Pre Production Unit - Location Recce: London

Since I was looking at London for a lot of locations to film for the project, I felt it would be really important to do a recce in all of the locations I was thinking about filming in. We decided to take a trip up to central London and have a look around based on practicallity and to ensure the visuals were accurate enough for the shoot. The first place we visited was Piccadilly Circus. You can see a photo I took below:

This location I feel represented completely what I had in my head. It was vibrant and fairly busy but not so busy that we wouldnt be able to film. I stood in many different positions around the location looking at all the angles and walking through with Andreya all the different types of shots I was picturing for the scene. We spent a good hour going through all the different types of things we could do here and its been a real insight to how the film would end up looking.

The next location we moved on to was the financial district. This is the area of london thats home to all of the london banks and where all the big corporations are housed. Its also got some of Londons most Iconic Landmarks like The Gherkin and The Leadenhall Building. You can see a few photos I took below:

This place took up a lot of our time, purely by the fact that its so big. There are many different streets and avenues that have differernt angles of all the buildings. We took our time looking around in many different positions to find where the best angles were and what was going to work well in terms of the film. One of the best places we stumbled on was a square that you can see in the first picture of the three. You can see its a great open space amongst the arcutecture that surrounds it. There is also a lot of corporations around the square with a lot of people wearing business atire and this is exactly the place I feel the film needs. The other place was right by the Gherkin. There was a great street that was formal and very pleasing to the eye with the large building towering above. This is somewhere I can really see us using.

The final place we looked at was Chelsea. Since we were running out of time due spending so much time at the other two places, we had to prioritise and I felt that the Chelsea location was really important as I wanted to make sure the place was going to look right. You can see a photo I took below:

I was worried that when we got there the streets were going to be really busy in terms of traffic meaning it might be quite difficult to get the shots I was thinking about. It was busy when we got off the tube but as we went more residential it seemed to get a lot less busy. We found a nice road that I feel would work perfectly and walked up and down it to see what would look best. I also saw more creativity in how some shots could be done like on the other side of the road and even further back in the square behind. This location will be perfect for the scene I'm thinking of.

Overall the location recce was really worth doing. It was really good to visit each of the locations and spend some time there seeing how certain shots could be done and working out the practicalities of where the camera would go. I feel this has prepared me well for shooting and has confirmed a lot of things which now allow me to move onto the next step of getting permissions for all these places.

Pre Production Unit - Locations: London

I have been looking into further research on locations for the project. As I have gotten the ball rolling on the house, I wanted to do the same with the other scenes. Nearly all of the other scenes are set in London so I decided to look into this. I have filmed in London on previous projects and I have visited there a lot so I felt I knew the place quite well. When thinking about the visuals for the story, there were 4 places that I really needed to think about. These were the designer shopping street, a classy residential area, the financial district and picadilly circus. I decided to look into the designer shopping place first. For this I felt oxford street would be a great place for this as it has a lot of shops and is a really well known area. After thinking about it I felt this might actually cause a problem and not give the right impression I want to give as oxford street has more high street branded shops like Marks & Spencer, Boots and Topshop. I feel the character would shop in more designer shops due to her financial situation so I then thought about Regent Street. This place has more of the shops that are right for the situation. Its still a nice street to film on but also has a higher end look to it. This is somewhere that I am highly considering for this scene.

The next scene I thought about was the residential area. In the story, the character walks past a nice residential street in a fancy ball gown. I looked into areas like Knightsbridge and Mayfair but one place that really stood out for me was Chelsea and Kensington. I feel this area had the right look to what I was imagining with the expensive looking terrace houses and the nice traditional street lamps. I feel this location would fit really well with the story and will visually represent what I am trying to achieve so I will most likely look to film here.

The next place I had to think about was the financial district. I want to film here as its really important that I represent this as part of the story. Back in the original structure from the poem Sophie has real issues with bankers. Her parents were both business people and she ends up killing 3 as the story goes on. I also feel that I could use this scene showing the character homeless as the tall buildings and the people around her will really reinstate the contrasted situation that she is in. I also feel the tall iconic buildings reflect power and wealth which goes well with the story. 

The final place is Picadilly Circus. This is one of the most important places for me as i want it to become a statement scene in the film. I picture Sophie walking through London in a large, oversized, glamorous ball gown amongst tourists and people in casual clothing. It will all be slowed down and really visually stunning as she stands out amongst the crowd. I also imagine this taking place at dusk as the large advert boards reflect colour on her face. This is something I really want to include so I will be looking to seek permission to film here.

 After looking into all of these locations I really want to make sure that they are practical and will look right for the film so myself and Andreya will be carrying out a Recce as soon as possible.

Pre Production Unit - No Country For Old Men Script

As my script is very visual with not a lot of dialogue I wanted to see how other scripts did this as most of the scripts I have seen contain a lot of dialogue. I decided to look into the script for a film called 'No Country For Old Men'. This film has a long and visual opening sequence lasting 2 minutes with no dialogue what so ever apart from voice over. I felt it would interesting to see how this was written in a script form by comparing the scenes with the script. Below is the opening sequence of the final film:

I watched this first and then compared it to the final script to see how it matched up and how they had done it. You can view the pages of the script that match the visuals below:

The layout is the same as a normal drama script. It has the scene descriptors at the top which include whether it's internal or external, where the scene is set and what time of day it is. It also has shot descriptions like Fade In as well as the description of the scene, the characters name in the middle and voiceover content underneath. I realise that when it comes to doing my own script, although it is mainly voice over with not a lot of dialogue, its still set out the same way. I have noticed that as a scene changes the voice-over stops and its then described what we are seeing next. This is something that I will make sure to do in my script. As soon as something visual is happening it's really important that myself as a writer is stopping to explain it so that the person reading it can understand what's happening visually. 

When looking at the two side by side they both are almost identical just one is describing it with words and the other is showing it visually on screen. Since it all stems from the script and that comes first I need to make sure that I am writing everything in that I am seeing as I go along as this will help me to translate it exactly when making the production. This has shown me that no matter how little dialogue there is in a film, it's still really important to have a script to work off as its guiding you through the whole process. In some previous productions, I felt a script wasn't necessary as there was little to no dialogue and so a shot list would be able to compensate for both but after researching this I have realised that its actually a really important thing to have. After looking at this I feel it's allowed me to be on the right lines when I come to writing my drama script. 

Pre Production Unit - Locations: House

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been doing some research into locations. This is a vital part of the process and looking at this now would get the ball rolling as they can take some time to confirm. When looking at my visuals I have done for the poem, I decided to look through some image ideas for the types of places I would need. The first one was the house where Sophie lives. I first of all as a director wanted something like this:

Very quickly, I switched over to my producer brain that said this was going to be near impossible to get on such a tight budget. I decided to think more logically and question how I could show wealth without trying to film in a stately home. My next thought was to look more into modern and contemporary houses. After researching online I found a few images that really inspired me such as the ones below:

I decided that this would be a great route to explore that was a little bit more practical than grand stately homes. I spoke with Andreya who is the D.O.P. and showed her the type of style I was thinking about. She agreed it would be much more visual and pleasing to look at. I next went onto the kent film office website as I knew this had some great locations that were avaliable to contact for filming. Andreya also did this as she was looking in terms of visual style. On the website you had to make an account and then you could search their database from a long list of categories that they had.

After looking through this and searching the local area, We found a variety of places that I felt would work with the production. 3 of these were the modern ones that we had discussed along with one that was a little bit older but I felt would also work well. I decided to put these into location packages as this would be a nice way to look through them in more detail when it came to contacting and working out which places would work well in terms of scenes. You can view these below: 

Location One -  LW Flat Roof Mode

Location Two - Capel Manor Pavilion 

Location Three - Cherry Tree Cottage 

Location Four - Ashfired Park

As you can see the packages contained the name at the top followed by images of the house exterior and interior. I then followed it by the area that it was based in and a short description of the property. We both decided that we could see all the scenes working in each of the houses so I decided to contact Kent Film Office by email. I told them what our project was, the locations that we would like to film in and how much we were looking to pay. They replied saying they would contact the owners and get back to us. I am still waiting for a reply on this. 

Pre Production Unit - Character Analysis Research: Gone Girl

After thinking up the idea and developing a bit of structure on my character I kept relating her to having some similar attributes to the character Amy Dunne from the hit thriller blockbuster Gone Girl. I decided that in order to develope my character further, I really wanted to see how Amy's character plays out in the film and do some research and analysis on this. I watched the whole film and wrote notes all the way through paying paticular attention to the character.

First of all Amy is introduced right at the first opening shot of the film. She lays in the lap of her husband as he describes wanted to crack her skull whilst stroking her hair. We instantly feel that she is set up as the victim. The next time we see her is at a party. She seems a very normal person who has attractive traits showing she is warm, funny and human. As the scene develops and the two characters leave the party and we see their romance grow. So far Amy is really relatable and likeable having normal traits. She is desirable and almost a person that you could say people aspire to.

As the story goes on we start to see Amys background. We find out that her parents have made a series of books based on her called Amazing Amy only the character in the book is more of a perfect person. Its almost as if her parents have created a dream version of their daughter like her getting married when shes not or releasing a book of her playing the chello a year after she gave it up. Amy refers to the character as the 'golden child' of her. This is really interesting as it shows development of why Amy ends up the way her character is towards the second half of the film. She is almost neglected and can never live up to her parents expectations that the character in the book seems to mold into. The emotional toll that it must put on Amy must really affect her and suports the way that she is later. We also find out in a scene a bit later on that her parents go bankrupped due to a resession and spend nearly all of Amy's trust fund money to bail them out for the book.

As the film continues we see that Amy is seen as the loving, devoted wife. She is angelic and innocent and is a huge victim leading us to believe that her husband has killed her after their marrage breaks down and he finds out shes pregnant. At the half way point, everything in the film changes and flips on its head. Amy has faked her own death to get back at her husband for having an affair and hopes he dies with the death penalty. She is seen on the run as the public and the media go into a frenzy believing she is dead. We instantly see a different side to Amy. We see someone who we thought was so relatable and innocent turn into someone who is not who we thought she was. The film continues flicking back and forth between Nick her husbands life and her life until we really see Amy unravel. We realise the extent that she goes to in order to make out that her husband had beaten her by hiting her own face with a hammer leaving a bruise. We find out on Nicks side that she has let her previous boyfriends go to jail for stalking and rape when they convince Nick that they are innocent and havent done this at all. We really see Amy's true psychotic trates when she seeks refuge with an old boyfriend who is slightly obsessed with her. She stays at his mansion and ends up pretending he has tied her to the bed by playing up to CCTV cameras that she has escaped with bandages tied to her wrists. We also then see the boyfriend come home as she takes him into the bedroom, has sex with him and then slits his throat then swimming in his blood to look like she was captured and it was self defense.

When analysing this film I really get a sense of my character in her. Although my character is not as crazy and obsene, I feel like the fact that she is really strong minded and fierce but also later goes on to kill 3 business men is really shocking. This film has made me think that I can add to the fact that when she kills the men she has no remorse once shes done it and accepts the fact that when she gets caught shes not upset by it. I feel this is more effective than what I was originally planning where she would be frantic after and feel guilt. I feel like this has helped me to look at my character and help to develop her further by analysing this film. Its inspired me to think of my character as someone stronger and lacks remorse which I will be sure to describe when writing my script.

Pre Production Unit - Story Structuring

Although I have broken down the poem and the visuals that run alongside it, I still felt I wanted to know my character and her journey. I sat down and decided to first do a mind map getting more ideas of where Sophie has been in her life. Although I had a good idea from the visual breakdown I still wanted to get it clearer in my mind and make sure I consider all the other possible routes she could go down. I looked online at how to break down a character and one article in particular suggested that mind maps were the best way to do this. You can see an example below:

This showed me very clearly what I needed to do having the character in the middle and then breaking off to all the traits and important parts of their personalities. You can see my own mind map that I produced below:

Although a little faded as I did it in pencil, I made several categories such as a house she lives in, family background, traits and clothing. From there I could branch off in more detail. This really helped me with the next stage of structuring the story.

After producing a mind map and looking at my previous visual break down, I then went on to produce a flow chart style diagram. This allowed me to break each part of her life down and get a real sense of her character. You can see this below:

 I started with the film title at the top and then went with my head to see where the characters journey would go. I wondered if having it all at a young age and then  it all being taken away from you would give more of a purpose to why the character would be more off the rails when she suddenly got it all back again. I decided that she would come from a broken family who didnt really pay her a lot of attention and she went off the rails craving attention. After years of substance abuse her family eventually threw her out on the streets as a result of going from everything to nothing. When the family die in a plane accident,  she then later inherites the money falling back on her feet from her families fortune. I feel although I may not choose to include all elements of this, I know the character a lot better and this will really help me with the creative writing process.

Pre Production Unit - Adapting A Written Poem

After writing a poem I want this eventually to take the form of a fully formatted drama style script. The first thing I did was read it over and over again in my head. As I was doing this it allowed me to picture the character well and all of the visuals that I could imagine with it. I started to be able to take the character on a journey as the poem went along. Once I had come up with the visuals I would then key in rough headings to where I felt it would go at different stages of the poem. You can see this below:

Once this was done I was really starting to see a story appear through the poem. I decided to break it down even further by creating a table. It contained three columns, one for shots, one for visuals and one for audio. I wanted break it down as much as I could with the idea to get it really clear in my head. You can see this below: 

From here I will start to develop this table using it as a guide when writing it into a drama style script.  I will make sure the final script is properly formated but having this as a reference will keep me on track to ensure I know where I am going when writing it. Also when I was laying out these visuals from the initial poem and picturing the character I gave her the name Sophie and decided to type this in. I feel like its a good strong name that would fit with the character and this is the name I gave her and its stuck. I am thinking about calling the film Sophie as I want it to be all about her. I feel a film with a name as the title is strong and intriguing so this is what I am going with for this project.