They are a little like detectives, except there is no dead body
in the parlor room, nor is there a butler lurking in the shadowy
hallway. Instead, John Carstarphen and Rebecca Rice search for
clues that will lead them to the right location. Carstarphen, 44,
and Rice, 49, run D-Studios, an independent film production company
in Dallas.
Carstarphen and Rice tool about Dallas in his '95 Chevy or
her '93 Nissan Sentra, sometimes driving miles and miles around
the Texas desert, to find the proper setting. It's even more
difficult than it sounds.
"Is the look going to be right for the story?" wonders
Rice. "The look is equally important to the quality of sound
we can get. A lot of locations may not be noisy, but [they] may
have real bad acoustics, so we have to be cognizant of that. We
have to know whether we have enough access to electricity to run
the camera and the lights. Availability is a big issue. Can we get
the location the way we need it, for as long as we need
it?"
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D-Studios, on average, produces three pictures per year, which
translates into about 30 locations. Finding the proper location is
crucial to the success of their filmmaking business.
Or any business. Just as a movie needs the right location for a
scene, so, too, does your company.
You may not think about location much, especially if you only
have the funds to operate out of your parents' garage. But
whether it's going to be in your first month of business, or
after your first year, someday you're going to need the proper
setting for your start-up. At some point, every entrepreneur needs
to be a location scout.
Originally published in the June 2002 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine
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