Building a Set or Using a Real Place

A production can build a space on a stage or find one that already exists. The choice affects cost, schedule, how the scene is lit and photographed, and how the actors behave in it. Neither option is better in general. Each gives up something the other provides.

These eight commentaries describe why filmmakers chose real places, why they built sets instead, and how several productions combined the two. Their accounts suggest that the choice depends less on money than on what the scene needs the space to do.

§1 What a real place gives the actors

The Two-Lane Blacktop commentary explains a preference for real locations in terms of performance.

A real street or building contains details nobody designed for the scene: noise, light, passers-by, the way a floor sounds underfoot. The commentary says those surroundings affect professional and non-professional actors alike.

The 28 Weeks Later filmmakers made the same choice for a different reason. They shot a sequence in the London Underground despite the difficulty.

The claustrophobic conditions that made the shoot hard were part of what the scene needed to show. The commentary treats the real location as the only way to get that tension.

§2 What a set gives the crew

A set is useful when the scene needs something a real place cannot reliably provide. Richard Donner describes one scene in Scrooged that needed visible breath.

Cold breath cannot be scheduled on location, and adding it later is difficult to make convincing. Building the set inside a refrigerated unit made the effect happen in front of the camera on every take. The actors were uncomfortable, but the image was dependable.

This is the usual argument for building: control over temperature, light, sound, and access. A set can be lit from above, have walls removed for the camera, and stay available for as long as the schedule requires.

A set still has to be paid for by the day, and that affects how it is filmed. The Rogue Nation commentary describes a sequence shot on a stage set with very little time.

The short schedule changed the visual style. A handheld camera needs less setup between shots than a formal, carefully placed one, so the sequence could be covered in the time available. The control a set provides does not remove the need to plan how it will be photographed.

§3 A location is not always cheaper

Productions often move a scene to a location to reduce the cost of a set. The Underworld Evolution commentary describes how that saving can disappear.

A location has rental fees, travel, permits, and limits on hours. If it also needs walls added, rooms dressed, and lights rigged, the total can approach the cost of building the set, without the control a set provides. The commentary adds that the decision is often made when a set’s estimate is presented and the production is asked to save money. Moving the scene to a location makes the budget look better, but can end up costing more.

The comparison has to include everything the location will need to look right on camera, not only its fee.

§4 Build something real

Michael Mann chose a third option for The Last of the Mohicans. Instead of building a set or finding an existing cabin, the production built a real one at the location.

A cabin built from logs, with period objects inside and crops planted outside, gave the actors and the camera a real place to work in. Mann describes the decision as cost-efficient and practical as well as better looking.

Wes Anderson describes a related approach on The Grand Budapest Hotel. The production found a building with most of what it needed and built the rest inside it.

The department store supplied a large real atrium. The production supplied the rooms around it, and later built the hotel’s lobby in a second period design inside the same space. The location provided the size and the set provided the specific design.

§5 A real space changes how you shoot

The choice also affects the camera. Roman Coppola describes a scene in The Darjeeling Limited set inside a train compartment.

The filmmakers chose to film the scene in a single continuous shot, without cuts, because the confinement of a real compartment added to the tension between the brothers. That decision required preparation. The commentary describes rehearsing the full shot, with the dolly and crew, on a mock-up before filming on the moving train, because the real space left almost no room for error.

A real location can suggest a way of shooting that a set would not. A set can always be opened up for the camera, so a director may never discover what the confined version would have looked like.

§6 Questions for choosing between a set and a location

These accounts suggest five questions:

1. What should the actors respond to? Two-Lane Blacktop and 28 Weeks Later used real places because the environment shaped the performances.
2. What must happen reliably on every take? Scrooged built a refrigerated set because visible breath could not be left to the weather.
3. What will the location cost after it is dressed? The Underworld Evolution commentary warns that a location’s savings can disappear once it is built out.
4. Can a real structure be built? The Last of the Mohicans built a working cabin that served as both location and set.
5. Can a found space hold a built one? The Grand Budapest Hotel used a department store’s atrium and built the rooms inside it.

The question is not whether a place is real or built. It is what the scene needs from the space, and which option provides it within the time and money available.