Settings Board

Me and Josh have decided to make a teenage based comedy because of this we've made the choice to set it in a school due to the easiness of being able to shoot whenever we need to. However, we want the friends to be having fun so we were against the idea of setting in a classwork. This left us with the choices of the Octagon, Innovation Center, MU3, Josh's House (& Mine) and Study Room but as both the Octagon and Study Room are impractical to shoot in Josh and I made the choice to film everything in the Innovation Centre. However, MU3 was a close second but due to it being a classroom we believed it wouldn't suit with what we wanted to film and our houses wouldn't have fitted the plot we eventually begun to develop. The Innovation Centre is made up of two rooms connected through one small hallway but, I've included shots of mine and Josh's houses as well as MU3 since I'd like to talk about what I think are the pro's and con's to if we were filming in those locations. We've done this as Josh and I wanted to have a rough idea of what the rooms and surrounding hallway when empty look like so we'd know what we can do with them (e.g. adding props) when making our short. 

Location One: Innovation Centre

This is the backroom of the innovation. I think this would be a good setting for conflict as everyone could be split up in a formal environment as there's a large number of tables that have been placed in a circle in the centre of the room. The room notably also has a bright colour scheme which would be useful as we can either so the bright colour to match a happy emotion or to contrast a negative ones emoted by our characters in our short to a comedic effect. This picture we took also manages to show the two large windows on the back wall of the room. This could be useful as it means we can use natural light which I believe looks nicer but, it also means if we shoot on different days it'll be hard to replicate the lighting so to prevent this being an issue me and Josh have decided to try and fully shoot in one day or if that becomes to challenging just shut the blinds and turn on the artificial ceiling lights.

This shot meant we could good sense of how much space we'll have to work with when planning our storyboard so we don't under or over estimate our capability for shooting space but as you can see this room is very spacious and can fit 20 people on just the seats alone so we should be more than okay when needing to move people or equipment on the days of filming. However, due to the large amount of space a small but notable echo is created which is problem for our shot but hopefully we can find a solution to this issue or fix it in post production of our film when editing.  

This picture manages to clarify how the two rooms are joined to one another which is useful as we can easier plan how we can maximise use of each of the rooms in our short film. I wanted to get as many photos of the room from multiple angles/corners as I thought this would make it easier for me to visualise scenes when writing the script and drawing a storyboard too. I also thought it was important to include the door as it meant the next photo makes sense as we know where it leads onto. 

(The door that exits the backroom of the Innovation Centre is the first on the right) I think this hallway would be a nice place to shoot as it's also very spacious like the back room of the Innovation Centre but, this means much like the back room there's a noticeable echo that can be heard on a camera which is made because of the roof being so high up. The other problem with shooting here is that both doors have glass panels so if located wrongly Josh and I would be seen in the film which we don't want as it'd ruin the atmosphere of the short since we aren't meant to be shown filming but we believe with the right positioning we should be able to avoid this issue. The natural light is a big benefit too. 

This room is the front room of the innovation and the most commonly used so this may cause minor issues when we want to film as teachers might be there but this is still very unlikely. I believe this room is a better setting for the happier/funnier scenes to take place as the brighter colours of the chairs make the room feel brighter. Also, the chairs are more comfortable meaning we can make the characters relaxed at the start of the film but as they slowly become more frustrated they can more into the backroom which is more confrontational, darker and colder as it's not typically used.

Much like the back room, this room creates a minor echo too but it's much less noticeable so it shouldn't be much of an issue. However, there's a chicken pen outside to the left of this picture where one of the two large windows can be seen so this is a big issue as we aren't able to control the noise levels or move the chickens so we may just have to let this noise pollution into the final film as it'll be near impossible to work around as the chickens are always there.

Josh thought it'd be a good idea to get a shot of both directions the corridor leads to as this gives us time to think of where we want the characters to end up. This is important to our film as depending on the way each character walks it can tell a different ending to their story. This is because if they were to walk in shot 1's (above) direction they'd be walking towards the darkness which could imply the character is sad or unwilling to forgive the events that took place in the room whereas shot 2's (below) direction would show the character walking towards the light which could depict happiness, either way I believe it'd be creatively smart to have two characters walk in opposite directions at the end of our short to show the fact they've not made up.

Location 2: Charlie's House

For our short film we plan on having an opening montage of one of the main characters waking up and getting ready for an average school day at school. We chose the location as we wanted to fully represent what we believe a teenage boys bedroom would look like. It also happens to be my bedroom, we reached the decision to use my room as the shooting location as I lived closest to the school so this gave us easier access when wanting to film as it meant we didn't have to spend a long time travelling than if we choose either Josh or David's houses. This meant we could get more footage per shooting day since we had more time on location.

I thought it was important to take multiple photos of this room as it allows you to see the room in more detail rather than just seeing one perspective. As you can see the room is well lit. This is because the window in the room faces the sun meaning that lighting won't be an issue for Joshua and I which is important to us as it means we don't have to worry about takes of filming being ruined by it being too dark. However, the window also faces a road that is usually busy so there will likely be a lot of noise pollution but, I believe we will be able to solve the problem by shutting the window so hopefully this won't effect the sound of the film.

The purpose of this shot is to further show what a normal teenagers room would look like by displaying some of the possessions they'd own. In this case as the character is a teenage male we wanted to showcase the electronic devices such as an Xbox and computer. The other reason we included this photo is because Joshua and I wanted to show all the main walls of the room (excluding the window) to show that if this were a real life production we can both handle this side of the production with professionalism and detail.

Location 3: Josh's Car

These two photos are of Josh's Fiat Punto. We decided to use his car as the characters method of transport as Josh is going to star in our film. We thought that choosing to make him the driver in the opening scene of the movie would allow for realism and authenticity because Josh has been driving for some time so is confident behind the wheel. The decision was also reached as none of the crew members at the time (David and I) could drive or owned a car and we didn't want to have to recast Joshua just because we wanted a different car. The car is very spacious and is able to fit the camera whilst attracted to the tripod which makes it much easier to film on the move and get usable takes of both characters in the front seats of the car whilst on their journey to school. The look of the car is what we deemed acceptable to be in our film as it wasn't too expensive for a student to purchase, it was slightly dirty which adds realism as a teenage boy wouldn't keep it in perfect condition and it has a stylish look to it as the blue and white stripe are common on an adolescents car.

Since creating this post Joshua and I ran into some issues booking the Innovation Centre as our filming location due to how busy it was as teachers constantly wanted to use it for their students lessons. Due to this, we were forced to choose a new location to film in rather than wait for rare opportunities to use the Centre. This resulted in us using Room 182 of Tavistock College.

Location 4: Room 182

This is a very small room located next to my media classroom. The easy accessibility means that Joshua and I will be able to get a lot of filming done in the second half of production as we only need to walk into the room next door. As it's on school grounds to it means we already have permission to film here making it easy to continue with production without any issues and the room is typically not in use allowing me and Josh to use it whenever out actors are able to film. This shot shows the door that will get locked in our film. I thought it was important to show it clearly as most of the time in the film it will be blocked by characters.

This is the second shot I took of the room. It shows some more characteristic and the design of the room in a better way than the last photo does. As you can see when the blinds are shut the room does become very dark so to avoid any lighting issues we will ensure that the blinds are always open. It's also obvious that for such a small room it's fairly cluttered so Joshua and I will clean the room slightly to make sure the room looks more presentable for our short film.

This is the main area where the cast will be located in the film as it's the most open area in the room and has a large number of seats that can accommodate our actors comfortably. The fact the room is usually let this way also helps me and Josh as we know that continuity won't be broken by items in the room being moved around constantly so although not our first choice for location we are happy with the change as this room has little problems with it.

I found picking our location before the rest of the planning/development section of the project very useful as it meant I can easily visualise what I want to happen in mine and Josh's short film and actually specifically plan shots as we know what rooms we'd be filming in at that point. This is because Josh and I can just refer back to the photos when trying to plan a scene, making it easier to plan the film as a whole. Room 182 was our choice due to the size, easiness of access for shooting and the colour scheme/lighting as we can use it to our advantage when trying to create certain emotions. However, we still would have preferred to use The Innovation Centre if we could so next time I would try to make more of an effort in order to secure our ideal shooting location.