The Search

One of the quirks with the first semester is the sheer amount of overlap when it comes to pre-production. Now maybe that's just business as usual in the business, but it's something I definitely had to adapt to. Locations was something that was always on my mind, especially considering the idea that I wrote a film to be in a specific kind of location. It was probably around draft #2 where I began to think critically about locations, but I wouldn't actual go location scouting until around draft #3. Because of the way this program works and that I had involvement on 4 other films that would film the same week as my own film, my group and I were recommended to location scout together.

We tried our best to coordinate a time for all of us to scout together, but ran into a few difficulties since we had such wide location requirements. An antique store, interrogation room, train station, sorority house, and a sidewalk. While some locations were more common than others the kind of paper work we were required to fill out would go on to make the endeavor much more difficult. Most sidewalks and train stations we would want to film at were under the jurisdiction of the government, so that added a layer of complexity, proper interrogation rooms also fell under the jurisdiction of the government, and the sorority  houses have this rule that guest can not enter unless with a member of the sorority. It was also a challenge when considering that two of the five members of the group didn't have cars. When we eventually did meet we then had the challenge of planning out a route that would be efficient and hit nearby locations we were curious about. That last part for me was a little annoying because of the seven locations I wanted to scout 5 of them were about 15 outside of the downtown area on different extremes cardinally speaking.

To make coordination easier, we created a Google Sheets with different tabs for everyone's location research to be shared. Eventually we finally coordinated a day where four of the five members of the group we scout because we high key probably would not have scouted if we waited for a day where all five of us would have free time. The plan was simple we'd check out 4 antique stores, a train station, a train station double, and maybe a sorority house.

We got a tip that there was this really nice bench somewhere along the Tallahassee St. Marks Historic Railroad State Trail which partially went by Anissa's apartment so we started our day walking along the trail only to realize there was no bench and the trail spread about 25 miles, so we cut our losses and headed to our first antique store. Being the first with an actual interaction between location owners, I was admittedly nervous, but I had to cope. I spoke with the nice couple that owned the store, and while the husband was kind of interested, the wife was not. While I didn't expect to knock it out of the park on the first try, I at the very least wanted to get a maybe for options sake, but alas. 

We then ventured to our second antique store, where I learned that I should've included the zip code of the address because there are two locations in Tallahassee with the same street address, which was really upsetting, but we had to keep moving. We reach our third location and a wave of dread washed over me when I saw "40% OFF CLOSING SALE". I couldn't stand another fail, so we went inside and I remembered really liking the interior from the photos I had seen online. We found the owner and began talking and learned that the store was supposed to close over the summer, but because of a series of events has remained opened tentatively. The owner Barry seemed pretty intrigued with the project and the idea of supporting local film students and we exchanged contact information and gave the store a proper sweep for any potential problems we'd run into on set. One that Anissa quickly noted was that the bathroom was out of order, which concerned us, so we asked Barry and he mentioned that he'd been using a neighboring store's bathroom. We weren't entirely sure if that was possible logistically speaking or if it would approved, so we kept the store in our back pocket and moved on to the next location.

We soon arrived at the Tallahassee train station to see it abandoned on the inside. I called and learned that tornados that had passed through the area in May left the building with water damage and wouldn't be fixed for another year (yay bureaucracy!). Then the sorority houses plan fell through since we needed many that day were doing initiations. Meaning we just got one clear yes, but it was enough to keep progressing.

Eddie and I followed up about a week later about officializing a filming date, production window, signing the proper location agreements and releases. On October 31, Eddie and I left class early grabbed a quick lunch and sped over to the antique store to get our paperwork signed and lock in November 11th as a filming date. It was also during this time we learned more about the outlet situations, what was off limits, and that the landlord had yet to define his move out period, so we were safe from the possibility of the store's closure preventing us from filming. And like that Eddie got his papers signed while I filled out the Location Hazard assessment sheet. With that we sped back to class before we were late (we still were, but at least locked a location).

Bonus store: While getting paperwork signed, an older customer came in wearing an Avatar (2009) shirt looking for a new walking cane. At one point we walked up to Eddie and asked him "Are you living life?" Neither of us knew what he meant until we walked out of the store to see the car this guy pulled up in. It was then made abundantly clear that this customer was definitely living life to be highest content.