Where to Find a Location Scout in Washington, DC

Wondering how to find a location scout All of the intrigue that surrounds the United States — including its secrets, national treasures, and every new twist in American democracy — happens right in the heart of Washington, DC. It’s no surprise that any filmmaker wanting to make an important film — or one about America’s history — is interested in filming at the nation’s capital.

If you’re working on a blockbuster with 50 or 60 places, you may need to lean on the insider knowledge of DC-based location scouts. To find the perfect filming location in DC, it’s oftentimes necessary to hire someone who truly knows the city.

If you’re working on a smaller-budget film, a DC expert is probably unnecessary, especially if you need to film in fewer locations. In fact, you can use a platform like Peerspace to uncover and book amazing local production spaces that would be nearly impossible to find otherwise. Peerspace is the largest online marketplace for hourly venue rentals. And in DC alone, you can easily procure hundreds of hidden gem spaces for your production needs.

No matter the size of your production, here’s everything you need to know to begin looking for a location scout in Washington, DC.

Looking for locations in DC? Start with Peerspace

For every film project, the process of scouting locations is one of the most significant parts of pre-production. If you’re looking for incredible filming locations in DC, you’re in luck — Peerspace has hundreds of rental properties and venues, many of which are available for rent at a moment’s notice. Take your pick from an array of fully-equipped film studios, art galleries with excellent lighting, breathtaking churches, modern office spaces, luxury apartments, historic mansions, and much more.

With Peerspace, it’s a nearly effortless task to find exactly what you’re looking for, especially since the service offers many helpful filters for finding rental spaces. You can search by how many crew members you need to accommodate or by space type. So, if you need rooftop spaces, garden areas, or anything else, you can most likely find it within seconds on Peerspace.

Beyond that, each Peerspace listing features many high-quality photos that give you a total overview of the space. In addition, there are detailed, useful reviews from other creatives who have previously rented the space for their own productions. All in all, if you want to stay within your production budget by being your own location scout – that is, without sacrificing the quality of your filming locations – then head on over to Peerspace.

Wondering what’s out there? Here are some of our favorite DC-area production spaces available to you through Peerspace:

• This fully-equipped industrial film and photo studio in Falls Church with lots of equipment included with your rental price, a green screen, backdrops, and more
• This traditional mansion in Georgetown with a grand living room, a foyer, a kitchen, a dining area, and a library
• This unique, light-filled loft in Arlington with 22-foot ceilings, exposed brick walls, concrete floors, and a modern industrial ambiance
• This film and production space in Northeast Washington with a flexible layout, rolling backdrops, speakers, and casual seating
• This historic Dupont sanctuary production-friendly church with pews, high ceilings, stained glass, and a pulpit
• This luxury lounge in the heart of Georgetown that’s soundproof, with a moody ambiance, a bar, seating, a kitchen, and freight elevators
• This penthouse in Southwest Washington with a private rooftop, Monument views, floor-to-ceiling windows, and three levels for filming

As you can see, Peerspace is an amazing resource when you want to find unique and high-quality production spaces that suit every style and price point. Next, we’ll share more websites that can help you find your Washington, DC filming locations.

These are the 7 best rooftops in Washington, DC and may be perfect for your project!

IMDB Pro

IMDB Pro keeps an exhaustive list of location scouts and location managers across the country. It can cost $150 a year – and it’s more than worth the price if you’re doing more than one project a year. It also keeps a list of all location scouts and managers, as well as every production manager, crew member, actor, casting director, and virtually everything to do with film.

And, best of all, people on IMDB Pro have the incentive to keep their profiles active and updated, so you don’t have to worry about coming across a defunct organization. Nine times out of 10, IMDB Pro will probably give you the greatest amount of information with the least amount of effort on your part.

ProductionHub

ProductionHub is a great resource to use when looking for basically anything that you may need to make a film. Location scouts, crews, vendors, and generally any type of equipment — they have it all.

To be fair, their list of location scouts for DC is admittedly a bit more underpopulated than their lists for other cities. But they do have a few solid-looking location scouts on their list.

Social media can help you hire the right location scout in DC

You’re a filmmaker, so odds are fair that even if you’re fresh out of film school, you will know people who can point you in the right direction about who to hire in DC. Reach out to your personal network. Collaborating with your network is one of the greatest ways to form deep relationships that you’ll carry throughout your whole career. And these relationships can ultimately have as much impact on your life and career as the films you create.

And if your own network doesn’t yield results, you can use tools – such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram – to perform a deep search for location scouts in Washington, DC. Using LinkedIn, you can see location scouts’ professional histories and whom they’ve worked with. And you can even reach out to other filmmakers for feedback on potential hires.

With Twitter, you can see what potential location scouts are like on a day-to-day basis, how active they are in the biz, what their filming philosophies are, and much more. And, lastly, using Instagram, you can get a great idea of scouts’ tastes, so you can judge how well their aesthetic choices complement yours. All in all, social media is incredibly useful to a filmmaker looking to hire the perfect team.

Check out these cool Instagram photo ideas in Washington, DC for more location inspiration!

Additional resources to help you scout for locations in DC

If, after using the above resources, you decide that hiring a location manager isn’t in your budget, here are a couple of other websites you can use to scout for locations:

LocationsHub

LocationsHub is a great website to use for scouting locations. It’s run by the well-known production/tech-company Reel-Scout. However, LocationsHub doesn’t manage these locations themselves, so you won’t be booking directly through LocationsHub. But they do keep a huge list of properties and venues available in DC, especially public locations, that you cannot access anywhere else.

The service offers public parks, monuments, private businesses, and so much more. Each listing has a contact person that you will need to get in touch with to inquire about renting. The listings generally do not have prices listed, so you’ll likely need to negotiate a price.

DC Government Film Office

The government film office in Washington, DC, also has a few lists of locations. Their primary list is run by Reel-Scout, so it’s identical to the one listed above. But they offer additional locations in different categories, such as neighborhoods, theaters, and restaurants.

You’ll definitely need to head over to the DC film office regardless because this is where you’ll need to go to get all of the permits you need in order to film here. Also, be sure to look into Washington, DC’s filmmaker rebate program, which, for productions that fulfill certain criteria, can rebate a very large portion of any production’s total cost. DC’s incentives for filmmakers are generous.

Location scout in Washington, DC: conclusion

We hope this list is helpful to anyone who is looking for locations or location scouts in Washington, DC. Remember that you can easily go the DIY route and land amazing filming locations through Peerspace.

Simply start a search and set the parameters to meet your aesthetic, budgetary, location, and amenity needs. Or simply start browsing here and check out the listings of all the spaces that intrigue you. Reach out to your venue’s local host with any questions. And most of all, have fun!

Find production locations in DC on Peerspace