If you are a location scout or other film location professional, there are a number of ways to interact with peers and other location / production people online.
Below are some free resources I know of (and have initiated, in some cases) and probably belong to myself; if anyone knows of others I would be interested to find out about them:
Location Scout Networking Links
- locationtalk
- zimbio- location scouting (I started this group)
- ma.gnolia/locationscout (I started this group)
- locationscout linkit
- WheresSpot- Prisoners of Advertising – Forum formerly a free Yahoo Groups Forum, then a
paid subscriptionportal and which is now (once again free…) a collection of discussion groups which includes presences on Facebook: Wheresspot, LinkedIn: Wheresspot and Twitter: Wheresspot
See below for more about Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Google Groups
- alt.tv.commercials
- rec.arts.movies.production
- rec.video.production
- LocationPeople NYC (membership required)
Flickr
As well as being a well-known photo hosting portal, Flickr also is host to many imaging-related discussion / networking groups / photo pools, including a number of groups for location scouting.
Facebook has supplemented or replaced the need for some other older networking sites
i.e. “lifilm” a former / now extinct Yahoo Group is now Long Island International Film Festival on Facebook. Their internet site, part of the Nassau County, NY Film Office is Long Island Film. Another Long Island Film Festival is Long Island Film Festival International; Facebook: Long Island Film Festival International.
- A newer production-related website with a Facebook page is The Producer; Facebook: The Producer.
- Another group which exists solely on Facebook is NY TV People (free membership required).
There are many other professional and governmental organizations with close ties to location scouting and production that have their own (often members-only in the case of professional organizations…) networking forums and / or a Facebook Page such as:
- United Locations Departments Workers / Crossroads Location Scouts (ULDW / Crossroads); Facebook: ULDW / Crossroads
- Location Managers Guild of America (LMGA); Facebook: LMGA
- New Jersey Motion Picture & Television Commission (NJFilm); Facebook: NJFilm
- New York State Governor’s Office of Motion Picture & Television Development (NYSFilm); Facebook: NYSFilm
- NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (Made in NY); Facebook: Made in NY
- Connecticut Office of Film, Television & Digital Media (CTFilm); Facebook: CTFilm
- Pennsylvania Film Office (Film in PA); Facebook: Film in PA
- Greater Philadelphia Film Office (PhillyFilmOffice); Facebook: Philly Film Office
- Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI); Facebook: AFCI
- American Photographic Artists (APA); Facebook: APA National
- American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP); Facebook: ASMP (Many APA and ASMP local chapters have their own websites and Facebook Pages as well).
- Association of Commercial Producers International (AICP); Facebook: AICP
…to name but a very few.
Many organizations also have a LinkedIn presence as well.
Try googling, “(name of organization) LinkedIn”.
Likewise, many organizations also have a Twitter presence.
Try googling, “(name of organization) Twitter”.
Finding Location Scouts – Location Managers on Twitter
I am always curious who the other people out there in cyberspace are that are somehow associated with location scouting and location management for film / tv and photo, so I felt lucky to discover that Twitter has its own search engine now, search.twitter.
So… using the boolean search terms “location scout” OR “location scouts” OR “location scouting” OR “location manager” OR “location managers”, I came up this query to find Twitter tweets based on same.
What’s even kewler is Twitter provides an Atom feed for any query 🙂 it’s aggregated below 🙂 with the 10 most recent tweets that contain any of the search terms.
What is Twitter, anyway?
Wikipedia has the the following to say about Twitter:
Wikipedia | Twitter
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.
Twitter | About
Twitter, Inc. was born out of the offices of Obvious in March of 2006. We are located in the beautiful South Park neighborhood of San Francisco, California.
