Location recce checklist for video shoots
Most of the location recce checklists online were written for feature films: a tech scout with a gaffer, a location manager and a form three pages long. On a one-day brand shoot you get forty minutes in someone's office, usually wedged between two other jobs, and nobody is coming with you. This is the location recce checklist we actually work through - what to check, in what order, and the two findings that change your schedule rather than just your kit.
What a recce is for
A recce is not a look around. It is collecting the handful of facts that would otherwise be discovered at 8:15am on the shoot day, by which point they are problems rather than decisions. The useful test: every recce finding should land in one of three documents. If it lands in none of them, you went sightseeing.
The checklist
Six groups, in the order we walk them. It takes about half an hour if nobody stops you for a chat.
1. Access and logistics
- Where do you actually park, and can you unload there or only stop briefly? Note the postcode you want people to drive to, which is often not the front-door one.
- How far is the van from the room, and are there stairs, a lift, or a goods entrance with its own opening hours?
- Who lets you in, what is their mobile number, and are they in that day?
- Is there a security desk, sign-in, or a pass you need arranged in advance?
- What time can you get in? Rigging before the client arrives is worth more than an extra crew member.
- Somewhere to leave cases that is not the middle of the shot.
2. Power
- How many sockets, and where in the corner you would actually shoot in - not where they are in the room generally.
- Would you be running an extension across a walkway, and are you allowed to tape it down?
- Anywhere to charge batteries over lunch.
- If the answer is vague, plan on batteries. Being told "there is power in there somewhere" has cost us more mornings than bad weather.
3. Light
- Which way do the windows face, and what is the light doing at the hour you plan to shoot - not the hour you happen to be visiting.
- Can the overhead lights be switched off, and is it just that room or the whole floor? This one is worth asking out loud, because the answer is frequently the whole floor.
- Blinds: do they exist, do they work, and does anyone mind them being closed?
- Mixed colour temperature - daylight windows plus warm strips plus a green-tinged corridor - is a grade problem you can solve for free by moving two metres.
4. Sound
- Stand still and say nothing for sixty seconds. That minute is the most valuable part of the recce.
- Air conditioning: can it be turned off, who is allowed to turn it off, and does it restart on a timer?
- Road, railway, flight path, delivery yard.
- The open-plan floor next door, the lift, the door with the hydraulic closer.
- Ask when the fire alarm test is. Half the buildings in Britain do it mid-morning on a fixed weekday.
5. The shots themselves
- Hold your phone up in every corner you might use and take a photo, wider than feels necessary.
- Check backgrounds properly: clutter, competitor logos, whiteboards with someone's pricing on them, monitors showing customer data.
- Ceiling height for stands, and floor space behind the camera - a room can be big and still have nowhere to stand.
- Where can the client watch from without being in the shot or in your way?
6. People and permissions
- Who is the person who can actually say yes on the day? It is rarely the person showing you round.
- Do the staff know they are being filmed, and is anyone opting out?
- Is there a quiet room you can borrow for the interview, and who books it?
- Who needs a copy of your public liability certificate, and by when?
The two findings that change the schedule
Most of the checklist changes what you pack. Two items change when things happen: which way the light falls through the day, and when the building is quiet. Get those two on the recce and the run of day almost writes itself.
You cannot work that out from an address. It is twenty minutes of standing in a room, and it is the difference between an interview that sounds clean and one you spend an afternoon de-noising.
The remote recce
Budgets and diaries being what they are, you will sometimes shoot somewhere you have never stood. You can get most of the way there by asking for the right things rather than "some photos of the space": a photo into each corner of the room, taken at the hour you plan to shoot; a slow video walk-through with the sound recording, which is the whole trick, because it tells you about the air conditioning and the road; a photo of the wall with the sockets on it; and a street view of where the van will go. Be honest about the limits - photos flatter the size of a room and lie about how dark the far end is - so pack the light you would rather not carry.
Write it up before you leave the car park
Recce notes that live in your head are worth nothing by Thursday. Whatever you use, the habit that matters is converting the findings into the documents the same day, while you can still picture the room: the socket situation into the kit list, the light and noise windows into the schedule, the access notes and the caretaker's mobile onto the call sheet. Our version of this used to be a notes app, a spreadsheet and a document that all disagreed with each other by the following Monday.
In Cinella the recce notes go straight onto the shoot, so the kit list, the generated run of day and the call sheet are three views of the same day rather than three files. The access details - parking, entrance, who to ask for - land on the client's branded portal too, which is the reason nobody rings you at 8am asking where to park. If you want the wider context, the same thinking runs through how we plan a one-day brand shoot.
The checklist above is yours to copy either way. If keeping the notes, the kit and the schedule in one place appeals, Cinella is £12/month during launch (rising to £15 for new subscribers afterwards; join now and your rate stays £12 for as long as you stay subscribed), with a 14-day free trial and nothing charged if you cancel inside it.