set before in any number of movies, TV shows, and commercials. In the past month alone I've seen it used as the backdrop for a car commercial and the setting for the horror movie "Vacancy". It was perfect for our needs. In addition to the diner, I would be able to use one of the motel rooms for Lola's apartment, and fix up the motel office to look like a car rental agency. The owner of the facility is a very friendly and accommodating person to work with, and offered me a rate that would fit into the budget (what budget?) of my movie.

But ... both the Home of Peace Cemetery and the Four Aces required me to get a permit from FilmLA (City and County of Los Angeles Film Office). At the time of this writing, the base permit application fee is $450.00. But - dependent on the nature of the location, there are add-on fees such as fire review, notification, etc. I paid close to $1000 to FilmLA when all was said and done, to film a total of 6 days at those two locations.

We almost got hit up to pay a lot more. The County Fire authority wanted us to rent a 6000-gallon water truck due to the dry conditions at the Four Aces - this would have cost $2000/day to rent the truck, the driver, etc. This was ridiculous - it was far more than the rental fee going directly to the Four Aces. I called the owner to ask what he knew about this "hidden" charge levied by FilmLA. He was amazed - he had never heard of this requirement and its associated fee - a fee that I simply could not afford to pay.

My husband Craig made at least a dozen phone calls to water truck rental companies and finally to the County Fire Marshall himself. It turned out that for the small size of our generator (the one in our RV), and our small cast/crew, we would not need the water truck. Several more phone calls were arranged between our coordinator at the FilmLA Office, the Fire Marshall, and the owner of the Four Aces. The fee was finally removed and our permit approved.

But wait - there's more. Another requirement for the Filming Permit is to obtain Production Insurance covering general l liability and automobile liability. Another two thousand bucks to cover seven consecutive weekends of filming. There's really no point in making a budget if you've never made a movie before, because someone has their hand out at every corner. Just get a credit card with a really high credit limit, and kiss your money goodbye.

But this is art, right? You can't put a price on art.

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