Saw a field of daisies recently and it make me think of location scouting for the movies. Huh?
Every morning the daisies open their petals to the sun. The vast field of green becomes carpeted with sparkling, white miniature flowers. As the day wears on, the tiny flowers turn and face the sun on its path across the sky. In the evening, the flowers once again close up for the night.
So, depending what time of the day you visit, you see the all the flowers facing east, west or closed up. If you were scouting the field as a location, you’d want to see it at the same time of day that you’d intend on filming it, or on the shoot day you might be surprised that the field looks different than planned.
Now, in this particular field, the flower change is rather subtle, but the sun’s position and the shadows could make a difference to usable shot angles.
On a bigger time scale, this field scouted in spring (with flowers) vs a shoot in the summer (with no flowers) would also make a more significant visual difference. No sense in having surprises when you show up for the shoot. You can’t exactly paste the flowers back in… well, without CGI. 🙂
So, when considering locations for filming, consider time-of-day for the projected shoot day. An intersection at rush hour does not look the same as when it’s Sunday morning. A parking lot at the mall during mall opening hours it also totally different after hours.
So, time warp yourself to the shoot day when considering a location. What are you going to see then? The daisies tell us it changes for every hour of the day.
Cheers & a good location scout to you,
Deb
– – – – – – – – – –
Deb Patz is the author of “Film Production Management 101” and the upcoming “Write! Shoot! Edit! A Complete Guide to Filmmaking for Teens” both published by MWP Books. She found it hard to choose when daisies to photograph…. there were so many!
WHERE IS DEB? (upcoming events and appearances)
Jun.24 – Book launch party for “Write! Shoot! Edit!” at Chapters Pinetree, Coquitlam, BC
Jul.30-Aug.3 – Panelist – UFVA Conference, Los Angeles, CA
