Please help me deal with these movie location folks. Whats fair for a location deal?

July 1, 2011 2:56 AM

Paramount Pictures will be filming a movie on the street where I own a retail business. They would like to come in an do a bit of window dressing as well as possibly have the location available to them throughout the night 6pm-6am. It will not be a central location in the shoot but I get the feeling it will be periphereal. I am wondering what kind of compensation I should ask for as we will be inconvenienced. a bit
posted by citybuddha to Media & Arts (19 answers total)

They filmed that Beatles/Bono movie in my neighborhood a few years back and they gave each storefront about $2500-5000, depending on inconvenience and downtime. They window dressed and altered storefronts. The whole thing took a few days because they had to get a lot of shots, and the streets were closed for 2-3 days (but only for several hours a day, not constantly).
It's not an indie studio. They have money in the budget to cover these types of things.
posted by newpotato at 4:29 AM on July 1, 2011

Aim high, based on number of days + amount of sales you may lose, including restricted access to your store during the shoot + the value of having the image of your store appears in their film. Aim high. Negotiate.

Remember, this is "movie money" we're talking about here. You are in business, not in the business of giving favors. Aim high with your estimate.

(I'd give you a number, but I have no idea how much money you'll be out in sales. I bet you can't know yet either until the shoot happens. Give an inflated estimate. You have no idea how disruptive and what a PITA one of these things can be until you are in the middle of one. Trust me:)
posted by jbenben at 4:54 AM on July 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

This will largely depend where you live and what the going rate is in your area. I think it especially depends on how frequently this sort of thing happens where you live and whether it's typically regarded as a massive inconvenience (as it is here in New York where people hate to see film crews on their street) or an adventure/opportunity/high point of life in a small town.

The film Crazy in Alabama was shot in my hometown 12-13 years ago. People were SO FUCKING EXCITED to have them in town, and it's still talked about all these years later. The film's art department created a faux-period Coke ad in a prominent spot downtown which is still there and is one of the main landmarks of the town. I imagine that, in a situation like that, a lot less compensation is in the picture because the mere fact that these people are in your town, on your block, being involved in some way with your business is going to be a net positive rather than an inconvenience. People don't get visions of dollar signs in their heads as much in that situation, and if you do, you'll be seen as an annoyance and they'll just use someone else's storefront and not give you anything.
posted by Sara C. at 4:54 AM on July 1, 2011

Here's the thing: The fact that they're talking to you means that they've already picked their location, probably months ago. The amount they're going to spend on you represents a tiny fraction of what they've probably already paid and/or received in tax or related benefits to set this thing up. Could be a few million at this point. They aren't going to let a shopkeeper who wants an extra couple of grand from derailing the whole thing. There's a reason even "small" movies have eight-figure budgets.

I'd ask for the equivalent of an entire day's revenue for every day/night they want to be on location. Not profit, mind you, but gross, because your overhead probably doesn't go down much even though they're likely to kill your sales for a few days.
posted by valkyryn at 5:34 AM on July 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

valkyryn: "I'd ask for the equivalent of an entire day's revenue for every day/night they want to be on location. Not profit, mind you, but gross, because your overhead probably doesn't go down much even though they're likely to kill your sales for a few days."

This was the standard starting point when people wanted to hire out the place where I used to work. It is in the UK, and has semi-frequent location shooting requests.
posted by Magnakai at 5:38 AM on July 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The amount they're going to spend on you represents a tiny fraction of what they've probably already paid and/or received in tax or related benefits to set this thing up. Could be a few million at this point. They aren't going to let a shopkeeper who wants an extra couple of grand from derailing the whole thing.

But citybuddha said that it's his storefront they'd want access to (to dress/art-direct, presumably), and that it's likely going to be peripheral.

Which, in film-speak, likely means it will not be featured and they only want the option to dress it so that if the director arrives on set and decides he simply must line up the shot in that direction, everything will be ready to go. This is something it does not cost millions to change. You just tell the director, "Sorry, that guy is a jerk who demanded $20,000 more than everyone else in town just for access to his storefront during non-business hours. You'll have to put the camera six inches this way. Hey, Cinematographer and Gaffer, the lighting's OK if we do that, right? Yeah, thought so. Everybody get to it, then!" It costs nothing.
posted by Sara C. at 5:43 AM on July 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, citybuddha, you have quite a LARGE storefront relative to the size of the others on your street (oh hai, real life-Mefi crossover again!), so they're probably going to have to do quite a bit of windowdressing and generally disrupting the store. Aim high!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 5:51 AM on July 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Here's the transaction from the location scout's side of things. As long as you're not acting like the dude in that story, you should be fine. But definitely come up with a decent, high estimate, show your working (i.e. don't just state a number, but tell them how you came up with it) and negotiate from there.
posted by Happy Dave at 6:04 AM on July 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

A good point from Happy Dave's link - in that situation, shooting in NYC where there can be a lot of bad blood due to neighborhoods getting burnt out on shoots*, and film crews often really do seriously inconvenience business owners (and cost of living and doing business is higher than the rest of the US anyway), the production initially offered a guy in your same basic situation (might want to use the exterior of his business for peripheral purposes) $1500 for the shoot day and $500 for the prep/wrap days.

Sure, a scrupulous business owner negotiating in good faith might have come away with a bit more. But those numbers seem perfectly fair to me, especially if you live in Ohio.

*Last summer, random neighborhood inhabitants on the goddamn Upper West Side were coming to blows with crew members, for chrissakes!
posted by Sara C. at 6:50 AM on July 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

When my grandparents' bookstore was indirectly shown in The Perfect Storm, I think they negotiated some signed pictures of George Clooney.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:55 AM on July 1, 2011

Ask for $1500, be prepared to take less. Don't be the 1 place on the block that wanted gazillions because they'll just shift the shot.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:11 AM on July 1, 2011

ChuraChura raises a good point. There's no reason you can't get creative in asking for compensation. Instead of a few hundred or a thousand dollars, maybe you have a niece or nephew who would think it was exceptionally cool to be an extra in a movie? Or depending on what type of retail business you run, maybe it would be cool to hand one of your products to the film crew and say, "Instead of payment, I'd love if you could just put this somewhere, anywhere in the movie."

Et cetera. If you really need the cash, then so be it. But feel free to be creative.
posted by cribcage at 7:23 AM on July 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: In case you care. Here's what they are offering We need to stay open 9pm-6am two nights. When they soot they want the store to look open. Our neon sign can remain on and would most likely be in the movie. They like the name
$1000 for the trouble plus $20 an hour to who ever has to babysit .
What thinks you?
posted by citybuddha at 9:56 AM on July 1, 2011

$1000 per night, or $1000 all told?

If the former, I'd look at your electric bill and see what you'd typically spend for that time period, and compare that with their offer.
posted by Sara C. at 10:07 AM on July 1, 2011

That sounds decent.

I got $500 out of the film crew who filmed the Nutty Professor 2 because they were trying to do a re-shoot at the apartment building next door to us using an old permit. :)
posted by luckynerd at 10:07 AM on July 1, 2011

Counter with $1500 + $20 per hour.

Look. There's wear and tear on your store (you don't know how much yet) and there are lost sales + you'll providing them utilities. If the $1000 to $1500 no where near covers your expenses or loss of business, than state the actual amount and get fully compensated.

If $1000 is about what you make, then you should still counter with $1500 to account for wear, utilities, and other unforeseen expenses incurred. Settle at $1200 if you like.

Just please remember that you're in business to make money. I've worked in tv and film for the first part of my adult life - anyone who tries to convince you being included in this movie is somehow a privilege for you, geez!!! That's just not true.

Make sure you get paid what's generous (but still fair) for you as you accommodate their needs.

Cool. Good luck!
posted by jbenben at 10:43 AM on July 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Unless your business is a bar or late-night diner which will explicitly need to close in order for the crew to shoot, I would not throw around "loss of business" as a reason you want more money. Producers and location managers do this every day for their jobs and are not stupid.
posted by Sara C. at 11:42 AM on July 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Deal is done. Thanks for your input all. I could not have done it with out the hive
posted by citybuddha at 1:37 PM on July 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

deal is done, but just to chime in as someone with a retail store in a very heavily filmed neighborhood, i have to agree with jbenben. don't be afraid to ask for money. they aren't doing you a favor. make sure you understand how (and when) they are going to impact things like street parking and nearby parking lots that your customers might rely on.

i have a feeling that i could go story for story with the writer of happy dave's link about productions doing absolutely crazy things on location. location managers with a conscience like that one are a tiny minority, in my experience.

with a major studio production, you probably won't run into many problems -- but watch out for commercials, which seems to have the absolute highest concentration of scumbag location scouts.
posted by jimw at 2:25 PM on July 1, 2011 [1 favorite]