CAN YOU FILM ANYWHERE IN NEPAL?

A beautiful location is not automatically a film location. Here is what actually determines whether you can shoot there.

There is a particular moment that happens quite often when somebody is planning a production in Nepal. They see a photograph of a place, usually somewhere spectacular, and send it across with a very reasonable question: “Can we film here?”

Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is yes, but. And occasionally the answer is, “You can certainly go there. Filming there is another matter.”

Nepal has an extraordinary number of places that look as though they were designed for a film. Himalayan valleys, old cities, monasteries, temples, forests, high altitude deserts, villages, rivers, lakes and enormous mountain landscapes are all within the same country. The Film Development Board itself maintains a long list of potential filming sites, from Everest Base Camp and Mustang to Bandipur, Lumbini, Chitwan and many other locations.

But a photograph of a location tells you almost nothing about the practical question of whether a production can operate there. The first thing I tell clients is that we have to separate three different questions: can you get there, can you film there, and can you actually do the production you have in mind there?

Those are not the same question.

THE BEAUTIFUL PLACE IS ONLY THE BEGINNING

Location scouting is often misunderstood as the search for beautiful places.

Of course beauty matters. The director, photographer or production designer needs to see whether the location works visually. But once a location becomes a serious candidate, we start looking at everything that the photograph conveniently leaves out.

Who owns it?

Who manages it?

Who needs to give permission?

Can a vehicle reach it?

Where will the crew park?

Where will equipment be unloaded?

Can generators operate there?

Where do people go to the toilet?

Where will the crew eat?

What happens if it rains?

What happens if the location is crowded?

What happens if the owner says no?

Can a large lighting package physically enter?

Can an actor, model or elderly contributor comfortably reach it?

And if the location is several hours from Kathmandu, where does the production stay?

This is why our location scouting and management work in Nepal begins with more than a camera and a list of pretty places. A location has to work for the story, the camera, the crew and the production around it.

I have rejected beautiful locations because they were completely wrong for the actual production. That is not failure. That is scouting.

A FILM PERMIT DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE KEYS TO NEPAL

This is one of the most important distinctions for an international production to understand. A national filming permission and permission to use a particular location are not necessarily the same thing.

The Film Development Board's current guidance makes this quite clear. A production may need additional consent from the Department of Archaeology for archaeological and heritage locations, from the Pashupati Development Fund for the Pashupatinath area, from conservation authorities for protected areas, and from other relevant authorities depending on where the filming takes place. Upper Mustang and Upper Dolpa have additional requirements, while Lumbini has its own authority as well.

There can also be a completely separate conversation with the person, institution, community or organisation that controls the particular place you want to use. This is where an inexperienced production can get into trouble. Someone finds a location, assumes the national filming permit covers it, arrives with a camera and discovers that the people who actually manage the location were never consulted.

That is a very uncomfortable time to begin the conversation.

KATHMANDU VALLEY IS FULL OF LOCATIONS THAT NEED MORE THAN A CAMERA

Kathmandu is particularly interesting because some of the most useful filming locations are also some of the most culturally and historically important places in the country. Bhaktapur Durbar Square is not an empty backlot. Patan is not an abandoned set. Pashupatinath is not simply a visually impressive temple complex that happens to be available for a shoot.

These are living places.

People pray there. Families work there. Visitors move through them. Festivals happen there. Ceremonies happen there. Businesses operate around them.

A production has to enter that environment without behaving as though everybody else has been hired as an extra.

We learned this very directly on the Nippon Paint commercial, which involved filming across Bhaktapur and Patan in a highly compressed schedule with more than 200 crew members from Nepal, Malaysia and India, around 400 extras, elephants and a substantial technical operation.

Two major heritage locations had to accommodate a large commercial production without losing sight of the fact that they were heritage sites first.

The story of filming Nippon Paint across Bhaktapur and Patan is worth reading because it shows the difference between finding a heritage location and actually producing inside one.

That distinction becomes even more important when the production is large.

SOMETIMES THE LOCATION OWNER IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PERMIT

A private house, hotel, farm, factory, school, restaurant or piece of land may look like exactly what the production needs. The national filming permission does not mean the owner has agreed to let you bring fifty people, lights, generators, vehicles and equipment onto the property. This sounds obvious, but productions become surprisingly complicated when different people assume somebody else has already spoken to the owner.

Location negotiation is therefore part of production rather than an administrative task that happens after scouting.

Sometimes the negotiation is straightforward. Sometimes the owner has conditions. Sometimes the community has concerns. Sometimes the location is available on one date but not another. Sometimes the place looks perfect until you discover that the road access crosses land controlled by somebody else.

This is why location management and fixing in Nepal involves access negotiation, community coordination, cultural briefings and location specific arrangements alongside the more obvious scouting and permits.

A photograph finds the place. A production has to find its way into the place.

PROTECTED AREAS ARE ANOTHER WORLD

Nepal's protected landscapes create some of the country's most extraordinary filming opportunities, but they also come with another layer of responsibility and permission. National parks and conservation areas are not simply large pieces of land where a production can arrive and set up.

There are entry requirements, filming permissions and location specific rules. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation guidance for conservation areas explicitly distinguishes ordinary entry from documentary and filming permission.

That distinction matters enormously for wildlife productions.

A filmmaker may be able to enter an area as a visitor but that does not mean they can bring a full production crew, lighting, vehicles, specialist equipment and a large shooting operation into the same environment.

The scale of the production changes the conversation. So does the subject.

A wildlife film may require a very different approach from a tourism commercial. A documentary following researchers may require different access from a fashion shoot. A conservation project may have its own protocols around animals, researchers and sensitive locations.

Our wildlife filming and photography work in Nepal sits at that intersection of production and field reality. Serious wildlife work requires more than knowing where an animal has been seen. It requires an understanding of access, timing, field logistics, specialist knowledge, equipment, safety and the environment itself.

MUSTANG IS NOT JUST ANOTHER LOCATION

Mustang is a good example of why a location should never be judged from a photograph alone. The landscape is extraordinary. That part is easy. The production question is much harder.

The terrain, weather, altitude, roads, accommodation, equipment movement, local communities and permissions all become part of the planning. Certain areas also have additional government requirements. The Film Development Board specifically identifies Upper Mustang and Upper Dolpa as locations requiring additional consent from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

We have worked in Mustang enough times to know that the photograph is the least complicated part.

On the Powerade commercial, a remote Mustang plateau became a football field for a very large international production. More than 550 people were involved on site, including football players, extras and international crew, with medical support and emergency arrangements operating alongside the production.

That was not a matter of finding a nice mountain and putting a camera there. The location had to become a temporary production environment. The Powerade production story shows what that means in practice.

REMOTE LOCATIONS CHANGE WHAT “ACCESS” MEANS

A location can be technically accessible and still be completely impractical for the production. This happens frequently in mountain photography and film.

You may be able to reach the village, but the camera equipment may not be able to reach the final position. A vehicle may get close, but somebody still has to carry the equipment for an hour. The crew may reach the location, but there may be nowhere suitable to keep equipment dry if the weather changes.

This is why our remote and high altitude production planning treats access as part of the production rather than a separate travel question.

On Black Narcissus, the production had to create and improve access through difficult Himalayan terrain for cast, crew, equipment and animals. Roads and trails became part of the production infrastructure itself.

That is a very different definition of location access from saying, “Yes, there is a road.”

DRONES HAVE THEIR OWN VERSION OF “CAN WE FILM THERE?”

The same mistake happens with aerial work. A production sees an extraordinary valley and asks whether it can fly a drone there. The answer cannot simply be based on whether the drone physically can fly.

Foreign nationals intending to operate a drone in Nepal are required to obtain temporary drone registration through the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, and CAAN requires the drone to be presented for inspection. Its current guidance also requires information about the purpose and proposed locations of operation.

Depending on the operation, additional security, location and aviation permissions can also be involved.

Our aerial filming and drone services in Nepal therefore start with the flight plan and permissions, not with somebody standing on a mountain holding a drone.

For still photography, the same principle applies. Our commissioned aerial photography work is built around the photograph first, with the aircraft, camera, route and permissions designed around what the assignment actually requires.

That is a much safer way to approach aerial production than deciding where the drone should fly after everybody has already arrived.

SOMETIMES THE LOCATION IS AVAILABLE BUT THE SHOOT IS NOT

There is another problem that is harder to explain on a location list. Timing. A place may be filmable in principle but completely wrong for your schedule.

A temple may be available on one day and crowded with a major festival the next. A mountain location may be clear in the morning and covered in cloud by afternoon. A village may be quiet during one season and full of activity during another.

A production needs to know not only whether a location exists, but when it behaves the way the story requires. This is one reason experienced scouting often happens more than once. The first scout tells you what the place looks like. The second scout starts telling you how the place behaves.

SOMETIMES THE BEST LOCATION IS THE ONE YOU DID NOT ASK FOR

This is perhaps my favourite part of scouting.

A director may arrive looking for one specific thing. During the research, we discover that the original idea is possible but difficult, while another location offers almost the same visual language with dramatically better access and fewer complications.

That is a good result. We are not there to prove that the first idea was correct. We are there to make the production work.

Nepal has enough visual variety that there is often room to rethink the location without compromising the story. The Film Development Board's own location portal lists mountains, hills, lakes, parks, pilgrimage sites and general locations across the country.

Our job is to connect that visual possibility with the actual production.

SO, CAN YOU FILM ANYWHERE IN NEPAL?

Not automatically. But there are very few useful location conversations that begin and end with a simple yes or no.

A place may be possible with the right permission. Another may require a different authority. A third may be privately controlled. A fourth may be technically accessible but completely impractical for the production. A fifth may be visually perfect but wrong for the schedule.

That is why location scouting in Nepal is much more than collecting photographs. We need to understand the story, the visual requirement, the scale of the crew, the equipment, the schedule, the road, the people, the authorities, the weather and the practical limits of the place.

The location is not finished when we find it. That is usually when the real work begins.

If you are still at the research stage, send us the reference images, treatment, moodboard or even just the location you have in mind. Our fashion editorial location research work is one example of how a project can begin with a visual reference and develop into a complete production plan once we understand what the creative team is actually trying to make.

For film, documentary, commercial, editorial, photography or a remote Himalayan production, the same principle applies. Find the place. Then find out whether the production can live there.