Introduction

Background: This project aims to analyze the relationship between film sets and tourist attractions in New York City, USA, via geospatial data visualizations. The resource I utilized for film set data was from NYC Open Data, titled “Film Permits.” The link to this dataset can be accessed through this link: https://data.cityofnewyork.us/City-Government/Film-Permits/tg4x-b46p. For the tourist attraction data, I used the “348 New York Tourist Locations” data-set on Kaggle, provided by the user “ANIRUDH”. The link to the data can be accessed here: https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/anirudhmunnangi/348-new-york-tourist-locations?resource=download.

I hypothesize that the geospatial visualizations will illustrate a strong correlation between areas of film sets, and areas of tourist attractions. In an iconic metropolitan city like New York City, it seems to be an optimal choice to shoot in all of the famous landmarks that this city has to offer.

Results

The first interactive map shows the zip codes where film sets took place from 2012 to 2021, sorted by year. Over the course of these nine years, it seems that zip codes like 11222 (Long Island) and 11101 (Greenpoint Brooklyn) are the most frequently filmed places. There is quite some variance throughout the time period though. It appears besides those two zip codes, no other area consistently remains as a hot-spot for filming.

In this side-by-side visualization, we can see film sets from the nine year period (2012-2021), and the most common tourist locations shown next to each other. At first glance, there really is not a strong correlation between the two data-sets. With the exception of one zip-code (11101), it seems that the tourists locations do not necessarily dictate the place of filming.

Conclusion

In result, we can see that there is not much of any correlation between film set locations and tourist attractions. In the side-by-side visualization, it is apparent that there only one zip code of positive correlation, where the tourist attraction was high and film set locations were frequent. This zip code is 11101, Greenpoint Brooklyn, NY. After researching this neigborhood, it does make sense to be a sought after place for filming. According to an article from NYCGO, Greenpoint is a mesh between “classic and new NYC attractions. Traditional Polish restaurants serve pierogi and borscht near sleek eateries that dish out modern cuisine.” This area offers great deal of versatility, which is optimal for production, especially those that will be there for multiple scenes. It also is situated in a good spot for establishing exterior shots of the city’s skyline. The data provided as a whole was quite limited however. The maps were only divided by zip code, so it does not allow for a very precise interpretation of where the actual location of the shoot is. Rather, we are left with lots of implications in order to develop any sort of motive behind filming, which is not optimal. To improve on this visualization, I would look to narrow down the map to specify by the street, rather than zip code. If possible, it would be great to see frames or clips of where the filming is actually situated to hopefully provide more visual context.