Location shooting

Location shooting is the shooting of a film or television production in a real-world setting rather than a sound stage or backlot. The location may be interior or exterior.

When filmmaking professionals refer to shooting "on location", they are usually referring to a "practical location", which is any location that already exists in the real world.

The filming location may be the same in which the story is set (for example, scenes in the film The Interpreter were set and shot inside the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan), or it may stand in for a different locale (the films Amadeus and The Illusionist were primarily set in Vienna, but were filmed in Prague). Location shooting includes any practical location which resembles the location of a scene in the script; for example, students in the film school of the University of Southern California traditionally use a specific location in the basement of Doheny Library as a stand in for the corridors of Grand Central Terminal which lead to the rail platforms.

Most films feature a combination of location and studio shoots; often, interior scenes will be shot on a sound stage while exterior scenes will be shot on location. Second unit photography is not generally considered a location shoot.

Before filming, the locations are generally surveyed in pre-production, a process known as location scouting and recce.