The Room (2017)

This is my final cut of my main production. It is titled The Room due to the situation in which they face when they become locked inside a classroom whilst avoiding lessons. It's a comedy with dry humour and contains both quick cuts and long shots to give a contrasting feel. 

Overall, I am very happy with how my film turned out considering Joshua and I ran into multiple issues along production. I decided to upload the finished piece to YouTube as I thought this platform would best allow me to reach more viewers in the hope they respond positively and take part in doing my questionnaire about the piece so I can further analysis my short film in my evaluation questions as well as my audience/professional feedback sections of my blog.

Shooting Schedule

Throughout the part of production where I was filming all the shots I needed for my short film I filled out this shooting schedule sheet which allowed me to track my progression over the three week period of filming. This was a resource our teacher suggested we use as it allowed us to evaluate ourselves on a small scale as after each shooting session we could fill out the last box of the sheet titled "Comments on shoot". This allowed me to talk about what went well, what was less successful and what do you plan to do next. This was important to my production as it let me and Josh know ahead of time what we wanted to film each session meaning we had time to plan ahead and think about the shots we needed and because we had our settings board already completed we were able to do this easily. The same section of the sheet also allowed me to reflect upon my efficiency and productivity of the last time I was filming so I was quickly able to remember any problems that occurred before I began filming again meaning Josh and I were able to become stronger filmmakers during this three week period.

After completing my shooting schedule sheet a few things stand out to me. The first is that me and Josh could have filmed for longer each session to maximise the amount of shots we could have because when it came to editing, this would have helped as some shots weren't as good as I wanted for my final product. The second is that I realised we stretched this part of production on longer than we should have because we only needed nine days of filming to have all the footage but we decided to span it across three weeks which in reflection was unnecessary. Finally, I can conclude that using this resource was in fact extremely useful during our production as it allowed me and Josh to think about what we can do better at the start of everything shooting day. This ultimately meant that we both began being more critical towards the end of the three week period allowing us both to also become more creative and film shots we initially didn't intend to. Because of this I ended up being able to have a better story for my short film as I could change the ending as I was thinking more about the full film rather than just that day of shooting and those scenes in particular.

The Room's Multiple Cuts

I've decided to include a post showing the multiple edits I created as I believe it'll show my progress through my production. This is because I was about to fill certain scenes on different days so whenever I obtained new footage I would add it to my existing edit. Overall, I have four different edits, the first three are here on display but, the fourth is the final cut so I have decided to let this cut have it's own blog post as it's the penultimate version of my short film.

This was my first attempt at editing all the footage I had at the time together. I decided to include the "Add Footage" to the cut in order to see how much more footage I needed to acquire from the remaining part of the script to see whether I would manage to meet my five minute aim for the length of my short film.

My second attempt of my film had a lot more footage to work with. This additional footage took the length of my film to 3:45 meaning I knew I was close to reaching my goal. It also meant that I had a lot of time remaining to complete my project I could look over the remaining parts of my script and change anything I thought wasn't suitable. This extra time meant I could improve the quality of my short film. This edit of the film still has some cutting issues between shots though so I plan to fix this in my next draft of the film.

This was the second to last edit of my film I produced before managing to complete production and make my final edit. As you can see I managed to make certain transitions/cuts between clips better flowing. I also managed to include some rough drafts of the voice over narrator I recorded of Simon Hunter to see how well it suited my film. I personally believe his voice matches the atmosphere of the film well so I am happy with how this cut went. All I needed to do at this point was add the ending onto the cut of the film and make some last minute adjustments.

Overall, I believe my editing skills widely improved as I constantly reedited what footage I had. This is because I was able to allow myself time to make small changes that better improved the quality of my film. One example is that I would start the audio of one clip before I cut to the footage it was from. I did this so the flow of my film seemed more natural as I didn't have a character say something and have a delay between the response from someone else. This post was useful to me as it allowed me to see the progress I made throughout this production and reflecting upon it now I am happy with nearly all creative decisions I made.

The Importance Of Angles

Whilst filming multiple scenes it was clear that certain angles look better than others, because of this I was inspired to write this post. I thought it would be good to clarify why Joshua and I made the artistic choices we did. I'm going to be doing this primarily through examples.

This shot shows David's character getting ready for school and drying his hair. I planned this shot as I thought it was a good way of framing the scene as 'the rule of three' states that the subject of the shot should be on the left or right third of the screen rather than central. This angle also allows for no glare on the mirror which makes the movie look more professional as there's less production errors.

This secondary shot is what Joshua was filming when I took the previous photo and it was much lower in quality and standards. This is because this angle is unflattering as it shows David more centralised which makes him seem small rather than dominating the foreground and making him seem important. This makes the audience think less of him and essentially weak. This angle is also dimly lite compared to the previous shot, has a noticeable glare on the top right hand part of the wooden frame and shows the ripped wallpaper on the back wall. 

As you can see the position of the camera can heavily change the atmosphere of the short movie. I thoroughly believe we made the right creative decision by choosing the top recording. This is because it means Josh and I have prevented the issues we would've been struck with if we chose the second option as our clip used in our short films. I found that planning with Joshua where we'd place the camera beforehand rather than one of us just putting the tripod somewhere randomly very useful as it means we thought about how the resulting shot would look like and meant we needed to pay more attention to detail and think about how we wanted the shot to look at that point in time rather than following the storyboard exactly. This gave us the best possible creative look for our short which has met Joshua and my desires of what we wanted.

Costumes & Props Board

As my film relied on the editing and dialogue more than the costumes and props I've been left with very little to talk about in this post. However, as David is my main character and we showed him in two different costumes in the film I've decided I would take a picture of each and analyse it underneath.

Costume 1 - Pyjamas:

We chose to have David wear on pyjama bottoms at the start of the film as we thought showing some of his body to the audience would help create a bond between the character and audience because instantly we are shown an interment side of David's character. This decision was also made because we thought for a typical young man it was common to sleep with his shirt off so we wanted to portray this in our film. 

Costume 2 - Denim Jacket & Jeans:

Very little planning went into this outfit. This is because as David is basically going to play a more comedic version of himself me and Josh thought we would allow David to turn up to our first shooting day in an outfit of his choosing as we wanting him to be comfortable at all times in his role so his performance seems more genuine.

Overall, I didn't find this element of planning very useful as the film I'm creating doesn't rely on the props or costumes. Due to this I wasn't able to talk about much. However, I understand in a real life context this is an important part of production when making a film so I'm glad I gained some experience for this.

The Room's Script

This is the final script for my film "The Room". As you can see I've given it a title page and have followed typical script writing conventions such as slug line, the choice of font and having directions/actions in the centre of the page. This is because I want my script to appear as professional as possible. I initially wrote this on Microsoft Word before converting the pages into JPEGs in order to show them on my blog in this way.

After completing this post I am happy with how this part of my production went. This is because I now have a clear, shared idea with Josh that will allow us to understand what we both want to feature in our film. This experience has also allowed me to gain a clearer understanding of how I'm going to portray my characters in the film and will better allow me to explain to my actors how I want them to show their characters personally traits in the film. Overall I found this script writing part of my production simple yet fulfilling as it allowed me to have a final idea of how I want me film to be. However, I won't enforce the script word for word as I want to give my actors a chance to improvise their lines and create new dialogue in case they come up with a better alternative that suits a scene more. This is because I understand sometimes comedy is a thing of the moment and something I've written now might not be as good after hearing it a couple times.

Audition & Selection Process

It's important for me to write about my audition process of each applicant. This is because it allows me to get a sense of their potential quality of work and for me to get to know their personalities before Joshua and I reach a decision on who we would like to cast. For this short film we plan on having a cast of between four and six. Due to this, I decided to audition twelve different people separately that expressed interested in being involved as a character. I took a head shot of each actor/actress that auditioned and below I'm going to write a small summary under their photo saying what I liked and didn't like about their believably in a role or, lack of  it whilst they were interviewed. As I don't want to show favouritism I'm just going to do their summaries alphabetically and we also took this photo before starting the audition process.

Amber Lily Mason

Although Amber has no previous experience in front of a camera, during her audition she managed to impress both Joshua and I by how natural she seemed. It was obvious she was slightly nervous through a couple minor mistakes that occurred. However, she showed a lot of potential as she could take criticism and build upon it quickly. She also has a natural but, approachable look which is useful to Josh and I as we want to try and represent both males and females in a positive light.

Bradley Michael Plokker

Brad was an interesting candidate as he showed some enthusiasm at first but by the end of his performance there wasn't anything that made Joshua and I believe that he would be a good actor within our film. However, his comedic timing was great as proven in his headshot above after I said "Pose naturally" he said this came to mind at first, this is why I chose to include it rather than ask him to reproduce a serious photo.

Caleb Gabriel Prouse

Caleb managed to stay in character the whole time without breaking focus or professionalism. He's had previous acting experience as he's been studying drama from GCSE to A Level's currently with notable performances in school productions such as: "Oliver", "The Depths Of Darkmoor" and "The Good, The Bad & The Panto". This fills me with confidence that he'd be a useful actor for Joshua and I's short film. Calebs' talent also extends into the music world as he's a musician that has had success within our local area. This to me is great news as it means we can ask him to compose some music to match certain scenes so he skill set he holds is very varied which'll help the film on numerous levels.

David Michael Jones

As David is in my media course I found it hard to not automatically cast him as we are good friends. However, in his audition he showed great potential behind the camera in the ability to remain in character without failing to continue or improvise if needed. He's also assured me that his schedule is free a lot of the time which has certainly made me consider him more for a role (perhaps a leading) as he would always be able to film with me and Joshua which would be very useful as there's no guarantee how smoothly filming will go so we need candidate who are free to do retakes, work late and be available on short notice.

Georgia Emma Dunn

Due to a technical issue Georgia's addition couldn't be viewed back upon and as Joshua and I left this audition process later than we probably should have we have decided to not cast Georgia as we need to hastily move on with our filming. However, she was very understanding of this and in future we would like to pursue her for a smaller role next time as she seemed very good from watch we remember of her audition.

Joseph Michael Buncle 

Much like a pervious applicant this student has studied drama throughout his higher years of his education at Tavistock College. Joe was excellent at remembering dialogue and mimicking it back flawlessly. As an English Literature student with the ability to improvise lines with great comedic value Joe is a highly useful person to have in our team as we can use his skill to benefit the script writing process as we'll give him a voice to express his opinions. All of this shows how he's more than qualified to join our production so Joshua and I made the decision to hire him at the audition as a result.

Joshua Samuel Cawsby Coombe

As Joshua is my partner on this project I have no comment on his audition as he didn't have to do one. We simply decided to cast one of ourselves to make it easier/faster to find only five other cast members rather than having to find six. This also meant we could make him the lead/co-lead if necessary as we knew Josh would always be available to film the short as he needed it to be done as well.

Matthew Kevin Chambers

Matthew wasn't a very good candidate overall as he constantly distracted others, couldn't remember his lines when needed to and he was unable to remain in character throughout the audition so we have decided to not include him in our production as he's too difficult to work with and he could be a possible liability to our production as he's ruin too many takes and waste value time. However, outside of the audition he was a funny and competent individual, it's just a shame he couldn't bring that into his acting ability.

Patrick Thomas Ahern

I was unable to attend Patrick Ahern's audition but my co-director on this project, Joshua Coombe assured me that Patrick whilst being a perfectly suitable and decent actor shouldn't be featured in our media project as he didn't match the flow/style of the other actors that happened to bring a little more to the table.

Richard Terrence Montague 

Richard much like Caleb & Joe has had a lot of experience in theatre work through being in numerous school performances as well as external productions. This already made me and Josh want to cast his as he's got a good track record as a reliable and talented actor. His audition was near perfect with only one minor mispronunciation towards the first half but, Josh and I simply put this down to nervousness as he was preforming in front of friends. After this superb performance we made a decision that we would certainly be casting him as one of the larger speaking roles as he proved himself to be a great addition to the cast and crew.

Scott Morris

As an actor Scott was good with comedic timing and was able to improvise jokes at the appropriate time with a good effect. However, he was unable to make the cut into out actors list as his timetable and busy lifestyle meant that he was unable to assure us he'd be available when the other actors are because of this we didn't feel comfortable risky our shooting schedule for one person unfortunately.

William Adam Dax

Finally, William Dax was our last candidate to audition for a role in our production but he wasn't what we were looking for in terms of an actor as he wasn't able to produce any funny material on the spot and as we plan on letting our actors improvise after doing the scripted take we thought it's best to give some better suited actors a chance than Will.

As you can see I had a strong list of candidates to pick between. After some consideration and discussion Joshua and I ended up choosing: Amber Lily Mason, Caleb Gabriel Prouse, David Michael Jones, Joshua Samuel Cawsby Coombe and Richard Terrence Montague to be in our production as the student cast and for the narrator we've chosen a teacher at Tavistock College called Simon Hunter. We reached these decision as we thought this mix of actors best suited what a typical college group of friends could consist of. After reaching these decisions we discovered we hadn't cast enough people so on sort notice we employed Lawrence Dobson to be a character as he was always available to us.

Lawrence Rhys Dobson

Simon Hunter

We chose Mr Hunter as he is Joshua and I's media teacher which means we'll be able to contact him to record the voice overs easily as we can do it within lesson time. He also has a clear speaking voice that is easy to understand without having an accent that would cause concern for someone watching. Simon has access to useful equipment that'll make the voice over have a better quality than if we simply had to use our phones or the camera audio so his inclusion has also allowed our overall production to be positively affected.

I found this post and experience very useful as it showed me how a casting director would work on a real film and gave me the chance to see how it feels to have an array of actors to choose from. This meant that I could get the best selection of people available to me to allow me the best chance to make the best film I possibly can which is an important aim for Joshua and I when it comes to our year 13 production.

The Room's Storyboard

This is the first draft of me trying to plan out my story. The way I've split up these storyboards is I've done three separate ones and each  is of a location I plan to film in. I did this because I wanted to briefly show how I want each shot to take place and by splitting the locations into their own storyboards it means I can better show the development of my plot. The first storyboard is of the montage I want to create of a character getting ready before school. The second is the journey between the house and arriving at school before beginning to walk to class. Finally, the third storyboard is of all the characters getting stuck in Room 182 in Tavistock College before getting free. This post has thought me it's important to plan ahead as it means I can go into more detail and start thinking about my plot before needing to film. This means that I have a better understanding of what I want to achieve from my short film which in the long term will save me a lot of time when it comes to my production. This will result in a higher quality film overall I hope. Another benefit of producing these storyboards is that as me and Joshua are a team we could separately work on our own storyboards and when complete we can talk to one another about the final film we want to create allowing us both to benefit from one anothers ideas.

Film Synopsis

I thought it was a good idea for Josh and I to finally sit down and write a synopsis for our short film. This is because it'll allow us to get our creative ideas flowing and be able to work on the project individually since we know what the film needs to center around. I think this'll allow me and Josh to show our own personal skills without changing our shared idea too much, if anything it could mean Josh and I get some new and better ideas for our short. An example of this is that Josh has suggested we do a scene in which the narrator plays a medley of songs to show his power. I instantly supported this idea and we've now made a note of it to include this in our script/storyboard to make sure it's used since it's a great idea. I found writing this synopsis helpful as it's an easy post that develops our production a little further without taking too much time or thought. If I was going to do this again I would like to perhaps change the wording to make it seem more comedic as at the moment it seems more like a drama than a comedy.

Bullet-Pointed Plot Breakdown & Improvements

As my project is a comedy I thought it'd be hard to jump straight in and do a storyboard or script because of this me and Josh sat down and wrote a list of what we want to include in our short. This screenshot is of our first effort to create the plot as well as the developed/final effort we came up with after giving ourselves time to think about what we can do and revisit our initial idea.

After rewriting the plot we decided to extend the ending by adding some bullet points that help finish the movie on a better note as well as adding annotations around most of the original points so Josh and I are able to get a clearer shared image of what we want the film to be. I think this helped us a lot as for the first time I feel like we are on the same page with our production which has given me confidence in that we'll be successful in making a good comedic short that'll look good for our final piece of coursework.

Location Recce & Risk Assessment For All Locations

Before the filming process can begin Josh and I needed to secure our locations, in this case it's an undisclosed house in Horrabridge, the A386 and Tavistock College. Since we managed to do obtain permission to film in these place I can now write a location recce and risk assessment for each. I've decided to post these two documents together as it allows me to go more in depth and summarise how they've helped my production better. I chose to give each location their own location recce and risk assessment as it shows professionalism and patience in the ability to produce six documents.

As you can see I found a template of a location recce form and risk assessment form online the top section is the location recce section whereas the two bottom sections on the first, third and fifth screenshots are risk assessments that go with the second, fourth and sixth screenshots to complete the section. I utilised each section to its full potential to make sure I had given all the necessary information required. I found writing this useful as it meant I could learn how to professionally approach film making. Although only for a five minute movie these document did take longer than I expected but it gave me some appreciation for what actual film makers have to undergo as well as them giving me a rough idea what I'd have to do if I were to go into the movie industry after school. The only thing I'd change about this post would be maybe adding a few more possible issues. This is because after finishing this write up I thought of some others such as for space I didn't account for.

Permission For The Use Of The Song "A Punk"

For my short films introduction I want to use a song by the band Vampire Weekend titled "A Punk" because of this I need to obtain permission from the band/manage to ensure I can use it in my final production. I chose to contact the band though email. I got their contact information through their twitter account. I send them the following email:

"Dear Vampire Weekend,

I wish to use your song A Punk in my year 13 media production to be played alongside an opening montage of one of my characters getting ready for school. I'm creating a short film about a group of friends being trapped in a room and being forced to reveal their secrets, the genre of film is comedy so you don't have to worry about me using the song with any wrongful connotations. I will be posting this short film to YouTube in order for people to see if but, I will not be making any money from it so I wouldn't be benefiting financially from your song either.

I look forward to hearing back from you and I hope we can come to an arrangement that allows me to use the song as I think it would suit my films tone perfectly.

Yours sincerely,
                          Charlie Palmer"

I wanted for a response from the band and their manager for two weeks and I'm yet to get a response back so I'm going to assume I won't get one at all. Due to this I've come to the decision I will use the song anyway as I need to carry on with the other planning stages of my production and I can't be wasting time waiting on a response.

In conclusion, I found this post to be useful to me as it showed me how to deal with rejection in a positive manner. This has meant I can better deal with any future rejections too as I have gained experience from this. Hopefully next time I can get a response though as it would allow me to secure important parts of my production

Permission For Filming In Room 182

For our production Josh and I want to a room located within our school, because of this we need to get permission from someone who is able to grant us the power to that works within the school in a position of authority. I chose to email Mr Jacobs as he is the most likely to give us a quick response but, we likely allow us to film there with no or minor complications. I was very formal as this is an important post since without filming permission being given to us Josh and I would need to find a new location to shoot in.

This is the email I sent to Mr Jacobs and I'm currently waiting on his response. Before sending this email I sent it to my teacher, Simon Hunter so he could proof read it. He was very helpful and instantly read it and said it was perfect so I didn't need change any aspects which was great. I found this post to be helpful as it's given me some experience in how to ask for permission which will hopefully mean I find it easier to ask bands and/or managers for music permission when it comes to that part of my production.

I've since received an email back from Mr Jacob saying:



This is great news as it means Josh and I are able to continue our production and planning of our short film since we have the location sorted. The next stage of our filming permission will be finding out what days I can film by contacting Mrs Garrod who Mr Jacob has kindly put me in contact with. Hopefully the available days will correspond with our cast, as well as Josh's and mine timetables but we are yet to cast anyone so it isn't an issue as of yet. Any mentions of "The Innovation Centre" should be replaced with "Room 182" as I foolishly assumed we'd still be filming in those pair of rooms before sending the email but I sent a follow up email notifying and asking Mr Jacobs if changing to Room 182 was alright and the response was yes.

Overall, I found this post to be useful as it gave me further incite into what a conversation about obtaining permission to shoot in certain locations would be like. It allowed me to gain experience into an industry I'm interested in which I am thankful for. However, if I were to redo this project I would strongly plan ahead before sending out important emails so mistakes like this don't occur.

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.