Being a location scout makes you realize that all of us carry, deep within our brains, a vast catalog of location archetypes. Picture an alley, an office space, a carnival, and an image INSTANTLY jumps to mind. Except, weirdly, finding such places in reality is really hard!
And it can make scouting really difficult, because when people see a place, the reaction is usually not “ah, this is an example of x,” but rather, “mmm, this doesn’t really look like x.” Which is weird…because it is X!
But movies and TV depend on instant visual recognition, so you find yourself ALWAYS on the lookout for those real-life proto-locations, where all the elements perfectly match your “ur” idea of them.
The above motel exterior I drove by this morning is a great example of this. That ultra clean motel sign, the very simple yellow/beige/orange palette, the office sign, even that clock – all of this was probably off-the-shelf whenever it was installed, and yet decades later, it is priceless as a visual for conveying exactly what you picture as a motel.
Which is why you’ll often find me taking pictures of random places like this that most people would see as just another motel, another alley, another office… They are indeed those things, but in such a way that few others are.
Which ultimately raises the question: Which came first, the motel? Or your image of a motel?
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