| 1 | 1 | | Flick through the pages of a magazine and you'lI see several photographs taken |
| 2 | | indoors. If the bathroom in, say, a shower advert were yours, you could have earned |
| 3 | | between 1:500 and 1:700 for a single day's filming. |
| 2 | 4 | | Annette Phillips is an experienced location owner, as they are called in the trade. |
| 5 | | All that means is that she regularly lets film crews into her ground-floor flat in London. |
| 6 | | 'I love it, it's great fun and I'd happily do it every week. But I wouldn't recommend it to |
| 7 | | everyone. If you're incredibly particular and worry about drinks being spi lied or ash on |
| 8 | | the carpet, don 't do it.' |
| 3 | 9 | | Annette obviously enjoys getting involved: 'I offer them my children, the dogs and |
| 10 | | the cat as extras. I give them anything I can help with; if they like us, they'lI come back |
| 11 | | again.' |
| 4 | 12 | | One of the advantages of Annette's family home is that the rooms are large . If |
| 13 | | you're trying to fit a crew of, say, 35 into a kitchen, it needs to be at least 4.5 by 4.5 |
| 14 | | metres. 'That's the minimum size,' says Crecy den Hollander of Eureka, one of the major |
| 15 | | location management companie s. 'But 6 by 6 is nice, and anything larger is really nice. It |
| 16 | | depends what the project is. As a rough guide , you can expect about four to six people to |
| 17 | | turn up for a stills photo, 10 for a documentary, 35 to 40 for a commercial, and 60 for a |
| 18 | | feature film.' |
| 5 | 19 | | Location managers are on the lookout for the pretty, the normal, the messy and the |
| 20 | | unique. Location Works Ltd have a library containing everything from back streets in |
| 21 | | Londori's East End to Winchester Cathedral and even schools and playing fields . |
| 6 | 22 | | Despite the endless jokes in the business th at anyone who lets a film crew into his |
| 23 | | home needs to have his head examined, the impression I got from both location |
| 24 | | managers and owners was th at everyone has a good time . I was able to test this out |
| 25 | | recently, after letters were posted to everyone in my street, asking if they'd be prepared to |
| 26 | | let their home be used for a TV ad. |
| 7 | 27 | | One of the people who was interested, and chosen, was my next-door neighbour, |
| 28 | | Julie. She had been warned to expect about 35 people but was still a bit discouraged |
| 29 | | when the vans and crew slowly gathered one morning outside her house at aquarter to |
| 30 | | eight. 'By nine o'c1ock there was a huge generator, a catering van, a yellow bus, a lighting |
| 31 | | van and a thumping great "caravan" which they were using as a production base, lined |
| 32 | | up outside the house. Every inch of remaining space in the street was occupied by the |
| 33 | | erew's cars.' |
| 8 | 34 | | Julie, in fact, decided to trust the company and, having welcomed them all, left the |
| 35 | | hou se for the day. All was weil, and, as far as the crew were concerned, it was nicer to be |
| 36 | | left to get on with the job. Annette, however, suggests that you stay for a while preferably |
| 37 | | until they have settled in. ' I went out once, and got back to find they had |
| 38 | | taken some liberties. They had used one room for make-up, and another for the crew to |
| 39 | | have lunch in - and they had used the phone. None of these I had agreed to, or got paid |
| 40 | | for.' |
| 9 | 41 | | How the day goes depends very much on what is being shot. 'One day I had the |
| 42 | | Royal Society of Medicine here doing a film on breastfeeding,' laughed Annette. 'There |
| 43 | | were 24 babies through that day ! I would rather have had dogs or cats . Anything but |
| 44 | | babies!' |
| 10 | 45 | | And, of course, if they overrun, which happens quite often, you could find yourself |
| 46 | | stepping over cables and dodging crews until 10 p.m.! |
