Re: Come film in my town! What do you need

If all you ever promote is the desert, don't be surprised you don't get many films shot, unless they need that kind of location.

For Indie film makers, heck, for ANY film maker, good, cheap locations and varied locations are important; they reduce travel time and expense. You need to get people thinking about more than the sand. Look over your city architecture and interiors of buildings for locations that could work for many different kinds of stories. Offices. Hospitals. Jails. Factories. Restaurants. Hotels. Bus and train stations. Airports. Labs. Clubs and dance halls. Bowling alleys. Pools. Gardens. Old Military bases. Grocery stores. Vehicle collections of contemporary and period vehicles. And contacts for things like props and costumes.

Toronto has always done well because they have such a variety of architecture, you can pull off suggesting almost any location, so any script could theoretically be shot there. If you can compile a web site with a large variety of sets/locations and make it easy to do more kinds of stories, you're increasing your chances for success. This is what city and state film offices do.

Once you get all that compiled, run a small contest to produce a short using any of the locations you've found. Post the entries online. Now you have screen writers and producers looking at your locations in a new way.