Screen shots from filming

Some screen shots from our two filming sessions...

- under Hackney Road railway bridge -
The lighting here in this urban environment is unique with the green neon lights. The advertising boards covered in tattered posters and street lamps give the rough, urban environment we are aiming for.

- Hackney Road, middle of the busy road, fish eye effect -
This shot, with the speeding traffic, gives the impression that everything is passing him by, while he is left behind in his world of despair and regret.
- Grace's garage, Greenhithe, Red lighting -
These shots are to portray the unkempt room our main character lives in. The untidyness conveys his messed up state of mind, and how he has a lack of regard for anything as his mind is consumed with regret.
- Grace's garage, the chair in our main actors room -
To emphasise the loneliness and emptiness he feels
- Grace's garage, Greenhithe -
We used car headlights to create interesting directional lighting. I like the effect as it creates more shadows and dynamic lighting than a normal light bulb.
- Park behind Hackney Road -
The lighting here was really effective, and the lit up flats in the second shot add to the urban environment. The second shot also lends itself to be used in an overlay, as there is a lot of space on the left side of the shot. Overlaying something such as a medium shot of the girlfriend he has lost would be perfect as he looks like he is thinking in this shot.
- Columbia Road, Hackney -
Filming in front of a gate gave us a frame for shots of our actor in different positions, where he is thinking, regretting and remembering. The street lamp also creates dramatic shadows.

Photographs from filming

We had our first filming session on Sunday 24th of January, around Waterloo, Richmond Park and Hackney. Original plans were to also film in Greenwich and Vauxhall but time restrictions meant we didn't film in these areas and will probably just cut these ideas from our video.

I took some photographs throughout the day to document our filming.

Leake Street tunnel in Waterloo, London's designated graffiti area...

The lighting in the tunnel was perfect, and the colours of the graffiti came out beautifully. We utilised my fisheye conversion lens in our video and I think the results are really striking and unique. 'The first types of fisheye lenses to be developed were "circular fisheyes" — lenses which took in a 180° hemisphere and projected this as a circle within the film frame.' We love the distortion and effect the fisheye creates; we can capture more of the tunnel and create a more visually interesting shot.

- Waterloo, Leake St -

- Hackney Rd -

- Leake St Stairwell -

We attempted filming some deer in Richmond Park, however, it was impossible to get close enough to any; we ended up chasing them, meaning any footage we got was wobbly and completely unusable. When we finally had a perfect shot the camera stopped working, so we missed out. We continued to use Grace's digital camera to film, and in the end we felt that using this camera was better, as the colours and quality of footage were superb. We decided to cut the deer footage from our video, as the footage just isn't of good enough quality. We will probably also cut the flock of birds as well, because we have not yet seen any.

Shooting Schedule

We are mostly filming in London, and have decided to go there on Sunday 24th to film everything. We are hoping to film everything in one day, and are traveling up early to spend the entire day there. We need to plan the order we film as the lighting conditions change throughout the day, and we require different conditions for different parts of the video to create varied atmospheres.

We plan to start in Greenwich to film the alleyways in the industrial area near to The 02 Arena, as we wanted daylight for these shots. Then we will travel to Leake Street tunnel in Waterloo, as this is the next closest location - lighting conditions are unimportant as it will be dark enough in the tunnel. We're then heading to Vauxhall to film some shots including Battersea Power Station, then on to Richmond Park to film the deer and bird shots. We will then head to Hackney Road in east London to film the bulk of the footage as the sun begins to set to get a dusk atmosphere.

The industrial area in Greenwich, near to the O2 arena. The rough and abandoned look to the area is perfect for the theme of our video.

Mood board

My group decided to construct a mood board to gather all our ideas together in one place. We used our location pictures, music video screen shots, lyrics and words such as REGRET and LONELINESS to enrich our mood board. This task will help us focus and organise our existing idead hopefully provide further inspiration.

Locations

Grace's garage - Greenhithe

Grace's garage has the potential to become a room or bedroom for our actor. We will decorate it accordingly; shabby furniture, messy floor, torn wallpaper/brick walls, basically a neglected environment, to reflect his life and mental state.

Leake Street - Lambeth SE1 - behind Waterloo Station

Matt Brown has hosted two amazing photographs taken on a Holga camera on his Flickr account, of Leake Street, a tunnel in London which features some incredible graffiti. The lighting in this tunnel, and the art on the walls, would provide some interesting shots for our video. The atmosphere in a tunnel, and what being in a tunnel symbolises (feeling trapped, alone, oppressed, helpless) is perfect for the video we want to create.

Hackney Road - Hackney E2

This East London location is perfect as it's rough and urban, adding to the image we want to portray. The railway bridge and alleyways also add to the environment we want to create. Some interesting night shots could be created here, as shown by the photograph.

Battersea Power Station - Battersea SW8

Battersea power station is an old abandoned building and a less obvious choice for a London landmark. The ruined insides would provide a perfect grimey environment, although we may not be able to film inside the actual building. The facade would still provide some aesthetically unqiue shots for our video.

Richmond Park - Richmond SW15

Richmond Park is the largest open space in London, and has some wildlife such as deer and birds which would create interesting footage for our video. A herd of deer running or a flock of birds flying would be dramatic and reflect the subjects confused and disorientated state of mind.

Dartford Town Centre

We've decided to use a kebab shop closer to home for this part of the filming, and using Google Maps, found a suitable location.