Ipek A. Celik Rappas, "Filming in European Cities: The Labor of Location" (Cornell UP, 2025)
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Welcome to the new Books Network.

Hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. Ipek Selig-Rapis about her book titled Filming in European Cities, the Labour of Location, published by Cornell University Press in 2025. This book takes us very much behind the scenes, in fact, exploring, explaining what sort

of labor, and there's a lot of different kinds here, go into making things show up on screen, right? What happens with finding the right location to shoot something in? What sorts of thinking is involved? What sorts of labor is involved? What sorts of coordination? I mean, there's a whole bunch of steps that we as the audience of the finished product are usually completely unaware of. And that's maybe not the best place for us to be as audiences. This book

helps us understand what's going on that we don't otherwise notice. So Ipek, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast to tell us about your book. Thank you so much for having me, Miranda. I'm really excited to be here and share a bit about my book with you. Well, I'm very pleased to have you. But before we get too far into the book, could you please introduce yourself and tell us why you decided to write this?

Okay, sure. A quick introduction. My name is Ipek Celik-Rapas and I'm a scholar in film and media studies. And my work focuses on media industries and production, especially in relation to marginalized communities across Europe.

So the idea for this book actually grew out of my first one, In Permanent Crisis, which was published in 2015. And it looked at how migrants and minorities were portrayed in European cinema and media during the 2000s. And after this project, I became more and more curious about the people behind the camera and how these films were actually made.

And this curiosity led me to interviewing people who are involved in production. And I did not just interview directors or producers, but also art directors, line producers, even extras. I was especially interested in those often overlooked roles that are also so essential to filmmaking.

And the result of that research is my new book, Filming in European Cities. It takes a close look at the labor behind film and TV production in Europe, and you very well described it. It also explores how these production processes have an impact on cities, on neighborhoods and on communities that appear on screen.

Thank you for that sort of origin story, I suppose, of the project. Obviously, the title of the book, Filming in European Cities, is relatively straightforward to understand. But is there anything further we want to discuss at this point about the subtitle, The Labour of Location?

Yes. So the phrase labor of location is really central to what the book is about. It highlights this invisible work that goes into making film and television locations look effortless on screen, sort of like effortless makeup or something, you know, that they look effortless, yet there is a lot of effort behind it.

When we think about filming, we often picture the camera, the actors, maybe the director. But behind every scene, there is also the background, the carefully chosen space that is negotiated, found, cleaned up, altered, sometimes completely transformed to fit a particular creative vision or

Sometimes a city stands in for another city. And all this is labor that is often hidden from view. It points to real physical but also creative labor in setting up these places as filming spaces. It's very similar to, I find, domestic labor like housekeeping that...

you know, somebody keeps things running smoothly and that somebody is rarely acknowledged.

So a location might seem like a passive background, but in reality, it is very much constructed. And finding and prepping locations involves many people, many parts of the crew, art directors, line producers, as well as local media commissions. So there is logistical labor like staying on budget,

Working with residents and property owners, managing safety, making a site screen ready. And sometimes this even means turning one place into something completely different. And I chose this phrasing, labor of location, to change the assumption that locations are just there. They don't exist.

They're not just there waiting to be filmed, especially busy and this constantly changing urban settings. Preparing these sites takes a lot of coordination, a lot of negotiation and creativity. So labor of location is about making the invisible visible. It is about recognizing that locations aren't found, but they are made, they are crafted.

These are some points that I think are worth remembering for really any film that we would see and obviously any location that could be included. That's important in terms of something for audiences to be aware of, but is a nightmare from a research project point of view, because if these points apply to like any labor of location for any screened thing, like how do you narrow that down? Can you tell us which locations you decided to focus on in the book and how you made these choices? Yeah.

So the book principally focuses on four European cities, Belfast, Athens, Paris. But I also talk about Berlin a little bit, Jaffa, sometimes Damascus in Syria. And each of these cities offer a unique example, unique lens on the relationship between screen production and production.

urban space. Now, first, why Europe? I mean, why did I choose Europe in the first place? In the 2000s, there is a noticeable increase in both local and transnational screen productions across the continent. And there's a

big reason for this is that the infrastructure. So Europe has a wide range of facilities. It also has experienced English-speaking crews and a growing number of both regional and national media commissions that offer production companies a lot of things, including tax rebates, logistical support,

Let's take the example of Belfast. This is one of the cities I look at closely because it transformed itself to a major production hub. Those who are fans of or were fans of Game of Thrones might know that this is one of the main filming locations this was used to be.

And that show didn't only bring international attention, but also helped to shift the city's image, right? So Belfast was known and long associated as a place of conflict. And now it's linked to fantasy, creativity, and global storytelling. In a way, Belfast rebranded itself as Game of Thrones' Westeros.

But I didn't only want to focus on this kind of high budget productions. I also looked at cities like Athens, Paris and Istanbul, which are thriving in a complete different way in lower budget local productions.

Athens, for instance, for cinema lovers, is a really vibrant city in what some call weird wave films, quirky, often experimental local films that are very popular in festival circles. Also, Paris has a very steady output of films made for television, local television or Europe-wide television like Arte. And then Istanbul has...

become a powerhouse for TV dramas that are produced rather affordably and exported all around the world. So for me, what is interesting about these lower budget productions is that

they have to stay where they are. And it's not very easy to stay in a city and imagine another city. For instance, they don't have the money to fly entire crews to other cities. So Paris or Istanbul might have to stand in for a city with a complete different architecture like Lyon or sometimes even like Tokyo. Um,

So that puts a lot of pressure on people who have to find locations to either find fresh spaces in the cities that are already very much filmed or to creatively transform a city to a complete other one.

So across these four cities, Belfast, Athens, Paris and Istanbul, we see very different kinds of productions with very different budgets, timelines and also audiences. But in all cases, there is a shared reliance on location labor, on the people who make these spaces ready for screen, whether it's a short indie film or a global fantasy epic.

That's a very useful description of the locations and also gives us a sense of the range that they cover in all sorts of different ways. Is there anything else we need to discuss in terms of the questions you're asking in this book, in this sort of laying the foundation section of our discussion? So the book is really driven by a few core questions that all come back to this idea of location not being just a backdrop of

but as something that is worked on, something that is negotiated and crafted. So first I ask, why does location need labor? As I mentioned, we tend to think of places just as being there, ready to be filmed, but in reality, I explore the huge amount of work that goes into making a location fit the creative and also logistical needs of production. And

And this leads to another key question. How do screen professionals engage with urban space in their day-to-day work? Because I interviewed with a lot of people who are trying to integrate their work and deal with location. So I was interested in how location managers, but also art directors and other crew members navigate cities and how they deal with traffic, with noise, etc.

with sometimes weather conditions, with permit structures, and sometimes just convincing a shop owner to let them film on site. I also look at the role of media commissions.

And these are organizations that help bring productions into a city. They offer funding, they offer tax incentives and logistical support. So I ask, what role do media commissions play in shaping the screen economy in Europe? And how significant is screen industry to certain cities and regions?

Another question I explore is about aesthetics and appeal. Why are former factories or lower income neighborhoods so attractive to filmmakers? These places often offer a certain texture or grittiness that fits a lot with certain stories. But there's also a tension there when productions come into real communities that are often vulnerable.

So this brings me to a final question. What is the impact of screen production on the places and on the people who live there? Sometimes it's economic opportunity, but sometimes it is just disruption and it even causes displacement sometimes. So I think

try to look at both the promises and potential positive elements, but also the problems that come with turning urban space into a screen space. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from Ebbgliss.

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Okay, so that's very helpful to understand the questions you're asking and the context in which you're asking them. Now that we've talked about the subtitle and the locations you're focusing on,

Let's get into then kind of how this starts off, I suppose. So who are location scouts? Is that even a standardized job description where someone who does that in Istanbul is doing the same sort of job as someone in Paris? Or if it's from, you mentioned Belfast with the very high production values of Game of Thrones versus some production that isn't.

Is there even such a thing as the location scout or does it change a lot? Yes, indeed. I keep on talking about location scouts, but I should probably describe what they do and who they are. They are...

among the first people brought onto a project. And they start their job before the cameras roll. And their mission is essentially, they take the script in hand, then they imagine every scene, and then they head out to find the real world places to bring those scenes to life.

But what it means to be a location scout, of course, it really depends on where you are, which production you're working on, but especially where you are in Paris, for instance, scouts work.

work almost entirely during pre-production. So they read through the script, they hunt down the perfect spot. Sometimes they even help the production team to get the permits they'll need. At least they let them know budget-wise how much a particular place would cost. And they also have personal portfolios. So they show people places that they have pictured before.

the locations they can offer up from previous trips or previous shootings that they have scouted for. Now, in Paris and Athens, sorry, in Athens and Istanbul, though, the job...

can stretch much further. So scouts also are often juggling with not only finding locations, but moving equipment around, managing parking, even sometimes overseeing repairs and cleanup once the production is done. So they actually manage the location, not just find the location.

But still, no matter the city, all Scouts share one thing. They are masters at matching what is imagined on the page with what is really possible on the ground. So they know how to open doors literally by connecting property owners and guiding production teams through the maze of local laws and permits.

That is rather a lot of different things. How does that work in practice? Like if you're walking around going, oh, I need to find a balcony that has white paint and then I also need to figure out who the landlord is and apply for the permit. Like, is that really what it's like to do this?

sometimes they just go knock doors sometimes they have to go into quite dangerous places and they have real life danger and there has been a couple of scouts who were actually killed at the job they they sometimes they're in their own magazines they're talking about how they should be learning skills in defending themselves but the one of the very ordinary challenges really to

a director's dream with the real world challenge because aesthetics does not always necessarily go with the logistics, you know, and this is what fascinates me about what scouts do. They constantly have to balance this creativity with the very sheer kind of physical logistics of things.

Now, apparently directors can be very difficult because especially for indie films or art film circles, they want

fresh places, new places, never filmed before places. But new places also mean new challenges, new permits, new owners to convince, new problems to resolve. You know, I mean, sometimes directors also have conflicting demands. For instance, a scout in Paris told me

They were searching for an apartment complex in a banlieue in a suburb of Paris. And the director wanted something almost impossible because it was contradictory. So he wanted a building that was empty, empty.

but also had still running electricity, a building that looked rather common, but also not too run down. So she literally spent days showing him options all around the city. And only finally he chose the very first one that she had suggested. So even though scouts are paid by the hour, this process is...

The second guessing, the endless scouting is both physically and mentally exhausting. At least that's what I learned from the interviews I had with them. And in cities like Istanbul, it might be even tougher because scouts, they often don't get paid for pre-production and search at all, only for managing the location. So all the time they spent looking for a place can be completely go, you know, unpaid for.

Wow, that's pretty intense. How much does the work that they put in, paid or unpaid, end up influencing what the final product looks like? Like, for example, is it the case where a director could say something like, I want something that looks like this, and the scout goes, well, actually, that's not really a thing. But if you're aiming for this sort of vibe, why don't you look for this location instead? And then that's what ends up happening. Is that a kind of influence these scouts can have?

Absolutely. That is exactly the influence that they have because directors usually when they put up together mood boards, they usually come up with multiple places. The photographs are taken from multiple places. But the team cannot go to multiple places for reasons of budget reasons.

So the scout needs to find a place that fits the image that the director have of multiple places in one place. So they have actually huge influence more than people realize. They constantly keep negotiating with the director or the producer.

because the producer and the director have a specific location in mind when they start the project. And even in travel magazines, it's funny because the way scouting is represented is just like, oh, they're just scrolling around, taking pictures. If you ask scouts, it's...

much more complicated because they need to understand what the script sometimes doesn't tell them. For instance, the emotional atmosphere of that scene and try to find then a real world location that matches and enhances these feelings. Sometimes they say the scripts aren't even descriptive. A line might simply say, Paul walks by the river.

okay then the scout needs to figure out what kind of river is it calm is it turbulent what's the symbolic meaning of this river in the story and then they kept on telling me it's really a question of negotiation with the director constantly sending them images and trying to understand what they want and have this dialogue because usually the the text is vague and they're trying to

turn vague text into vivid and concrete worlds. And the process is rarely straightforward. So scouts keep on sending location options and it's an ongoing conversation which makes scouting very creative and a collaborative part of filmmaking. Hmm.

Yeah, just thinking about all sorts of directions that can happen, you know, walks by a building, what kind of building, right? There's loads of things that have to be investigated just from something that sounds really simple and absolutely can then impact the final version.

But I want to talk about some of the places you discussed in the book in a little bit more detail, picking up on some things you said earlier, now that we have a better idea of what location scout can mean in so many different contexts. You use the example of Belfast and you discuss a few other instances of post-conflict cities that have not just become filming locations, but really have sort of branded themselves as filming locations.

How have they done that? And how much is their status as a post-conflict place part of these conversations?

Okay. In order to get there, let's first start thinking back to European cities in earlier movies, like movies shot in 60s and 70s. And when filmmakers showed places like Athens or Paris in these iconic films, Hollywood movies, they usually highlighted these heritage sites like the Parthenon or

or the Eiffel Tower, sort of classic postcard images that wanted to draw tourists. Now, fast forward to 2000s, things look a little different. Think of action blockbusters like Bourne movies or Bourne series. They started taking audiences to a wider range of locations, and not all of them are glamorous locations.

And this shift is especially important for post-industrial, post-socialist, post-conflict cities. So these places wanted to shake off their image as stagnant, as struggling zones, and really reposition themselves as dynamic and creative hubs that could attract tourism and investment. And film industry, TV industry, is the perfect example

candidate to make the city that dynamic hub or show the city as such. Cities like Budapest, Prague, Belfast, Liverpool, these weren't places that were traditionally seen as filming hotspots. And suddenly they found themselves in the spotlight, sometimes even

They're not filmers themselves always. I mean, sometimes they just stand in for somewhere else. I mean, people who are not fans of Game of Thrones may not even know that the Iron Throne is in Belfast. So the Iron Throne is in some fantastic place. Or sometimes Liverpool...

is doubling for London. It's cheaper to film there. So visually, you know, it can be made to look the part.

And here's the thing, rundown factories, abandoned or low income neighborhoods, post-industrial sites, they become incredibly valuable in terms of filmmaking because these locations are attractive, not just because of the aesthetics, the gritty textured or the urban look, but also for practical reasons, you know,

These are cheaper to use, just like Liverpool is a cheaper version of London or the way it promotes itself, at least. You know, an old factory is easier to redecorate, sometimes easier to blow up for action scenes. And usually these cities come up with tax rebates, funding supports, etc.

You see this in everything in films about clandestine refugees set in crumbling warehouses to edgy ads for sports brands. I mean, there's even an example of engagement photo shoots made in raw urban backdrops. So these places are attractive aesthetically and also they are affordable. 24 Shafts.

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Definitely interesting to think about how all these different factors come together. But picking up on that, it's cheaper to blow something up if you have an action film, for example. What about places where the point of the location is that it's essentially, quote unquote, ruined? I mean, how often are those places actually ruined? Like what happens to the people who live there?

I call them ruined places, but it doesn't mean necessarily that, of course, there's no nobody lives in these sites. There's also low income neighborhoods. What appears ruined in the film is not necessarily ruined to the people who are living in these places sometimes. So, yeah.

It's important to recognize that while screen production can bring visibility to marginalized spaces and people, it might also extract value from them in quite problematic ways. So take lower income neighborhoods, for instance, for example.

Film crews, and this is what they told me, so I'm kind of conveying their experience. They sometimes reluctantly may damage property to move production forward, especially in Istanbul. This happens because there's very tight deadlines and they have to produce weekly a very rushed kind of schedule. So they said they might just

punch a wall, sorry, punch a wall in a wall and assuming that these neighborhoods, lower income neighborhoods and residents are less likely to report them to authorities. And if there's any fallout, things are smoothed over with small payments, far less than what it would cost if the damage happened in an upper middle class neighborhood. So the residents are,

you know, sometimes also there as cheap extras. Let me give you another example. A film about migrants, a film that is actually quite progressive in its messaging, was shot in a former refugee camp. So refugees had been forcibly removed from that place so quickly that their belongings were still there.

We're talking about sleeping bags, toys, messages written on the walls. So throughout the movie, we see these traces of life that are on screen. Now, this is, as I said, a progressive film. But here's the issue. The film uses these deeply personal items without the refugees' knowledge or consent or any direct benefit to them. So their stories, their belongings make the film more powerful, but only in their absence.

So even when a production's narrative appears really progressive, highlighting struggles, promoting rights, the industrial practice behind the scenes can still exploit or not benefit or not really benefit vulnerable communities in some form.

cases even harm their well-being. So this is what I try to explore in the book. Yeah, that's definitely important to, well, make more known and visible, given that so much of this happens behind the scenes.

Another thread you mentioned earlier that I'd love to draw out a little bit is the idea of the urban chaos of it all. Especially if we're talking, you know, big cities that change a lot. What additional labor does that create for location scouts? And to what extent does that make the work even more precarious?

So in the book, I focus on a city like Istanbul, which is constantly evolving, constantly changing. And these professionals work under and we're talking about the whole crew, not only scouts. They work under intense pressure, which is incredibly tight production schedules. Turkish series, for example, they run anywhere from 90 to 140 minutes per episode. And this is produced weekly.

This means that crews often work very long hours, 17 to 18 hours a day. Their union is trying to regulate these hours and the job security is tenuous. So series can be canceled anytime ratings dip. So we're talking about already very precarious work. Right. But it's not...

just the hours that make the job unstable. They also have to deal with a rapidly transforming city, a place where they have been shooting a week before. That building where they have been shooting that TV series might not be there anymore. So in Istanbul, professionals are dealing with constant construction noise, for one thing, near shooting locations, sometimes flight schedules from nearby airports affect their shoots.

sometimes improper restoration of historical buildings because they might be shooting a period series. And, you know, okay, we're to create that period series of 60s Istanbul where the restoration is done in a way that there is a sort of TV antennas hanging around. So the faster the city changes, the more work these professionals have to put in to keep images alive,

aesthetically pleasing, and also to keep the continuity of an image, you know, from one day to another, from one shooting to another. Um,

And the more overworked they are, they also care less about they themselves altering city spaces to fit their immediate needs. As I mentioned, there's this sort of making a hole on the wall because they have to constantly balance between permit issues, resident concerns and the speed at which the city transforms. So, yeah.

you know, the, the screen professionals are constantly managing the oral and the visual, uh, chaos around them. And, uh, again, this is not only about Istanbul. This could also be about Paris, which has very clear property structures, which the, uh, scouts and the crew needs to know, okay, where can I put my belongings? Where can I park the, uh,

the truck, all these informations are very much sort of, let's say, based on neighborhood and it changes from one neighborhood to another. So really requires quite a lot of knowledge. And, you know, if they don't get enough permits, then their job can be like carrying the equipment, you know, 10 floors up,

without stopping because sometimes they don't have the permit to stop and lay their equipment around. So all this very detailed permits and the way cities structured and sometimes the chaotic permit structures can really make their life miserable.

That is rather a lot of permits, in fact, all sorts of complexities that viewers are almost always never aware of. And obviously, you're helping change that with the book and obviously explaining it to us here as well. Is there anything else we want to discuss in terms of kind of what you most hope listeners keep in mind next time they watch something that inevitably would have had at least one location scout involved in its development?

Okay, so, well, one thing that kind of stands out is the paying attention to how screen industries

as dynamic as they are, can end up doing harm than good to communities and cities and even their own workers. So but I don't end the book with a sort of negative tone. So I like to end up with a positive vision and concrete suggestions, maybe.

So screen industry rarely considers the idea of producing less content, but in doing so in a more ethical way, you know, caring for the environment, for the locations, for residents, for the well-being of crew members. So I propose that instead of cranking out more and more productions, which is maybe inevitable in this

kind of atmosphere where we all have multiple platforms or we're all subscribers to multiple platforms and we kind of binge watch so I also say something about consumption but in terms of production creating more ethical narratives that stay grounded in local communities and

Less production doesn't also mean less work for people involved, less pressure, more humane working conditions. But also, I end the book with the other side of the equation, with consumption. So we are familiar mainly with slow consumption.

movements or slow fashion movements, but I'd like to end the book with slow watching, a slow spectatorship. So we're watching films and TV shows every day. Sometimes we're overwhelmed with the sheer number of the options when you come

kind of turn on the TV every night. You're like, okay, what do I watch now? And we sometimes don't even remember what we watched last night. So having multiple platforms in one household, we're consuming different shows sometimes simultaneously. And the industry is basically catering to all these different niche tastes every day.

And we lose something which is more of a communal experience of watching. But I'm not talking about something only nostalgic, but it is quite environmental to watch things together, watch movies and TV shows together. So the collectivity and the shared waiting for episodes made spectators and production more eco-friendly.

So what I call for is a sustainable screen industry that is more mindful, but also less

productive and mindful and slow in terms of its spectatorship. So I wrapped the book with a call for a broader understanding of sustainability in terms of screen, one that involves both conscious production on a local level and a more mindful and slow consumption of media and entertainment.

Well, that's definitely a great place to conclude our discussion of the book as well. But before I let you go, is there anything you're currently working on that you want to give us a brief sneak preview of?

So indeed, right now I'm diving into a new project that builds on this conclusion, slow production and consumption. It's about creating ethical, more participatory processes in media, especially when it comes to marginalized communities, focusing on how we can make production fair for crew, encourage less binge watching and foster more conscious, more collective watching practices.

So the big question is how do we promote this shift in production, in representation and also in consumption? I'm also working on...

on a different project that has nothing to do with this one because my work is essentially on space, justice and media production. And this other project is on prison media, basically media created by people in prison. And this includes everything from prison newspapers to podcasts created in prison, even letters exchanged from prison newspapers.

So I'm really interested in how those inside use media as a form of expression and resistance. Both of those are very interesting projects. Best of luck progressing with them. Thank you very much, Miranda.

In the meantime, of course, while you're doing that, listeners can read the book we've been talking about titled Filming in European Cities, The Labour of Location, published by Cornell University Press in 2025. Ipek, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Thank you very much for listening, Miranda. And thank you for your listeners.

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