Movie location codes

August 23, 2007 2:22 AM

Here in Oxford, every second lamp post has a coded sign on it, indicating that there is a movie filming location nearby. Sometimes, it's obvious which movie is involved -- e.g. 'LWS LOC' refers to the TV series 'Lewis'. In other cases, it's pretty hard to work out -- e.g. 'The Golden Compass' was signed by a jumble of letters that I've forgotten ('ICHR LOC' or similar). I remember seeing a similarly obscure code on Santa Monica Pier. I'd like to know what movies are being filmed where. Is there an online resource that would tell me which location code refers to which movie? I couldn't find this information in the IMDB.
posted by beniamino to media & arts (3 comments total)

There's no central clearinghouse for this. Codes are frequently secret and obscure intentionally so as not to encourage looky-loos, especially on sets with celebrities. If the sign said "Nicole Kidman movie this way" it would be a lot harder to film.
posted by commander_cool at 3:09 AM on August 23, 2007

In Bristol we normally have BASE, LOC, TECH etc, without any extra codes.

Mind you, it's only Casualty that's filmed here so no-one needs any more detail!

OK - and Skins and Teachers, but they don't go through outdoor locations on nearly the same scale as Casualty
posted by roomaroo at 3:26 AM on August 23, 2007

Coming to the party a bit late. They can be based on a number of things - the name you know, and earlier production name, the production company, a production accounting code, or something entirely arbitary.

They're quite common around Auckland where I live too, and can often be figured out if you know what's in production at the time, but even for those in the industry, it's hard to know what's going on all the time.

And it get confused further because it's not always a movie or TV show you might have heard of. Here, at least, it's often for overseas producers. Or a music video, or tv commercial.

It's totally arbitrary, decided by the production manager normally, and likely only to be known specifically to those who receive call sheets.
posted by sycophant at 6:00 PM on August 28, 2007