One day, nine locations: how we got access across Nottingham
Every location film has a shot list. Behind it there is a permissions list, and that is usually the thing that decides whether the film you planned is the film you get.
We shot a scheme film for Placefirst at Chingford Meadows in Nottingham earlier this year. The brief was area-led: show a prospective resident what living there actually looks like, beyond the front door and out into the city. That meant a country estate, a leisure centre, a park, a pub, a tram line, a shopping centre, a theatre, a castle and the city centre. One day.
I will say up front that I think the pre-production is the job. The logistics, the shot list, the permits and the permission emails matter as much as the shoot and the edit, and often more. A beautiful shot you were not allowed to take is worth nothing.
Wollaton Hall at seven in the morning
We started at Wollaton Hall at 7am, on the advice of the person who arranged it, who told us the low sun and the deer would be worth the early call. They were right. It set the tone for the whole day and gave us some of the best material in the film.
Wollaton was the first of two surprises. The second was Harvey Hadden Leisure Centre, which had far more to offer on camera than we expected going in. Both sit close to the scheme, which is exactly what you want from an area-led film. The strongest selling points turned out to be the nearest ones.
No drone at Wollaton, because of the deer. Fair enough, and not worth arguing with. It cost us an aerial and pushed us into a more considered approach on the ground.
Start with the council
Nottingham handles filming permits through FilmApp. Multiple locations can sit inside a single application, which saves a lot of time when the day runs across the city.
Two things are worth knowing before you apply.
Notice. They ask for a minimum of five working days, and that is a floor rather than a target.
Section 171. Most of central Nottingham is adopted highway, and adopted highway includes the pavement. Putting a tripod down on a footway counts as depositing something on the highway, which brings it into scope. Handheld and gimbal work is generally fine because nothing is left in place. Sticks are a different question, even small ones.
Declaring it in the application costs nothing and lets the events officer tell you what you need. Finding out on the day is the expensive version.
A flat no is not always a final no
We approached the Victoria Centre, managed by Savills, with a fairly open request. The answer came back as a straight decline, no reason given.
I was annoyed, and the honest temptation was to leave it there. We sent one more email instead.
That email did not repeat the case. It asked whether the decline was a blanket position on filming, or whether it related to the scope of what we had described. Then it set out what we actually needed: about twenty minutes on the exterior forecourt, one camera on a gimbal, two of us, no lighting, no drone, nothing inside the centre, happy to work outside trading hours.
Permission for the exterior came back the same day.
The first email described a filming request, which is a category most managed estates decline as policy. The second described something small enough that it barely resembled one. Those are different questions, and the second is much easier to say yes to.
The interior stayed out. So we changed what we were shooting rather than what we were asking for: three iconic exteriors of the centre, and then some more artistic work on the pedestrian flow around it. Movement, people, the rhythm of the place. In the cut it does a better job of saying "this is a busy city centre" than shop fronts would have.
Conditions are usually a scheduling problem
Harvey Hadden agreed to exterior filming provided no customers appeared in shot. During opening hours that is close to undeliverable if you intend to hold to it honestly. So we went early, and the condition stopped being a condition.
The Broad Oak, a Greene King pub, opened half an hour before service so we could set up and shoot. Worth knowing that Greene King pubs cannot authorise commercial filming themselves. It goes through a central process with its own notice period, so a yes from the pub is not permission.
We could not film on board the trams. Rather than push it, we built the sequence differently: the destination blind and arrivals board at one end, the tram pulling into Phoenix Park at the other, and the journey time on screen as type. It arguably lands the point more clearly than interior footage would have.
The kit was chosen for the day, not the day for the kit
Sony FX9 and FX6 on Zeiss primes. The FX9 as the main body, the FX6 for the smaller, quicker setups.
The decision that mattered most was the mini tripod. Nine locations in one day means the time between setups is as important as the setups, and a full-size tripod slows you down at every single one. The mini had its trade-offs, and there were moments we would rather have had the height and the stability. But it made us far more versatile and it is the reason we got round.
What we did not get
We dropped Hockley because it was too far out of the route, and Trent Bridge because we ran out of time. Neither was in the original brief, and both would have been lovely additions. That is the honest arithmetic of a one-day shoot with a list this long. You protect the brief first and take the extras if the day allows.
What I would tell anyone doing the same
Ask for the small version first. A precise request is easier to approve than a broad one, and it is a genuinely different question rather than the same one repeated.
Declare more than you think you need to. Tripods on pavements, timings, crew numbers. The people processing these applications want to help and can only do it with accurate information.
Treat a condition as a scheduling problem before you treat it as an obstacle. Most of them dissolve with an earlier call time.
And do the boring part properly. The permits, the risk assessment, the route map, the running order. None of it makes the showreel. All of it is why the shots exist.
Comments