Director: Andrew Stanton
Production Designer: Nathan Crowley
Studio: Disney
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe & Samantha Morton
Locations: London, UK & USA
Finding Alternative Studio Space for John Carter
Sometimes location scouting isn’t about finding a beautiful house, a dramatic landscape or the perfect London street.
Sometimes you’re asked to find 100,000 square feet of uninterrupted space with a 60-foot ceiling.
On Disney’s John Carter, the production had a serious problem. Every major stage in the UK was already occupied and there was simply no suitable studio space available for the enormous Palace of Light set.
If a solution couldn’t be found, a major section of filming potentially faced relocating to the United States.
So I was sent out to find an alternative studio space.
The brief was fairly intimidating: at least 100,000 square feet of uninterrupted interior space, ideally 60 feet high, additional facilities nearby and preferably within the M25.
Not asking for much then.
Finding an Empty Woolworths Warehouse in Greenford
Earlier that year, Woolworths had collapsed into administration.
Among the buildings sitting empty was an enormous former distribution warehouse in Greenford, West London.
So I arranged a viewing.
When I arrived, the place looked like a demolition site. Workers everywhere, dust, forklifts and chaos.
But it was enormous — roughly 225,000 square feet in total.
The height was incredible, around 60 feet, but a gigantic mezzanine floor ran through much of the building and initially appeared to make the space completely unusable.
I was almost ready to walk away when I discovered that the entire mezzanine — around 150,000 square feet of it — was already scheduled to be removed.
Suddenly, an almost impossible studio brief had a potential solution.
My Initial Location Scout Photos
I took photographs and rough plans and sent everything over to the production.
These are some of my original location scout photographs of the former Woolworths warehouse.
Turning a Warehouse into a Working Film Studio
Over the following months, the former Woolworths warehouse was transformed into a functioning film studio.
And that was far more complicated than simply building a set.
A purpose-built studio already has heating, toilets, power, catering infrastructure, parking systems, crew circulation, drainage and production offices.
An empty warehouse has none of that.
We were expecting around 250 crew, plus up to 1,000 extras on some days.
That is an astonishing amount of toilet paper.
The entire interior was eventually wrapped in 360-degree green screen as Disney prepared to turn a West London warehouse into another planet entirely.
Building the Palace of Light
These photographs show the enormous set build taking shape inside the warehouse.
The scale was extraordinary.
At one point, a giant spacecraft even crashed through part of the set structure.
The Finished Palace of Light
And this was the final result as seen in John Carter.
From an empty Woolworths distribution warehouse in Greenford to the Palace of Light on Mars.
Not a bad transformation.
Looking back, John Carter was a fascinating lesson in what location scouting can actually involve.
Sometimes the job isn’t about finding the finished location.
It’s about recognising the potential in a building, solving the logistics and helping create an entirely new production space from scratch.
Film trailer:
