Running a location scout

Talk as you go. Send photographs and videos as you take them. Everything is dictated — you never type a report. This page is the order to do it in and what each part needs.

Start — record this first

Before anything else, one message that says who and what. Everything here ends up in the report header, so if you skip it the report has no idea what it is about.

Say something like “This is Jane Smith, Northlight Locations, reachable on 07700 900 123. Scouting for The Gallows Pole, second series. The location is the Château de Fontainebleau, the main site on the east side.”

Five things, in any order:

Your name
Your company, if you're working for one
How to reach you — phone or email
The production — what this scout is for
The location — the site, and which part of it if that matters

You don't need to say the date or the time. Those are recorded automatically, and so is the time of every photograph — which is what lets the report work out where the sun was.

Then say what you're going to do

Name the sections and locations you intend to cover. This is what the check measures you against — without it, nothing can tell you that you missed something, only that you stopped.

A normal scout has these sections:

Site overview — the whole place, once
Access — entry, exit, vehicles, ground, moving around
Locations — one section for each location you're documenting
Restrictions — what you're told or see that you can't do
Questions — asked, answered, or left open

Say which of those you're doing, which you're skipping, and list the locations by name.

Say something like “Today I'm doing the site overview, the vehicle access, then three locations: the main courtyard, the west gardens and the orangery. I'm not doing the interiors, they were covered on the first visit.”

Two things worth saying explicitly:

What you're skipping and why — on a second scout, most sections may already be done. Say so, and they won't be reported as gaps.
Anything you add later — “there's also a service yard round the back, I'm adding that”. The plan grows; that's normal.

Site overview

The shape and character of the whole place, so someone who has never been can picture it.

You don't have to do this in one go. On a big site you can't — walking the whole thing takes an hour, and by then you've forgotten half of it. Start with whatever you can give at once, a map or an aerial view if there is one, and add to it as you move.

Say when something is for the overview “This is for the site overview — the courtyard and the gardens connect through this passage, it's about eighty metres.”

Say it, because otherwise a remark made while walking between two locations gets filed under the one you just left. Connections between places, distances, how the site hangs together — that's overview material, and it's usually noticed in transit rather than standing still.

What it needs

Wide views that establish the site and how the parts relate
What kind of place it is, what condition it's in
How busy it is, and whether today is typical
Weather and light — overcast, hard sun, and roughly where the sun is
Who you're dealing with on site, and their role

Access — entry, exit and moving around

Everything about getting people and equipment in, round and out.

What it needs

The approach road, and the last junction before the site
Every gate and entrance, and which are usable by vehicles
Where a vehicle can stop, unload, turn and park
Pedestrian routes in, and how far it is from parking to the locations
Exits, including ones only usable on foot
Barriers, security points, height restrictions, narrow turns
Ground: steps, slopes, gravel, mud, cobbles, anything a trolley hates
The route between the locations you're covering

Film a slow walk of the main arrival route, beginning to end.

Locations

Then one section per location. Say which one you're in when you start — “I'm now in the main courtyard” — and everything after that is filed there until you say otherwise.

A location is anything worth documenting in its own right. A courtyard is one. So is a staircase, a side entrance or a single room. They all get the same treatment.

What each location needs

What it is and how you get into it
Its size, and what it feels like to stand in
Every way in and out
Ground and surfaces
Light — where it comes from, what's in shade, how it changes
What's fixed and can't be moved
Modern things that will show on camera: signs, bins, lights, cameras, cabling
Whether the public comes through, and how much
Anything that would get in the way of filming
The strongest angle, and what you'd shoot from there

If you say nothing about a location beyond its name, the check will tell you it's thin. That's the point of running it before you leave.

Restrictions

Anything you're told you can't do, or see that you can't do. Record it when you hear it, not later.

Say who told you, and when “The head gardener just told me no vehicles on the gravel at all, and the fountains can't be switched off.”

A restriction without a source is worth very little three months later, when someone is deciding whether to build a crane on that gravel.

Questions

Ask, and record the answer as you get it. If you don't get one, say so — an unanswered question is a real result and belongs in the report.

Which areas can be filmed, and which can't
Dates or times when the site isn't available
Where vehicles can stop, unload and park
Limits on crew size or equipment
Drones, lighting, generators, cranes, track
Rules about lawns, gravel, fountains, historic surfaces
Whether public areas can be closed or controlled
Restrictions on filming façades, artworks or details
Scheduled works, events or temporary structures coming up
Who to contact for a technical scout

If something was only agreed in conversation, say that. It goes in the report as needing written confirmation.

Shooting

The same pattern in every location.

Photographs

A wide shot showing the whole space
The same space from the opposite direction
From each corner or main access point
Every entrance, exit, gate, stair and pathway
Medium and close shots of anything important
Anything that would affect filming
A shot that conveys size and scale

Horizontal for the main set. Vertical as extras, when the subject is tall.

Take every photograph with the phone’s Camera app — never with the camera inside WhatsApp or Telegram. Tap out of the chat, shoot, then come back and send. A photograph taken inside a chat app arrives at a third of the resolution and with no location at all — measured on the same phone, seconds apart: 24.5 megapixels with coordinates and a compass bearing from the Camera app, 8.3 megapixels with neither from the in-app one. Neither loss can be repaired afterwards, because the location was never recorded in the first place.

No Portrait mode, no filters, no heavy zoom. Portrait mode isn't the same as a vertical photo — it's the phone faking a blurred background, and the background is exactly what these photographs exist to show. It can't be undone.

Video

Open on a wide, still view for about five seconds
Pan slowly left to right, then film the reverse
Walk the main route through, slowly
Show how this location connects to the next
Cover entrances, exits, stairs and changes in level

Clips of 15 to 45 seconds. No rapid turns, no digital zoom. Don't talk while walking — stop, say which area you're in, keep it short.

Before you leave

Run /check. It tells you what's still open and shows you where every note has been filed. Both are only fixable while you're still on site.

If something is filed wrongly, say so — “note 105 is the west courtyard”, or a range: “100 to 105 are the staircase”. Then run /check again to confirm it took.

Last, dictate the two things only you can give:

Your overall impression — is this location right, and why
Whether a technical scout is needed, who should come, and what they should look at

Commands

/check	What's still open, and where everything is filed
/report	The report so far
/final	Finish this scout and start a new one
/upload	A link for sending full-resolution originals
/i	This page

Send the real files through /upload. Photographs sent as ordinary chat messages are recompressed by WhatsApp and Telegram before they arrive — around 1280 or 2048 pixels, with the location and timing data stripped out. Fine for a quick note; not the original.

/upload gives you a link. Open it on the phone, choose the photographs from your library, and they arrive whole: full resolution, location, and the direction the camera was pointing. Do it at the end of the visit, for everything you sent through chat.