Starter Kit. Idea 381 of 500. Cluster 19
A film-location service: crews, permits, fixers and locations, sold to the studios of India and Europe
The mechanism, from the book
Eight World Heritage Sites and 2,300 years of records, and the country's story is told to the world by other people.
The first step
Photograph 10 locations within a day's drive of you, a tea estate, a colonial building, a beach, a railway viewpoint, and write for each the access, how to reach the owner and what a crew would need. Send that pack to five production managers at film companies in India and Europe with a day rate for your fixing service. A reply asking about dates is your first lead.
- Who pays first
- A production company in India or Europe that needs a location fast and pays for someone who has already done the permits and the scouting.
- What leaves today
- The island's landscapes stand in for other places or are handled by foreign fixers; a local location service keeps the crew's spending here.
Ask first
- the Divisional Secretariat. Ask which offices give permission to film in public places in the division.
- Department of Archaeology. Ask what permission is needed to film at protected sites.
Check before you spend
Each owner's written consent for every location, filming permission for public and protected places, and insurance for crews and property.
Find out these three numbers
- What day rate do production managers pay a local fixer?
- Which locations do they ask about first?
- How far ahead do crews book?
A comparison from the book
The Matterhorn. Chapter Five
"the mountain acquired something no marketing budget can buy: a story that people already knew."
A film shot here gives a place a story audiences already know, which no advert can buy.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.