Need advise on renting office space as location for filming.

[Angelshare1]

Is this a good idea? I'm on a low budget and I need a general office with a kitchen, cubes, about 3 private offices and a boardroom/meeting room. I only need them for about 3 days. Does this sound feasable at all? I could probably afford a few thousand dollars.

I've tried public libraries for their meeting rooms but most of them won't let you film unless you are a student.

Could you just post a Craigslist ad or would you just call up a building with space available? What kind of experiences do you guys have with this sort of location getting?

I've also considered getting fancy hotel rooms with offices in them. There's some pretty swanky places downtown. I need a large board room and a meeting room at a hotel might pass but that might get sort of pricey for one scene.

 

[Jim Brennan]

It sounds very feasible. We just did a one day shoot in a very nice office in downtown Denver for free.

Act professional and ask around. You may be surprised at the response you get.

 

[Angelshare1]

Can you tell me more? Was your shoot during business hours or after hours? Why did they help you? Did they like your movie or did they just want to help out a film maker?

 

[Blaine]

So much depends on where you're located. You've given no indication of where you'll be shooting.

 

[Barry_Green]

Yeah, it all depends on who you are and who you know. Who do you know who runs their own business, and has offices? We got a two-story office building for free for a couple of days, because I knew the owner, told him what I was doing, and he said "sure, sounds like fun."

The key is to need it for only a day or a weekend. Because while the concept sounds fun, in reality, it really isn't any fun. You can get into places, but it's extremely difficult to get BACK into those same places.

If you want to pay, call up a location manager in your local city's production directory, they will likely know of a few places that are willing to do it.

 

[Jim Brennan]

Can you tell me more? Was your shoot during business hours or after hours? Why did they help you? Did they like your movie or did they just want to help out a film maker?

We shot on a Saturday and paid the guy 100 bucks to let us in for the day. We were doing some PSA's for a local non-profit.

But really, as has been asked, it's easier to give you advice if we know more about your situation...like whether you are even located in or near a city.