Location Research

In our film treatment and opening scene description, the first part of the movie ends with Damien going  back to help the struggling youth in the alley way. So we need to find a convinient area which would be quiet in the day so our filming will not get distrupted and so we dont have to ask the council for permission to close the area because that may take months and could cost us money as we would have to pay businesses in that area the money that they would ussually earn for that period of closure. Also, because our opening scene involves a group of youths confronting a young teenager, people may become startled by this and may intervine in the situation or they may call the police. So a few filming in progress signs so the public do not become frightened by this event and we would have to research or possibly ask the council about rules of filming in our local area.

Conviniently, the members of our group all live pretty close together in Croydon and we cannot pick a location which involves travelling far, for example, in Central London because first of all theres many people there so our filming might be distrupted and if mistakes are made then it would be very costly and time consuming to keep having to go there again. Also, we would have to ask permission because there are many cameras in London and the camera operators may not be aware of the filming going on and Police may be callled.

A possible location is near my house which is located on Swain Road in Thornton Heath and one road away, there is an alley way which is ussualy very quiet.

This is the route that our group has decided for our actor Damien to take, and it was also chosen to match the shooting script. So the initial planned route is that Damien starts in the middle of Marion Road, crosses the road to Bensham Manor road, sees the group of youths confronting the younger teenager in the alley way and then decides to carry on, and then turns back. The alley way cannot be seen on google maps, but it's litterally just in front of Swain road.

Thornton Heath doesn't have the greatest reputation and isn't the most safest area in London, so we will need to take care of our equipment. Also, it would be wise to film very early in the morning, just after sunrise so there's less chance of our filming being distrupted by the public, and also our group needs to keep an eye of the weather so we don't miss any good filming opportunities as we dont have artificial lighting for the dark and also so we don't get caught up in the rain.

Filming in progress sign

It is essential that we create a sign to make the public aware that our film is taking place. Because we are filming very early in the morning, we are less likely to encounter people trying to cross the alley way. However, incase there are a few people, a sign is there to ensure that they don't become alarmed by what is happening. Our group doesn't have priority of the area because it would take too long to phone the council and ask for permission, so priority is given to any public member who decides to walk across the bridge.

This is a sign i created on microsoft publisher to be printed out in A3 so it is easily viewed by anyone deciding to cross the bridge which leads to the alley way.

These were pictures that I had taken on my phone of the location we were going to use for our film. The images are taken in a typical South London borough. It was a sunny day so the original pictures came out very bright which is not the image that we want for our movie. This is because the genre is going to be a thriller type gangster movie, and bright colours would not set the mood for the movie. Next to every ordinary picture I have put an edited photo to see the difference of what it would look like in our movie. Many films have to have a coulor correction layer over them to give them that aesthetic "movie look" which makes it look much different to the original footage.

To create the edits, all I done was reduce the brightness, increase contrast and reduce saturation in each of the pictures. For our movie we would have to insert a colour correction layer over the original footage so it gives it a more professional look.