In February 1997 the California Film Commission gave us the
Scouting Handbook as Software.
It contained 7,600 California location contacts, accumulated over the
last few years thru the collective efforts of dozens of location
managers and the Film Commission's state employees.
Unfortunately, it's a READ ONLY application that
will not allow you to make corrections, add
new records or even print.
I spent several months unsuccessfully lobbying the CFC, first for a better program, then for the raw data as a text file. By the end of the year they made it clear to me, that the only way to get it, was to do it myself. At significant expense I had to hire a private company to copy all the data from the printed edition. (The data are public records). Then I designed a template in FilemakerPro to display the data.
I've called the program CALODA (CAlifornia LOcation DAta)
It works for both Mac and Windows.
I also bought a license from Filemaker Inc to distribute the datafile
as a self running application, so that you don't need to purchase
FilemakerPro to use it, although I strongly recommend it. You can get
FilemakerPro for about $179 and you'll get a book and more
features.
CALODA even as a self running application
can perform sophisticated searches (even
partial words), allows you to edit the data, add new ones, sort in
different ways, bookmark favorite locations, export to other
applications, add pictures in the program or keep track of your
folders, print lists and labels. Furthermore it is daily updated by a
working location scout who cares about the integrity of the data. For
the new area codes alone 4,000 records have been changed.
Available for Location Scouts and Managers only.
The program is designed for California a non localized version will
be available soon.
Please also check our Location Budget Program
Contact info:sales@locationscout.com