Location Scouting

Location scouting is always complicated when living in the suburbs.  Down here in middle-of-nowhere South Florida, there's truly a very limited number of places we can film at.  Like come on, it's no secret that Markham Park is the designated go-to when filming anything that can plausibly take place outside (no matter the intended environment).  Yet, finding indoor locations to film at is near impossible.  Chain companies are strict about their no-filming policies (we all remember when Starbucks turned me down last year), and local storeowners (which there are very few of) are weary about letting some kids into their store with a camera.

To make things a little bit easier for us, the majority of the film will take place in Diego's room.  Although we can now save ourselves the embarrassment of having to email another coffee store's management team, this also leads to an array of new problems.  Mainly, we need to find a suitable bedroom.  In our production, Diego is a college student living on-campus.  Although this isn't a major aspect of the film, his room should still reflect where he is, and most importantly, who he is.

People always say that stepping into someone's room feels like taking a walk inside their head.  This is exactly what I want to accomplish when designing the set.  The way I see it, Diego's room is small and cheap.  He has beat-up furniture and a shabby-looking bed.  His walls are decorated with University merch and sports memorabilia, posters of old bands, an American flag, and mismatched photos and posters he probably got at either a charity shop or a Dollar General.  His room isn't complete without an unmade bed, clothes strewn across the floor, old water bottles and unfinished food laying around, and, the piece-de-resistance, a completely modern, flashy, and expensive-looking gaming setup.

Finding a bedroom we can manipulate to look like this is tricky.  First of all, we need to find something that looks somewhat similar, so that we aren't starting an entire interior decoration project from scratch.  Once we find something usable, it is absolutely imperative that we get explicit permission from the dude that lives there.  We need permission to not only film in the bedroom, but also to move around the decor and set up some of our own posters and other props.  Apart from this already-intrusive favor that we are asking, we'd need to take up the room for a few days, and for hours at a time, so we'd need to work around the owner's schedule.  So yeah, it gets to be a little much.

By this point, I'm sure that you're all thinking what I'm thinking: why not use one of our own bedrooms?  After all, we are the ones taking on this project.  The most logical solution to the location-scouting dilemma is that we film in our bedrooms, as we are solely responsible for bringing this burden upon us.  And to that I say: our team is made up of three teenage girls.  I'm not sure that the giant Lady Bird poster overlooking my desk and the Home Goods wall tapestry over my bed will send out the right message.  Sure, I could make changes to my bedroom so that it fits our idea better, but having to change out 99% of my room decor seems like an unreasonably time-consuming and expensive task.

Instead, our best bet is to find a willing volunteer whose room we could take over, and try to wrap up filming as soon as possible.  Being in someone else's room will also motivate us to finish production quicker, which will help focus more of our efforts on editing, creating the social media account, and making the promotional postcard.