Shot Guide: Locations¶

A plain-English walkthrough for the person who owns, runs, or is responsible for the place. No tech jargon.

If you want every technical detail — frame counts, file formats, training pipeline — read the parent doc, Location LoRA Creation Guide. This page is the friendly version for you to read, share with your team, and use to brief whoever's doing the shoot.

What you're actually making¶

Your space — your bar, café, apartment, rooftop, theater, courtyard, whatever it is — is about to become reusable. We're going to photograph and film it across enough different conditions that a filmmaker, anywhere in the world, can later type a prompt like "a quiet morning in this café, one person at the window, light rain outside" and get a believable shot of your place. Not a similar place. Yours.

You shoot the location once. You list it. Filmmakers buy access to use it in their films. You keep earning every time someone uses it.

The one rule that matters¶

The building doesn't change. The mood does.

That's the whole idea. We want to capture the parts of your space that never change — the walls, the floor, the bar, the window, the fireplace, the layout — so cleanly and from so many angles that the AI learns "this is the space." Then we deliberately vary everything else: the time of day, the lights, the weather, how many people are in it. That way, when a buyer wants a sunny afternoon, they get a sunny afternoon. When they want a rainy 2am, they get a rainy 2am. Same room. Different feeling.

If we shoot your bar only at 8pm with the neon on full, the AI will only be able to give buyers your bar at 8pm with the neon on full. That kills the value. So we shoot it bright, dim, empty, packed, morning, midnight — the works.

First decision: indoor or outdoor?¶

This changes what we shoot. Find your situation below:

Quick gut-check for windowless interiors: if it's noon, midnight, or a Tuesday in March, does your space look the same when no lights are touched? If yes, you're a windowless interior. The "time of day" doesn't matter for you — only what you switch on does.

Before the shoot day¶

Things to think about a week ahead¶

• Pick the photographer. You can hire one (we can recommend) or use your own. They need to be comfortable with a tripod, a wide-angle lens, and shooting at night. They don't need to be an "AI" person — this is just photography and video.
• Decide if your space will be open or closed. Windowless interiors (nightclubs, theaters, etc.) must be closed for the shoot so the photographer can flip every combination of lights without confusing customers. Outdoor and window-lit spaces can usually be shot while open, with the right timing.
• Look at your space with fresh eyes. Walk through and notice what's normally there — the books on the shelf, the plants, the framed art, the rug. That's the space's identity. Keep all of that. But also notice clutter that wouldn't normally be there — a stack of mail, dirty dishes, the staff's coats. Plan to clear that on shoot day.
• Make a list of "this is what makes my place special." The signature window. The neon sign. The fireplace. The mural. The way the light hits the bar at sunset. The photographer will spend extra time on those. Write them down.
• Find the lighting controls. Especially for indoor spaces — who knows where every dimmer, switch, and panel is? Have that person on hand for the shoot, or walk through the panels yourself the day before.

Paperwork¶

Two pieces of paperwork must be signed before the shoot begins.

• Property release. The legal owner of the building signs off that we can shoot the space and use it in AI-generated film and on our marketplace. If you don't own the building, the landlord or property manager signs.
• Model releases for anyone visible. If we shoot crowd scenes — a packed bar, a busy café — every person in frame signs a release. And they need to be framed so their face isn't a clear, recognizable portrait. We'll explain why in a moment.

If the space is publicly accessible (a café, a hotel lobby, a public plaza), we also document who gave permission.

What you should not include: branded products, third-party artwork, copyrighted signage. If your bar has a giant framed movie poster, it should come down for the shoot or stay out of frame. If you don't own the rights to it, it can't be in the training set.

Shoot day — what we capture¶

The big checklist (every space)¶

• Wide shots — the whole room from many angles. Establishing what the place feels like to walk into.
• Medium shots — one section at a time. The couch grouping. The bar. The booth. The dance floor.
• Close-up details — the materials. The brick. The wood grain on the bar. The texture of the wallpaper. The chandelier. The neon sign. Every surface gets a portrait.
• From different heights — kneeling down, sitting eye-level, standing eye-level, and from up high if there's a balcony or staircase.
• Short video clips — slow walk-throughs, a 360° turn from the middle of the room, a slow push toward your most distinctive feature. Each clip is short — a few seconds.

For outdoor spaces¶

• Repeat the same shots across the day: pre-dawn, morning, midday, afternoon, golden hour, blue hour after sunset, and full night.
• Repeat across weather: clear day, overcast day, light rain, wet-after-rain. (Heavy weather like fog or snow is great if it happens but not required.)
• The photographer uses the same angles every time so the AI sees "same place, different sky."

For indoor spaces with windows¶

• Both axes matter. We shoot the same anchor angles across the day (like outdoor) and in different combinations of your interior lights.
• Typical combinations: all lights on, just the lamps, just the ceiling, daylight only with everything off, one single lamp with everything else off, mixed warm-and-cool (a warm lamp plus a cool TV glow).

For indoor spaces with no windows¶

• This is where lighting combinations become the whole shoot. We'll work through them one at a time — full bright, dimmed, ceiling only, lamps only, single source, mixed temperature, TV/screen glow, mostly dark with edge light, emergency red.
• For nightclubs and bars: definitely include your signature colored lighting (purple, magenta, blue — whatever your venue uses).
• Allow about half an hour per lighting combination. Lights need time to warm up and reset between configurations.

People in the shots¶

Buyers want to be able to render your space empty, lightly used, and packed. So we shoot all three.

• Empty first. Most of the shoot is this.
• Then a few people — 2 to 4, casual occupation.
• Then a moderate crowd — 6 to 12, like a normal evening.
• Then packed — 15+ people, party energy.

Important — faces. Whoever's in the crowd shots should not be facing the camera directly. They should be turned away, in motion, in profile, or partially blocked by someone else. Why: the AI doesn't know to ignore faces. If a recognizable person shows up in 20 of the training photos, the AI may start putting them in every generation of your space, even when the buyer didn't ask for them. That's bad for the buyer and bad for the person whose face got copied. Frame people as "shapes that show the space is busy" — not as portraits.

What we will absolutely not do¶

• Shoot only at one time of day or one lighting state. That bakes that look in forever.
• Stage a "dramatic mood" for the shoot. No candles for atmosphere. No haze machine. We capture the space as it normally is, in many normal states. The drama gets added later, in the buyer's prompt.
• Bring in extra movie lights to "fix" the dark states. If your bar at edge-lit-dark feels dim, we shoot it dim. That's the data. Adding light makes the AI refuse to ever go properly dark.
• Add seasonal decorations (Christmas tree, Halloween skeletons, Valentine's hearts). If we want a Christmas version, we'd shoot a separate set later.
• Use filters, Instagram presets, or "enhance" the photos afterward. The AI will learn the filter as part of your space's identity and apply it to every generation.
• Use a stranger's recognizable face in the shots.

What you'll get when it's done¶

After the shoot, the files go through technical work you don't need to be involved in — color correction, captioning, training, testing. A few weeks later, you'll get:

• A trained LoRA file — the actual AI model of your space.
• Sample renders — 5 to 10 AI-generated images showing your space at different times, with different lighting, with and without people. These prove the LoRA works. They also become your listing photos.
• A marketplace listing draft — written copy describing your space, what kinds of scenes it's good for, and what its limits are.
• A short list of "known limits" — every LoRA has things it can't do perfectly. We'll be upfront about yours so buyers know what they're getting.

You'll review and approve the listing before it goes live.

Realistic expectations¶

The AI is good at recognizing your space and rendering it under varied conditions. It's not a perfect 3D scan. Here's what to expect:

• The space will be recognizably yours in single shots and short clips.
• Across multiple cuts in a film, small details may shift — a door might be at a slightly different spot, a poster might change. Filmmakers know how to work around this.
• The view out your window won't be exact — the AI invents what's outside. If your view is part of the appeal, the buyer can supply a reference photo at generation time.
• Mirrors and big glass surfaces may render imperfectly. That's a limit of the AI itself, not your shoot.
• Long uninterrupted shots (more than 4 to 6 seconds) may drift. Filmmakers plan around this with shorter cuts.

None of these are dealbreakers — they're just honest limits buyers will be told about up front.

Your role on shoot day, in one paragraph¶

Be there. Hand over the keys to the lights. Move the things that need moving. Sign the paperwork. Then mostly stay out of the photographer's way — but be reachable to answer questions like "can we move this couch?" or "is anyone using the back office in an hour?" The most useful thing you can do is point out what makes the place special so we don't miss it.

One last thing¶

You only do this once. The shoot is the foundation of everything the LoRA will ever do — every render, every buyer, every license. An hour of extra patience on shoot day is worth months of better revenue afterward. If something feels rushed, slow it down. If something feels wrong, say so.

Questions? The full technical spec is in the parent guide. Or just ask your shoot coordinator — that's what we're here for.