A location scouting checklist for film.

A location is the one part of the film you cannot design from scratch. You find it, and then you live with everything it brings: the light, the noise, the stairs, the neighbours, the single plug socket behind the fridge. A good scout finds those things before the crew does. This is a location scouting checklist you can walk through on the first visit, and a way to bring back what you saw so the rest of the team can plan from it.

Scout with the script, not just your eyes

Before you visit, know exactly what the location has to do. Pull every scene set there from the script breakdown and write a short list: how many scenes, day or night, interior or exterior, how many cast in frame, and anything the action needs. A kitchen where someone cooks needs a working hob. A hallway chase needs a long clean line of sight. A scene with six people at a table needs room for the table, the six people and the camera behind them.

Take your references too. If the moodboard says low winter light through a single window, you are looking for a room that faces the right way, not just a room that looks nice at midday. Knowing the look you want stops you falling for a place that cannot give it.

The checklist

Walk the location with this list. Note an answer for every line, even if the answer is fine.

Light

• Which way the windows face. Use a compass app and note it. A west facing room gives you warm late light and nothing in the morning.
• When the sun hits what. Note the times direct sun lands on the main walls and when it leaves. Check the sunrise and sunset times for your shoot dates, not today.
• Can you control it. Are there blinds, curtains, or frames you can cover? Can you black out a room for a night interior shot during the day?
• What is outside the window. A brick wall, a busy road, a view that gives away the wrong city or season.

Sound

• Stand still for two minutes and listen. Traffic, planes, a school bell at three, a fridge, a buzzing light, wind, water in the pipes.
• Ask when it is noisy. A quiet street at eleven on a weekday might be loud at five. Ask the owner about deliveries, building work and neighbours.
• Can you turn things off. Fridges, air conditioning, extraction fans and clocks. Note where the switches are and whether you are allowed to use them.

Power

• Find the sockets and the fuse board. Count the sockets in the main room and note which circuits they share.
• Note what the circuits can carry. Domestic circuits trip easily. Your gaffer will want to know before deciding what lights the room can run.
• Look for another source. A garage, an outbuilding, a second meter. If there is nothing, note that a generator would need somewhere to sit away from the microphone.

Space

• Measure the main rooms. Width, length and ceiling height. Low ceilings limit where lights and boom go. A small room limits how far back the camera can get.
• Where the camera goes. Stand in the likely camera positions and look back at the action. Note which walls you will see and which you will be standing against.
• Room for the crew. Where does everyone stand when they are not in shot? Where do the gear cases go?

Access and base

• Getting in. Parking, how far from the van to the door, stairs, lifts, narrow corridors, and whether a dolly or a trolley of cases will fit.
• Holding areas. A room for cast to wait, change and get ready, out of earshot of the set.
• Toilets and water. How many, and whether the crew can use them.
• Hours. When you can arrive, when you must leave, and any days the place is not available.

People

• Who decides. The name and number of the person who can say yes, and the name of anyone else who lives or works there.
• The neighbours. Who they are, and whether they need to know you are coming.
• The rules. Things you cannot touch, rooms you cannot use, furniture that cannot move.

Bring back photos the crew can use

A scout is only as useful as what you bring back. Take photos in a fixed order so the rest of the team can rebuild the place in their heads.

Start with a wide of every room from each corner, so the four photos together show all four walls. Then photograph the views out of every window, the fuse board, the sockets, the entrance and the route from parking to the door. Shoot a short video walking from the street to the main room at a normal pace. It tells the crew more about the access than any description.

Photograph the location at the time of day you plan to shoot if you can. If you cannot, at least note the time on every photo, so nobody mistakes a noon photo for what the room will look like at dusk.

Sketch a rough floor plan with the measurements, the windows marked with their direction, and the sockets. It does not need to be neat. It needs to be accurate enough that your cinematographer can plan where the camera and the lights will go before they ever see the room.

Turn the scout into a plan

Back at base, write up the location in a single page per place. Put the answer to every checklist line, the photos, the plan, and a short verdict at the top: what works, what will cost you time, and what cannot be fixed. Then share it with the people who will plan from it. The director and the cinematographer for the look, the gaffer for power, the producer and the assistant director for access and hours.

That last step is where scouts usually fall apart. The photos stay on one phone, the notes stay in one notebook, and the crew arrives on the day to a room only one person has seen. Put the scout where the plan already lives so the location becomes part of the film rather than a story someone tells about it.

CineFlow is the creative space where filmmakers develop ideas into films, together. A location's photos and notes can sit on the same project as the scenes set there and the days they are scheduled, so the producer checking access and the gaffer checking power are reading the same scout.

Go back before the shoot

One visit is rarely enough. Go back with your cinematographer and your gaffer for a tech scout, ideally at the same time of day as the shoot. Walk each scene with them, agree where the camera goes, and settle the questions the first visit raised. What looked fine on your own often reveals a problem once three people are standing where the camera and the lights will be.

Then fold what you learned into the shooting schedule. The hours you have, the direction of the light, the noisy afternoons. A location is not just a place to shoot. It is a set of constraints the schedule has to respect, and a good scout is what lets you plan around them rather than discovering them on the day.