In the Golden Age of Hollywood you would have seen everything from a kitchen with custom wall units Toronto based to a Paris street built inside of a studio in Los Angeles. But with all of the advancements that have been made in technology it is now much easier and cheaper for film crews to get out of the studio and film on location. The possibility of filming anywhere, from the Great Wall of China to the back of a New Jersey airport limo, has also created more opportunities for those who are making lower budget films. Here are some tips for finding the perfect location.

Before you can find the ideal spot to film, you need to know exactly what you're looking for. That means doing some serious script analysis to see what it says about the location. You might think that if it's set in an apartment in Davisville Village than any unit that's available would do. But you might find out that you need a certain layout, design, or amount of space. Make a list of all of the must-haves and the things that you'd like but could do without.

While it's always going to seem like the best idea to film in the location where the movie is actually set, this is not always ideal. You need to remember that you're going to need to bring all of your actors, crew and equipment to those Puerto Vallarta, Mexico condo rentals or that small town in France and that is not always feasible for a film on a tight budget. This is why it's important to work out the details of what exactly you need. You might find that your perfect location is actually just a few miles away.

Once you know where you want to shoot the next step is going to be getting all of your permits in place. It's a little easier to do that if you're filming inside the Lotus Yorkville than if you want to take over an entire street in a small town. Permits are usually going to be available from City Hall and some larger cities, like Toronto, even have an office for relations with film production companies.

The final step of setting up a location site is getting everything that you will need there and set up. Of course you're going to need your crew and actors, but you will also need to take care of things like craft services and hair and makeup. Make sure that you have space for all of these trucks and trailers when initially choosing your location.