Location Recce

We chose to base most of our film within school and have parts of it filmed at my house, for the makeover scenes as it will allow there to be logical causality for why she has the utensils she will be using and it would seem random for her to have these things at school. We wanted to find areas of the school which suited the cinematography of our film, high key lighting and preferably colourful settings.
In the end we chose to use the media hallway, the geography corridor and just outside the media block. These were ideal for our film as they are bright areas and the locations outside are painted blue and yellow, to help emphasise the ‘colourfulness’ of our story.

These are the doors we wish to use for the beginning of the film, where Luke is walking through a doorway and see’s the “Aladdin rehearsals” sign and walks on to discover Olivia in the classroom.

This is the rest of the corridor we plan to use and the stairs being where Luke waits for Olivia to come out of ‘rehearsals.’ The empty hallway will be ideal for the shot just before the genie appears where there is a pan of the area and Luke establishes to himself that there is no one around.


Why this location?

We chose this particular location as it suits our film and the brightness of the lighting also adds to the effect we want to create, reflecting the ‘fantasy’ and happy side of our story.
It’s a suitable location to film as during lessons these hallways are usually empty, allowing easy filming.
The door allows us to create an interesting shot to reveal the rehearsals sign, perhaps opening the door to display the sign as opposed to just taking a boring shot of the sign on the door.

Problems?

- Students walking past may be a distraction however we can control this by keeping an eye out before taking any shots and preventing any students interrupting the film.
- The music room is just above the corridor which could prove to be a problem as the sound will be noticeable within our film.
- The bell, of course, will be an interruption in any location but we will simply pack up 10 minutes before it rings, allow people to disperse and restart our filming.

The drama studio is where we plan to have the shot of Olivia acting with the gold lamp. This is because it is within the media corridor so will help with continuity. The only problem we may encounter with the room is that there may be a lesson during the time we need to film. If this is the case we may have to arrange the shot to be filmed after school hours when the room will empty or find a moment when the room is free.

For the shot when the genie follows Luke outside, and makes something appear from nowhere, we plan to use this location. It’s just outside the media blocks and suits our film again due to the colours however filming here will be dependant on the weather conditions. If it is impossible to film here we will resort to a location inside the building, most likely within the media corridor as it will continue from where he meets the genie f or the first time.

Problems?

- The weather conditions, rain, strong wind, will prevent us from using this location as it will be very difficult to film and will spoil our film.
- People walking past, will always be an issue but again we will keep an eye out and try to stop anyone getting in the way of the film.

This is a location we plan to have parts of the shots where Luke and Genie are ‘getting to know each other.’ The colour of the paint will reflect what we are trying to create, in relation to cinematography. The bright colours will emphasise the childish aspect of the film and the happiness.

This is another location we decided to use for the part where the genie and Luke are spending time together, as it continues the outside theme and is also a quiet area to film with hopefully no distractions.

These locations are also quite close to our first one, preventing us from wasting a lot of time on moving around and moving equipment.


Problems?

- the basketball court is inside the doors so if there are people training in there the noise may affect our film. However the shots of them ‘getting to know’ each other are not supposed to have dialogue in them and we were planning to play music over the top so hopefully this shouldn’t be an issue.
- People walking past.
- Weather – if the weather is too bad for us to film here, the ‘getting to know each other’ shots are most likely to be relocated to my house.
- There may be another group filming in the second location as we bumped into them while creating our recce, however this can be easily solved by scheduling who will film there first.

This part of the geography block is where we plan to have our final scenes. The scene where Luke approaches Olivia and the scene where he makes his wish.

Problems?

There are a set of chairs in the way but we will receive permission to relocate them for our filming and the location will be fine apart from the usual problems such as students walking past, the bell etc… which we already have solutions to.

Monday 5th October - There has now been a slight change in one of our locations, there rose issues with the location of my house as an adult needed to be present due to us using year 9's or 10's now. This created problems with safety therefore we had to resort to another location and are now going to use the drama rooms 'Green room.' This is ideal as it has mirrors and is spacious enough for cameras and sound equipment, but will require us to empty it out and replace things how we found them. However this helps us as it means we don't have to travel off site with expensive equipment, which may have proved risky, and it prevents us wasting any time moving locations etc...

We spoke to Mr Edwards, one of our deputy heads, in order to recieve the 'okay' for all of our locations. The drama department were more than happy to allow us to use the studio and the green room and Mr Edwards was perfectly fine with the locations we had chosen. Therefore that is one thing done and out of the way - locations are fine and there are no problems!