Location 2 Reflection

Location Scout 2 Evaluation

For this locations health and safety please see previous post or click link.

With our production brief in mind, we felt that this location would definitely become a strong contender for one of the places we may decide to shoot our final footage. We felt this location was able to provide the idea of a naturalistic setting. With it being a very public location, and many non-actors often in the background of our test shots, I feel we could quite easily capture the idea of real life without it looking forced.
This location was much appropriate that the first that we choose. This is a very naturalistic setting that is reflective of the New Wave movement and it allowed us top explore society issues through the mise-en-scene. I.e. graffitied park areas, litter, cigarette ends etc. Again reflective of the the New Wave, as the directors of the movement we attempting to explores contemporary issues that surrounded society. The location also provided us with the time to experiment with innovative camera movements, which the directors were acclaimed for. (The clip of this camera technique experiment is on an later post, or click the link to take you directly to it)

Take for example this screen shot from one of our test clips:

You can see (though admittedly not that clearly here) in this screen shot that there are members of the public walking through the background of the shot. This is a technique we find throughout the library of french new wave films and is something the directors used to keep the films looking 'real', allowing for naturalistic reactions to the cameras and crew etc.

When choosing to shoot in this location we also must consider the general appearance of the area, do we feel this particular place accurately represent the area as a whole? Does it suggest and fit in with the atmosphere we aim to convey in our film? Again, if we take a look at a couple of screen shots from the clips we will  be able to evaluate this.

From this screen shot we can see that graffiti has taken place in this area and litter is on the floor,
this may therefore suggest a 'run down' area, children playing in a vandalised park.
Perhaps this area is not particularly affluent. As a group we felt the connotations we get from these little clues that would be placed within the mise-en-scene, should we choose to make use of this location, would be perfect way to suggest the gritty, unglamorous side to life (again in keeping with the French new wave). 

The obvious problem we may come across if choosing to shoot here would be members of the public being unhappy about being in the shots. This would be something we would need to think about whilst shooting, asking permission of the people is definitely something we would consider when shooting footage in this area, though this may cause us to loose some of the naturalistic effect we are aiming for. If the people are aware if the filming this may alter the way in which they act or if after asking permission they refuse, we will immediately have to change the 'real' setting to fit around their decision. This is a problem that will need to discuss in a meeting before heading back out for final filming. Having said that, during our camera test shoot, this wasn't a major problem for us and it may not take up too much of our time trying to over come it.

Overall, as a group we felt this location scout to be very useful in finding an area we would like to use. We found that it would give us the setting (at least in part) that we are looking for when shooting the footage for a our film.




Location 2 from Sammie Masters-Hopkins on Vimeo.

This footage above is of this second location which, as previously mentioned, we felt appropriate for our brief. We begin with a shot of a set of garages and then pan round to see rows of flats and the beginning of a park area. This relatively normal area is reflective of the new wave movement, as the directors of this movement wanted to show, the grittier, more 'real' side to life, as opposed to overly glamourised and stylised version of life that Hollywood and other mainstream films often depict.

This shot is well composed, generally adhering to the image composition guidelines, keeping the horizon in the correct place, which can be seen on the camera seen when the grid setting is on. The entire image within the shot is in focus, suggesting a narrow aperture (f/22). Due to the fairly overcast day, and the small lens opening (a result of the aperture setting), we had to alter the ISO settings (to an 800) to ensure the image did not come out under-exposed. Had we altered the shutter speed (we would have had to make it slower in order to allow more light in) instead, we would have ended up with a blurred image due to the motion within the shot.