11 Things Actors Should Know About Shooting on Location
Drawn from what is actually said on camera, so you can decide whether to
spend the 9:48 watching it.
Nobody warns you how lonely it is
You are away from family and most friends, and although you will make friends in the cast and crew, your shooting days will rarely line up with theirs. Your day off is somebody else's call time. Expecting that is most of coping with it.
Character work, scene breakdown and lines have to be carved out of days that are already broken up. Everything else on this list is arranged around protecting that, not the other way around.
Her husband has visited essentially every location, usually midway through or near the end so it turns into a trip afterward. Productions will sometimes let you trade a first class ticket for two coach or business seats, and higher up the call sheet they may simply provide one.
Her preference is a hotel with a fridge, because she will not cook on a day off and because a lobby means people to talk to. An apartment or house suits others. Your reps negotiate this, which means you should have an opinion before they do.
A driver to set and back is normal. A car for your own time is not automatic, and in a country that drives on the other side it takes adjusting to. Ask, rather than discovering it on your first free morning.
A gym open at odd hours, a standing call home, anything that gives shape to the days. Time zones make contact genuinely hard, and a fifteen hour gap will quietly erode your connection to home if nothing is scheduled.
Five day and six day weeks each cost you something
Five gives you a weekend to rest and see the place. Six gets you home sooner, which starts to matter a lot near the end. It is rarely your decision, and it is worth knowing which trade you are on.
A chase sequence, fine. A breakdown scene or an intimate scene, no. Many productions do not want visitors anyway, which gives you a blameless way to say no when you need one.
Sleeping in, drifting on call times, gossip filling the space that community usually occupies. Distance and isolation make each one easier to slide into, and location is exactly where your reputation is made.
An on-set romance is a complication, even between two single people
It can become a real love story and sometimes does. You are there to shoot the film. If it survives the wrap, it was real, and that is a question the schedule will answer for you without your help.
The wardrobe team is first in and last out. They do not need to hang your shirts as well. Same with the trailer: it need not be immaculate, and your trash should be gone. Respecting jobs you do not fully understand is the whole of set etiquette.
If you are lucky enough to have a career in this business, you will spend some time on location. So, welcome to Shannon's working on location survival guide. I love to travel. I think it's one of the perks of being an actor is being able to go places, see new places, experience them while you're making money. Super, super fun. I love traveling. However, what most people don't tell you is it can be really lonely. Working on location can be very lonely. You're separated from your family, most of your friends. Of course, you'll make friends with the people that are on the crew and in the cast, but oftentimes you're going to have different shooting days and times than they do. Uh, you're going to be off or having to work on your next day's scene, maybe while your friend that you've made in the cast is off for a day. Your primary goal of being there is the work that you're doing.
So, you have to make sure that you're carving out time to be able to do your character work and your scene breakdown and learning your lines. That's primary. But finding ways to protect yourself from being lonely. Having a friend come out and visit. Uh my husband has almost always, I can't think of a time when he hasn't, has come out to visit me on set. Usually either in the middle or towards the end, depending on how far away the location is. when we I shot a movie in Australia, he came out at the end and we had the most wonderful trip and and vacation afterwards, seeing wonderful things. Sometimes they'll let you trade in your first class ticket for a couple of coach tickets or business tickets. So, that's kind of a fun perk as well. And if you're a little higher up the call sheet, although I was pretty high up the call sheet on that one, if you're a little higher up the call sheet, they might go ahead and just provide a ticket for family. Checking in with people regularly, especially difficult when you're in a very different time zone. I've got a client right now in a time zone that's about 15 hours ahead.
It's been really hard to schedule coachings with her and she is having a ball which makes me so happy. The cast and crew has been the most wonderful and accommodating but she's young uh and her father came out for the first week and helped her get set up and I think that was wonderful to help her. There's a lot of times things that your agents and your managers will negotiate for you. Do you want to be in an apartment? Do you want to be in a house? Do you want to be in a hotel? I always prefer a hotel only because I know on my time off I'm not going to want to cook. I'm going to want a break so I don't need the kitchen if I get a can get a refrigerator in the room so I can maybe store a few things to be able to make simple breakfast for myself on a day when I'm not working. I just I I prefer the hotel. I understand why people would like an apartment or a house, but also it helps me feel less lonely. You've got a lobby. You can go downstairs and talk to people.
Maybe there's some other people from the uh project staying in in your hotel. Again, very personal decision. Are you going to get a car or not? Are you going to have a driver? Usually you'll have a driver that will take you to set and back, but for your days off, sometimes they'll provide you with a car. Sometimes they'll provide you with a car, but maybe you're in a country where they drive on the opposite side of the road than you're accustomed to driving on. That can take a little bit to get used to. I've done that as well. Finding a routine, I think, is really helpful. Uh, another hotel that I stayed in had a gym that was open 24 hours, so I was able to get a lot of working out done. A lot of being away from my family was sad, but at least I got to make my own schedule. When you're on location, usually there's this is not up to you to decide unless you're a huge movie star, and if you are and you're watching my channel, thank you.
Comment. [laughter] Um, but whether you're working five day weeks or six day weeks, five day weeks are nice because it gives you a weekend or sometimes two days off. Sometimes it might not be actually Saturday and Sunday that they'll give you off, but it gives you a chance to go somewhere, visit something, be able to rest, maybe do a little sightseeing, and then also do the work that you're there to do. Six day weeks are nice because then you're going to get through the production that much faster, especially when you're far away from home. Every day that you're not working and you're far away from home [snorts] can be a little frustrating, especially as you start getting towards the end of the project and a little sad too because you make a fast family when you're on set and then bye never see you again unless we end up on the same movie again. So having friends that come out to visit, having, like I said, family. I did a project in Belfast and one of my good girlfriends came out and she stayed in one of my extra bedrooms and in my flat. I was in a flat then. It was great. And I still didn't really cook, by the way. [laughter] I personally do not like to bring friends or family to set unless it's a very chill day or a day when something super fun is happening. Certainly not a scene where my character would be having a breakdown or something catastrophic is happening to the character doing a love scene.
I don't want my friends and family around for that. but a fun little chase scene, something else happening. It's okay. A lot of times they don't want you to bring your friends or family on set. So, you can always blame the production to keep them away. My first movie that I ever did, we shot on location. Wasn't that far away. It was Palm Springs. And we shot in an abandoned hotel. So, we shot there and we lived there in a hotel that had been pretty much fumigated for black widow spiders, but we still found some webs sometimes. And the water didn't work in our hotel bathrooms. We all went down the hall and showered and we had so much fun.
It was like a summer camp. We were pretty young, most of us. I am still great great friends with the girl who played my best friend in that movie. We had a connecting room. We had so much fun running around that hotel in the middle of the night and and so anyway, it c it can be really fun, too. So, some of the traps that can happen are starting to sleep in late, maybe not showing up for your call time, showing up downstairs. Remember to stay professional always. You're spending a lot of time with other people. Onset romances, even if the both of you are single, can be problematic. Sometimes it can be a wonderful love story. You're not there to date. You're there to shoot the movie.
You're there to create that. And if a romance can continue past the shooting, well then great. Then it was something real. But focus on what it is that you're doing right then and there. Be careful about and this is not just on location but gossiping, talking about people, any of those things that can happen when you are far away and feel a little isolated. That substitute sort of for community because now you've got a new community. Also respecting what it is that everyone else does on set. Sometimes we don't even understand what other people do. There's jobs that we don't know exist. Most of the time the crew maybe doesn't understand exactly what it is that actors do, but we're being respectful of everybody's job. Everybody has a job to do. And even if you don't see them doing it, this just goes to set etiquette anyway, but hanging up your wardrobe at the end of the night, leaving your trailer in a good doesn't have to be immaculate, but throw your trash away, pick your stuff up, live like you would want somebody else to walk into your room, but hanging up your wardrobe.
The wardrobe people tend to get there, be the first people there in the morning and the last people to leave at night. They don't need to be hanging up your shirts, too. Be respectful of them. Have you been on location to somewhere fun or somewhere terrible? Please let me know. Drop it in the comments. Like, comment, subscribe, and I'll see you next week when you are ready to do what you came here for. That's cute. I'm cute. I'm so cute.
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