Ideas, images and thought process behind our short film scenes.
For our a level media course - may not help anybody, but needed for uploading to our blog for the coursework. People are welcome to use for ideas themselves :)
2. Location 1: Toby Michaels House
The actor playing Toby, is kindly lending us the use of his house to
film his scenes. His home isn't close to school and will require our group to get
the bus there with our equipment.
These scenes will be the first ones we will shoot as a group.
Toby is described as more of a family man, living with his girlfriend with a
steady income job. His home would have a feminine touch to it but also look
lived in. Our actors house was much more suited for this character.
We won't change much about his house since it already fits the representation
of his character quite well.
His bathroom is quite small which will make it difficult to set up and film in
there. We want the shot to look like we are viewing from the mirror and
therefore only used a close up/medium shot of him to show the him and the
wall, which will be in the previous shot, in frame.
4. Location 2: Daniel Phipps house
We cannot use a persons house with any relevance to our production for Daniel's home
scenes. Although, we remembered that there is a house on our school site that has
been used for filming school productions in the past. Their house is quite minimalistic,
and looks very modern compared to Toby's house. There is a clear difference between
them just like there is between the two characters. We asked permission and they
allowed us. Since they were not in the film nor part of the production group, we thought
it best to not use their bedrooms.
This ended up becoming a positive thing. Daniel is a doctor and they are known for
working long hours. We changed the script slightly along with our visions of our product
and now Daniel will be asleep on the sofa in the living room. This will make him look like
he focuses too much on his job that he doesn't even make it to his bedroom before
falling asleep at the end of the day.
There will be two blankets seen in shot and this will be another indicator of how he
didn't fall asleep intentionally on the sofa. If he had, he would have used a blanket (and
also changed his clothes).
6. Location 3: School/Office
We originally planned to shoot the phone call scene from Toby’s house;
having his partner to be lounging at home, but we now feel like It would
be easier to shoot from school, as if she had left the house shortly after
and was at work. We’ll use a school classroom and therefore portray her as
a school teacher.
There are always free classrooms available to use in school and this one
specifically is a computer room. Classrooms tend to have desks at the front
with computers available. We will have to move the tables slightly to be
able to fit the equipment in the room.
Using a school classroom means that we won’t have much to set up,
everything will already be arranged to fit the setting.
8. Location 4: Hospital/Doctors office
This scene will be the most complicated to set up. This will be a setting that we
will have set up on the day.
Since Toby has just passed, the doctor will then call next of kin from their
office.
We imagine hospital offices to have white walls with very bright artificial
lighting.
We decided we will use the corner of our media classroom.
We have two tall artificial lights and can set them up in front and to the side of
the scene. We will move a table into shot and put one of the school macs and
other assorted props on it, also we can borrow some posters from our
psychology department to add to the Mise-en-scene. A phone is necessary for
the scene since Daniel makes a phone call to Miss Young.
This should hopefully then represent a hospital office.
10. Location 5: Street
It’s never easy to film in public places, which will make it very difficult for
this location hunt. We decided that the car accident will need to be on a
quiet road.
Using a quiet road makes it easier to film as there are less cars and people
to interrupt the filming. Also, it is winter so there are generally less people
there.
On the other hand, the quiet road could make our film look less realistic,
since why would a man be hit by a car on such an empty road with a slow
speed limit. But this is a much safer way. Also, thinking practically, if we use
a busier road, we never might never get any good, solid footage that will
flow and not ruin continuity.
