Name: The Logistics of Filming Avengers
Uploaded: 2021-06-11T09:12:53.000Z
Duration: 12 min 53 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

基礎受動態

This video was made possible by Curiosity Stream.

When you sign up at the link in the description you'll also get access to Nebula—the streaming

video platform that Wendover is a part of.

As you reach the end of a movie's credit sequence, usually long after everyone has

left the theatre, you start to get to some of the names of people that might not have

written the script, might not have played the characters, and might not have operated

the camera, but were crucial to the success of that film.

Quite a few of the names might not have dealt with filming at all, but rather dealt with

getting those who did housed, fed, and transported to where they need to be.

As much of a challenge getting the story and picture right in a movie is, another distinct

challenge that only escalates as budget does is the logistics.

While most movies will film quite a few of their scenes in a studio using sets, green

screens, and other tactics to portray the supposed location, still most film a number

of scenes on location, all around the world.

Filming on-location is an enormously complex, multi-month or sometimes multi-year process

that all typically starts with one person—the location scout.

We'll use the example of what is now the most financially successful movie of all time—Avengers:

As one of the biggest-budget films of all-time, this movie had a whole location department

that wrapped many of the location-based functions into one.

For smaller films, though, locations scouts tend to be more separate, freelance roles

working temporarily for a given production.

Essentially what they do is take the wishes of the writer or director of a given movie

If a scout is asked to find a sunny yet run-down street in a small coastal Mediterranean town,

they do their best to find a location that looks like that, but it doesn't necessarily

need to be sunny, run-down, coastal, Mediterranean, or even a small town.

Some of that can be fixed in post, some can be fixed with decoration, and some doesn't

There are a lot of reasons a film might use a stand-in for the real location they're

trying to depict—cost, time, practicality, availability, bureaucracy, logistics, even

down to tiny reasons like weather, lighting, noise-level, and more.

A film set in a small Greenlandic town might choose to film in Iceland just because it's

easier to get to, has better infrastructure, and has a larger and perhaps most experienced

At the same time, a film set in Antarctica might choose to film in Greenland for the

Once the location scout finds the perfect location, they then have to make sure filming

If it's a privately owned location, they have to figure out who the owner is and negotiate

with them, which isn't always easy, while if it's public space they have to work with

the government, which also isn't always easy.

In the case of Endgame, some location scout at some point was asked to find a location

to serve as New Asgard—the fishing village home of Thor.

For this, they settled on the Scottish village of St Abbs.

Now, there are a few reasons why this was a smart choice.

One was that it's in a country with an upstart film industry promoted by its government so

government approval was likely easy, two was that this village was small enough that they

could essentially entirely take it over, and three was that it was relatively near Edinburgh.

The proximity to Edinburgh served two important roles.

One was that it meant there was a big city nearby with the facilities to host a large

production and two was that, for the previous Avengers movie, Infinity War, they spent months

filming a complex action sequence in Edinburgh.

The two films were shot back-to-back and, in some cases, simultaneously, so this way,

the production could easily move from Edinburgh to St Abbs for a few days after rather than

completely moving to a new country to film this relatively simple scene in New Asgard.

In practice, a location scout typically presents the movie's director a variety of options

for where to shoot—for New Asgard, there almost certainly were quite a few locations

on a short-list before they settled on St Abbs.

Once a location is selected, though, the job is then handed over to a location manager.

Now, sometimes the location scout and location manager are the same person and sometimes

they are different people, but they are always distinct roles.

The location manager is in charge of navigating all the legal and logistical aspects of organizing

an on-location shoot once the location is selected.

One huge aspect of this is getting permits to film from the local government.

A lot of cities, states, regions, or countries that are in high demand for filming, such

as New York, have government agencies dedicated to both promoting and organizing filming activities

In New York's case, for example, the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting fills

this role and handles the permitting process.

An agency like this wants to balance its role of promoting the industry, which can be a

fantastic boost economically to a city, and serving its city's population.

Filming, especially when part of a big production, is a burden on local residents so any government

that wants to stay popular with its constituents wants to manage this burden.

For this, New York's agency has a rotating list of locations where filming is prohibited

simply because these locations have had too much filming recently.

That way even the most popular spots won't have their residents disturbed too much.

Negotiating a filming permit in places less experienced in this matter can be more difficult,

though, as that will require a bespoke deal.

That's only the tip of the iceberg of the planning a location manager has to deal with.

One other huge complexity can be just simply getting equipment to the location, especially

if that location is in a different country than where the production company is based.

You see, when Avengers came to Scotland to film, they needed all the same cameras and

equipment as in the US so the film stayed consistent in quality.

With big budget-productions such as this, that means they need to bring hundreds of

thousands of dollars worth of equipment into a foreign country.

The difficulty then is that, typically, when goods originate from outside of a country

and are brought inside that country, one has to pay import tariffs on them.

As an individual entering a country through an airport one has certain duty free allowances

and typically there's a provision that personal articles can be brought in tax-free, but when

traveling as a business, like a Hollywood production company, if they were to bring

equipment into a country and keep it there, for example if they were setting up a studio

there, then an import tariff would be assessed.

Avengers likely travelled with hundreds of thousands of even millions of dollars worth

of equipment so you can imagine the kind of financial damage a 20% import tariff would

Of course, though, there are a few ways to get around this.

This is essentially a passport for goods.

For a fee and security deposit, these work as a customs mechanism for many countries