STORYTELLING UNIT: ORGANISING LOCATIONS AND RECCES

When looking into my scripts settings I needed to find the following locations:
- Country Road
- House

Going into more detail on the house, it would need to be a house along a street, many not a private estate but more of a council flat or connected house, somewhere that the Father would have to drive quite far to come and get the Daughter since they end up in the car for quite a long time and also that you wouldn't go to a private estate and end up with a load of teenagers having a house party with load music. The photo below is the type of house that I'd like to find for my film.

This type of house is classic to what you'd see a standard, working class family living in as well as students. These are also what you would usually see in sitcoms or soap operas for house party's. This type of house is also very common for students accommodations in Kent so I decided to ask around my classmates for a location like this before contacting the Kent Film Office. My classmate, Victoria Simmonds, is currently living in a student flat, rather than the university accommodations. I asked her if it would be possible to film there and she agreed to ask her landlady.

Victoria told me that her landlady was happy for us to film as long as we were carful, no stunts were performed and also if she could see the finished film after it had been completed. Once agreed, I went over to the location for a recce. Below are the photos from the recce.

The outside of the location is good for the scene. The door has frosted windows which is perfect for the opening of the scene as it won't reveal the character until the door is open but we'll be able to see the silhouette of Jason coming to the door. There aren't too many steps up to the front door and the space there is perfect for the scene with James and Jason. There's a space next to the house as well to have a car parked which would work for the end of the scene as well. There are windows on the house and the house next to which could cause reflections of the crew but there's an open garden space next to the front door where we can set up the camera and avoid the windows. 

Inside the house, the space is quite confined. This can work to our advantage since we don't want to see the actual party of the scene, so a long corridor would be good for it. There's a space at the end of the corridor where we can set up the camera so we aren't blocking any doors and don't create any risks in the event of a fire or anything.

I would say this location is suitable for my film. My next task is to write up a risk assessment on the location and also inform the actors of the location ready for filming.

After this I moved on to try and find a location for the country road. Although this proved to be a much harder location to find. Since I wanted a road which would appear abandoned and also wanted the actors standing aside a car I had to rule out Public areas since there would be too many issues with noise and also the public themselves possibly getting in shot. So I contacted the Kent Film Office and explained what it was that I needed and sent over our University Public Liability Insurance. They got back to me and suggested a location called 'Falconhurst - Private Roads'. The location is perfect for what I need. The surroundings are just trees and it looks like a very out of the way location, the road looks more like a country road than a main road and it's private so I wouldn't have a huge issue with the public coming and going from the location. I asked for the contact details and I was forwarded to a man called Huge Talbot. After talking to him on the phone and explained the project and what it would involve he told me he would discuss it with his team and get back to me. Later that day I received this text from him:

Since that location was no longer useable I asked the Kent Film Office again but they told me I'd have the same issues with their other options. I decided to try and find another location and remembered my idea with green screen was going to be done at the Maidstone TV Studios. At the studios there's a lot of tree's surrounding the area and some park like sections which could work in my favour. I went for a recce to the Studios and over in car park 5 (the furtherest car park away from the actual building) I found this area:

This could be the only other location I need. The car park is always fully lit due to the open area and the sun is the best light source you could get. The first photo shows what looks like a small woodlands which I could make out is the country road as long as I don't get any of the road in shot or the car park behind it. I wrote up the request form for filming at the studios and decided to get scene 1 & 3 done in one day, a full shoot day to get everything done.

(Council estate street taken from google.co.uk. Falconhurst Private Roads taken from kentfilmoffice.co.uk. All other photos are copyright to GR Studios. ©grstudios)