Best City for a fledgling filmmaker.....

[Michael Wisniewski]

Come on! Prague is so over. Kathmandu is the place to be.



... but I heard Vancouver might be coming back next year.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Comebacks are so 2004...

[Rob Lohman]

I thought Holland was the place to be. Two "major" Hollywood
productions here this year and you can party after shooting as
well. What more could you ask for?

[Joel Guy]

Michael,

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "time, money, and space"

I understand the $ part, but what about time and space?

Thanks.

Thanks to everyone who replied seriously.

[Joe Carney]

>>With the advent of professional / semi-professional acquistion equipment and the affordability of some very powerful editing programs available to the Average Joe...there is NO best city in which to make it big.
<<
Rick, might want to stay away from places like Arkansas, where the preachers come after you if they find out your movie might contain anything resembling adult content. They try to send in some underage person past security and try to get you busted. (I'm not talking about porno either). And people around Little Rock aren't very friendly at all. (I was raised around there).

People farther out in the country though are very friendly and polite.


If you are doing strictly family/religious stuff, then it's alright. But they will still spy on you.

The only other southern city I found as unfreindly was Louisville Ky.

[Yi Fong Yu]

lol, stole the words out of my mind =). as for my own city (boston) it's mostly a documentary city. for fiction pieces it sux big time.

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert Knecht Schmidt : 1. Anywhere.
2. Los Angeles. -->>>

[Christopher Reynolds]

I would like to completely blow away the L.A. scene, or any large city scene for that matter, by saying everyone and their grandmother has been asked to fund some sort of project in a place like L.A. Almost everyone goes to places like that to shoot something (be it with camera or gun!) and there will always be people looking to ruin your experience by asking for money and permits. If you WANT to make a fictional piece about serial killers or super computer beings flying through sky scrapers, then by all means shoot in a big city. On the other hand, there is a slew of concepts that can be born and molded in the environment of a lesser town/rural setting.

I would also like to point out that Shawshank Redemption was shot almost entirely in Ohio (God I love it here). Not everyone has access to an empty prison to shoot in, nor are all our ideas taking place in a prison. Also, the prison Shawshank Redemption was shot in has been demolished. BUT...there were some beautiful shots taking place outdoors (though few and far between). Basically, you can really capture beauty and power in the country. When you're in the country, you have a quiet and inspiring environment to develope and further mold your concepts in incubation.

[Yi Fong Yu]

chris is right. the question shouldn't be city or country but what your film dictates. if the film is a travel piece like "easy rider" then you can go wherever you need to go to capture for the film.

[Joe Carney]

If you're looking for small villages with a quaint, beautiful historical look...Northern VA has lots of them. All within 100 miles of DC with beautiful countryside to boot. But not for long. Urban spread is going all the way to West VA.

[Yi Fong Yu]

ain't that where they shot those gettyburg & gods+general civil war films?

[Ian Poirier]

Providence has quite the burgeoning film scene right now. We've quite a few Hollywood flicks come though (specially in the last year) and the Rhode Island Film Commission is trying to push the independent scene. They'll get you locations, crews and such. The city is beautiful and old and the state has everything from forest to LOTs of coastline (no mountains, our highest point is a 900' hill but there is a surprising amount of rocky and rough terrain). So far in my experience the cops don't ask for permits too much yet, so long as your not blocking traffic or something. The east side has a real artsy indy vibe (mostly due to RISDE and Brown) so business are pretty open to letting you shoot in their spaces. Cost of living ain't too bad either.

[Joe Carney]

I've heard plenty of good things about North Carolina. Varied landscape, qualified crews, less LA attitude? I think they are filming one tree hill and another new series there.

So far, except for the excellent people I've met, I've been unimpressed with VA and Maryland as indie movie locations. Considering how beautiful VA is, i'm wondering how come there isn't more films being made here. From a strictly location perspective, I would rate it over NC.

Not picking or anything, just wondering.

[Joel Guy]

All of these suggestions have been great and very helpful. Thank you very much.

Anyone else??

[John Hudson]

Hi Joel

Here is a link for you you might find of interest.

http://www.moviemaker.com/issues/49/top10_2003.html

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Interesting article, but without quantitative analyses of local film commission budgets, permit prices, union, police, and fire scales, rental locations and prices, etc., the rankings are arbitrary. Some of those cities don't have development labs, and a few probably don't have very good equipment rental houses.

The article notes that the ranking is the third annual; it might be interesting to see how cities have moved up or down the list in the previous years.