Securing a coffee shop location

B

BennyOne

Member
I need to secure a coffee shop to shoot inside of for a short. Just wondering what the best way to go about this is and what everyones experience has been securing locations that are funcitoning businesses.

I would need it for several hours and would not be against matching or beating any profits that the owner would loose from me taking over their shop. Are business owners open to this? Do I need to get a permit from the city? (San Francisco and I would rather not.)

Um... I think that's it. Thanks!
 
Do you know anyone who works at an independant (i.e. not a chain) coffee shop, or someone who is connected to one? You will have a much better chance at securing something if you can get introduced by someone you know. That is how I got the restaurant I used for filming my WestFest entry; I had no luck cold calling anywhere, but someone I did a project for knew the owner of another restaurant, so I asked if she would introduce me.

I was up front with the owner and told him I couldn't manage a location fee, but listed out what I could offer him (filming outside of normal hours, paying for the staff's extra hours, a credit in the film and having our crew lunch there). Barring a few minor mishaps, it worked out fairly well in the end.
 
I needed to shoot at a donut shop last year in SF and basically just went to a bunch of them asking for permission to shoot until I find one that says yes, no permit was used. It depends always on the owner, sometimes you get lucky and you find someone willing to work with you, but be prepared for a few turn-downs. It always help to show that you have insurance to cover against any potential liabilities. I've yet to find any owner who's willing to shut down during business hours for shooting, so your best bet are going to be during down time or off hours.

Also, it helps tremendously to show that you have enthusiasm for the project and know what you're doing. The owner of the flowershop that I used for one of my films turned me down flat, but I was so persistent that he ended up interviewing me for an hour and finally gave me permission, even keeping the store open late to accommodate us, so if you show that you believe in the project, people will believe in you.
 
I had a friend shoot in my old apartment in Austin a few years ago, it was very funky looking and passed for a hip coffee shop/ restaurant. He shot it pretty tight. I've been in many coffee shop/ restaurants that once were family homes.
 
i am rather lucky that i happen to know several small and medium business owners, and my parents operate an independent restaurant; i have filmed at all those locations many times. that said, some of them are more open to the prospect, especially if you either offer to pay, as i usually do, or exchange for services, as in the case of perhaps a short advertisement etc.

your best bet is to talk directly with the owner, be professional, and explain why you feel their location suits you. even with businesses owners i was not familiar with, i havent been turned down too often, and now several of them are clients of mine.
 
Anyone know how much it might cost to rent the shop for the full day?

What does an average coffee shop pull in profits daily?
 
My advice is that the best bet is to actually visit several coffee shops and explain what you're trying to do. In my experience most businesses are more than happy to be involved in a video/film production particularly as it breaks up the monotony. If you think of it from their perspective: Making coffee, go home, make coffee, go home, weekend, make coffee, go home - HOLLYWOOD! - talk for next 4 months to everyone they know how exciting their life is because they were involved in a movie production.

We're in an industry where filmmaking is our day job, but a once in a lifetime experience to the general public.

If it is an independently owned coffee shop you might even be able to sneak their logo in. You could also sweeten the deal by saying we'd like to have a premiere in town when it's finished and they could sell coffees to all those who attend ... not real sure about that example but you get the idea.

You might also have more luck if most of it could be shot at night when they are usually closed - it will mean that staff will have to stay back but they're generally more than willing to stretch it because it's exciting - "you can even bring the kids along to see a real movie being shot!" - might even make the local paper that a movie was done there, etc (Publicity for them).

You can then shoot a few 'daytime' shots if necessary whereby you only need to close the building off for an hour or so.

Summary?: People are far more excited by 'Hollywood' than a day's pay.

Hope this helps!
 
+1 to sbaileymediaman, that exactly mirrors my experiences. Back when we were doing guerilla stuff, we got diners, pawn shops, real estate offices, restaurants, mini-marts, gas stations, model homes, mansions, executive offices, casinos, all for free. Tell 'em what you're doing. And if there's business to be done, give it to them (example: we got a diner for free, and when it came time to feed the crew a lunch break, we ordered from the diner. It would be the absolute pinnacle of d-baggery to bring pizzas in to a place like that!)

Some simple rules:
1) be very nice and charming
2) do NOT try to schedule more than one day. You won't get it. People are thrilled and enthralled when you start out, but after a few hours it gets old and towards the end of the day they are very glad to see you leave. Trying to come back a second day would be a hard sell.
3) don't bring up money unless they do. You usually can't afford to pay what the place is really worth anyway. I got a million-dollar mansion in Vegas for free, but it ended up costing $400 to get the carpets cleaned. Got a multimillion-dollar place in NJ for, IIRC, $200. He asked, so we paid. If we were "Hollywood" he'd probably charge $5,000/day for that place, minimum.
4) mom & pop shops are a lot more likely to let you do it, than a chain place.

That's for indie/guerilla stuff. If you want to do it "right", and shut the place down for a day and take it over entirely, talk to some location managers in your town and ask them if they have recommendations and price/budget ranges for places that have allowed that before.
 
Got an indie coffee shop in downtown San Francisco for 150 and hour. Whole day.

Expensive but worth the price to me because for that price the shop is mine and I don't have to worry about keeping the owner happy (although I will of course, but I can concentrate on the important stuff more than if it was purley a goodwill gesture).

Whoo hooo! Now I can move on to worrying about a million other things.
 
Barry_Green said:
+1 to sbaileymediaman, that exactly mirrors my experiences. Back when we were doing guerilla stuff, we got diners, pawn shops, real estate offices, restaurants, mini-marts, gas stations, model homes, mansions, executive offices, casinos, all for free. Tell 'em what you're doing. And if there's business to be done, give it to them (example: we got a diner for free, and when it came time to feed the crew a lunch break, we ordered from the diner. It would be the absolute pinnacle of d-baggery to bring pizzas in to a place like that!)

Some simple rules:
1) be very nice and charming
2) do NOT try to schedule more than one day. You won't get it. People are thrilled and enthralled when you start out, but after a few hours it gets old and towards the end of the day they are very glad to see you leave. Trying to come back a second day would be a hard sell.
3) don't bring up money unless they do. You usually can't afford to pay what the place is really worth anyway. I got a million-dollar mansion in Vegas for free, but it ended up costing $400 to get the carpets cleaned. Got a multimillion-dollar place in NJ for, IIRC, $200. He asked, so we paid. If we were "Hollywood" he'd probably charge $5,000/day for that place, minimum.
4) mom & pop shops are a lot more likely to let you do it, than a chain place.

That's for indie/guerilla stuff. If you want to do it "right", and shut the place down for a day and take it over entirely, talk to some location managers in your town and ask them if they have recommendations and price/budget ranges for places that have allowed that before.
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Great advice and great stuff Barry. That has been my experience too... we've always gotten our locations through friends and connections, whether for my short or for the feature, where we had a lot of locations. It's very true about the locations, too, they get tired of having you there fast. We got a really solid sports bar from about 6 a.m. to 10:30 but that was our hard out. At 10:29 I needed another take of this scene in coverage and was just like, "Going again, now!" Finished a few minutes late, but they were happy that we were true to our word in the sense that we were totally wrapped out of their main area by 11 when they start serving people.

Also done what you said at restaurants as well, where we fed the crew through them, so it was a great deal for them. We found one place that was a Hookah bar but they had just switched to serving lunch as well about a month earlier. Nobody really knew of it, though, and their lunch hours were 10 to 12 people at most, because it was so new, they were trying to build up a client base. So when we paid them to use their place for most of the day (up until their busy night-time schedule) and paid for a crew of 15 to eat lunch there, they were happy, and they still served a few patrons outside because we weren't using that patio area anyway.

It's all about how small you are and how well you treat people, because of course if they thought we had tons of money they'd want a piece of it, and I suppose that's fair. But when you are running a really tight ship, an indie film with little funding, everyone understands they're barking up the wrong tree if they think they're getting rich on your movie ;)
 
Also here's a trick, find film schools in your area and ask shops located around the area. It's a good chance those shops have had students shoot in them before and will probably let you shoot for free. Also don't ask them to close while you shoot, simply ask to shoot there. If the noise is too much do ADR (I know we all hate it). Also get presence to replicate the sound of a working restaurant/coffee shop, (plus you may need to do an M&E track if you get distribution so it comes in handy). We shoot at a Restaurant called "Chicago Carry Outs" in every film and so far have had no problems.

-Nate
 
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