What is the Role of the Location Agency in Representing Your Property?

You may be one of the lucky ones - one day you get a knock on the door and it is a location scout looking for a property just like yours for the latest Guy Ritchie movie. And while this can happen, it is very hit and miss and you could end up waiting hopefully by your front door for a very long time!

If you want your property to get seen by the decision makers in the film business, then you need to increase your chances and register your location with a film location agency. So what will a film location agency such as Lavish Locations do for you?

First and foremost we make sure your property gets seen. A good location agency like Lavish Locations will have a great website with a state-of-the art search function. Before you register with an agency take a look at their website and use its search function to see if you can find properties similar to your own. If you can't find them, it is unlikely that others will be able to either.

Second, we have experienced teams of location bookers whose job it is to match locations with what our clients are looking for.  Virtually every film being made in the UK will pick up the phone to Lavish Locations at some point or another. It is our job to interpret the brief and put forward a selection of suitable properties. If yours fits the brief then it will be one of them!

If the film production likes the look of your property then it is the location agency's job to arrange viewings (what we call recce's) so that the directors, producers and other crew members can decide how to make your location work for their production.

If this step is successful and your location is still in the running, then it is at this stage that the location agency can really come to your aid in helping to negotiate an appropriate fee. It may surprise you to learn that not all film productions have multi-million pound budgets, but also that  some of them are not as poverty stricken as they would have you believe! It is our job to get the best price we can for your location and we can do a better job of this than if you negotiated with the film production company directly.

So, they like your location and a budget is agreed. It is now our job to make sure that the dates the film production wants to use your location are reserved exclusively for them and that we explain fully what to expect on the day/s. 

One of the risks, although small, during filming is that something gets damaged in your home. Before any filming takes place we make sure that we have copies of the production's insurance so that should the worst happen you are fully covered.

We will then draw up a contract which has been especially written by specialist lawyers which is designed to protect all parties and to ensure that everybody delivers what has been agreed. 

And finally, the most important job of all - making sure that you are paid for the job! We generally insist that we are paid by the production company before filming begins. You then have the security of knowing that you will be paid for all all the disruption.  

When you see the hours of work and negotiations that can take place behind the scenes before any filming takes place you can understand that there are many traps and pitfalls that an inexperienced location owner could fall into. The real benefit of registering with a location agency such as Lavish Locations is that we take all this work off your shoulders. 

Find out soon why our clients use a location agency like Lavish Locations.