My question is occasioned by the fact that I just picked up an old book (THE MAKING OF THE AFRICAN QUEEN")-which was the old Bogart-Hepburn movie. Its an interesting tale of how most of the movie was filmed in Central Africa (the Belgian Congo and Uganda)-and the tremedous cost and suffering that the actors endured. My question: when all was said and done, why didn’t they just film the thing in Florida? Most moviegoers probably couldn’t tell the difference-and in 1953, the difficultiesin filmoing in Africa must have been immense. For example, most of the cast came down with malaria, and it was quite dangerous out in the jungle.
So, given these days where we have digital photography and special effects, why would you film a movie on location? Say you were doing something on ancient egypt-wouldn’t the Mojave desert suffice?
The decision to do location shoots probably varies by individual film. Many could (maybe should) have been done on sound stages or in locations more easily/cheaply acquired.
My own guess is that working on location often costs less than using sets on studio lots. I’ve heard that the main reason many movies go to Canada is for much lower union costs.
If you’ll browse IMDB and check the filming locations of various films, you’ll find that many are selected for the authenticity of setting. Others for “similar” mood of setting. Etc.
I doubt there’s a generic answer to the question.
Sometimes you can get the look you’re going for by faking the location; either on a studio lot or in a less exotic location. Sometimes you just can’t. But the rule of thumb is that, for the look of the film, it’s virtually always better to be at the actual location. Let’s say you’re filming Toronto for New York (pretty common in lower budget films). This really limits your shots; you can’t decide at the last minute to go very wide, or it’s going to become obvious you’re not really in New York. Faking the location can really limit your shots. But sometimes, of course, the decision of actual location/faked location is restricted by budget. And sometimes it’s restricted by logistics.
But as far as The African Queen goes… I don’t know for sure, but I’m going to guess that back when The African Queen was made, it was probably considered good publicity and quite a draw to be able to say ‘filmed on location in Africa’. I’d guess that’s one of the main reasons they did it; not for budgetary or realism reasons, but for promotional reasons. That’s just a guess, though.
I just saw Roman Holiday, and they have a huge title card that says “Filmed on Location in Rome, Italy”. Seems like it was quite a selling point at the time.
There’s another reason: When you shoot a movie on the studio lot, producer types watch your every move, make “creative suggestions,” and generally interfere with the day-to-day of making a movie. If you’re on location in Tunisia, they have less opportunity to do that. (In an interview with The Comics Journal, Jules Feiffer–who wrote the screenplay for Popeye–offered that as an explanation of why director Robert Altman shot the movie in Malta when nothing in it couldn’t have been shot just as well on a soundstage or some other California location.)
In some cases, creative types care a lot about “purity” and “honesty” to the source material. The more pragmatic of us would say “Psha! nobody can tell the difference.” But if the director is established enough, studios will make concessions to satisfy the director’s vision.
Or maybe the director just wants to visit the place in question. “Yes my tahiti movie must be filmed in Tahiti…”
Brian
See the Clint Eastwood movie, White Hunter, Black Heart for a true (though fictionalized) story of one of the reasons John Huston wanted to shoot The African Queen on location. It’s based on a novel by Huston’s assistant.
“Hawaii Five-O” and “Magnum P.I.” were TV shows that made quite a bit of telling people that they were filmed in Hawaii. That seemed to be a big draw.
I can’t imagine the budget for recreating Middle Earth on a soundstage… 
Sometimes you can really tell when a TV show or movie is not shot on location - thanks to reruns of MASH* and Black Sheep Squadron I know what the hills outside LA look like, especially when they’re supposed to represent Korea or the South Pacific.
If you’re filming an epic movie that takes place in Scotland, you get realism by filming in Scotland. If it happens in Egypt, yeah, you could probably film in the Mojave and hire dark-skinned extras and rent camels, or you could film in Egypt with local extras who are used to being around cames and get a certain level of authenticity.
It also helps when audience members who’ve been to a place your movie happens in can say “Hey! I’ve been there! Cool!”. It establishes your surroundings if your character who lives in San Francisco walks out of his apartment and the skyline with the Transamerica tower is visible over his shoulder. Or if your Muscovite protaganist walks down a sidewalk and the camera cleanly pans up from him, across the rooftops, and fades out on the Kremlin. That’s why films like The X-Files, where the early part of the film is supposed to happen in Dallas, caused Texas audiences to break out in laughter - Dallas was represented as a city surrounded by desert scrub with mountains in the distance - I suppose maybe it was Dallas, NM? It ruins what you’re trying to create if blatant errors distract your audience because you didn’t think filming on location was important.
Even George Lucas realizes this - that’s why, when huge parts of his current crop of Star Wars movies are being filmed in studios with digital backgrounds, he’s still packing up and going to Tunisia to film the Tatooine sequences - because that’s what it should look like and the audience would notice differences.
If that’s true, then “Popeye” stands as a perfect example of why studio execs SHOULDN’T allow directors to shoot on location!
Maybe if a studio exec had SEEN what a mess Altman was making of the film, he’d have shut down production, or replaced Altman with a COMPETENT director in time to avert the catastrophe that is “Popeye.”