On location, we discovered that there were problems with some of the original decided features of our scene:
When filming our test shots, it became apparent that the path we had originally chosen for the victim to follow around the Royal Naval College into the foot-tunnel would cause difficulties. We had to block out a separate route through the grounds ensuring that no restaurants, passing visitors, sign posts for the gift shop or shots in which the glass casing of the Cutty Sark were visible. This proved difficult due to the lack of lighting upon the foot-paths in the area and the obvious commercialisation of the location.
On our original storyboard, no filming was included from the individual view of the victim as we decided to film the majority in CCTV format due to no intended empathy being felt towards the victim as an emotional bond between them and the audience as their character is insignificant as part of the plot.
The skyline shots we are using within our scene originally were not planned and were added as a decision during filming. We had planned to include establishing shots to determine the importance of our location as an anonymous city (London) but originally of the college and Cutty Sark itself but on location, we found the brighter and more definitive example of London as a location would have been better represented using the skyline shot of the City buildings across the Thames as a universal symbol.
Our first plan depicted the entirity of the scene filmed in the tunnel to be produced in black and white as CCTV footage but due to the supernaturality of our plot and our intention to emphasise this, we can now chosen to switch between colour during these shots to distort the image.
Sunday 16th December - 8:00am
I visited the Greenwich foot tunnel in order to see whether or not it would be suitable in order to film in and also to see how many people passed through the tunnel early in the morning. When I first entered the top of the tunnel it looked quite old with obvious work which has been stopped on the stairs resulting in unfrequent lighting down the stairs which matches inside of the tunnel and therefore it may be a good idea to start the CCTV on the stairs in order to carry on that lighting theme throughout. The lighting in the tunnel is shown in High Contrast lighting creating circular shadows and part of the light which would be good in order to show antagonist and protagonist by placing the characters in different lighting. I also attached my camera to a broom in order to show it being filmed from a CCTV height so that you can see from a high point of view of the camera and also various other places we could put it in order to show where the camera could be placed. Apart from a couple of people who pass through there is no one there at that time plus earlier in the morning and therefore you might have to get there around 6:30-7:00am to having a good amount of filming time before it starts to get busy around 10am but that is something to decide as a group as to what time we would all be happy to get there. There is a lot of dirt up the walls of the tunnel with scratch like marks of the stairs making it extremely con notable to horror/supernatural.
Outside it is too bright in the morning to create the dark effect however there are quite a few lights out which will create the street like effect. Around the back of the tunnel entrance there is the skyline of London which will create a nice backdrop in order to start the opening or it could be shown when the camera is panning with the actor to the tunnel entrance. Also there is a college and pub nearby which could supply reasons for that person being there which is also handy in order to tell the audience what type of person the protagonist is and what their background may be. There is also the Cutty Sark in the middle of the area which is also another landmark which people will recognise and therefore interesting shots could be taken through the glass that surrounds the bottom of it without getting the camera in the shot as well. To film at night would be a good idea and therefore by having a few people around it indicates that although it is late it isn't busy therefore indicating it being set around 11pm etc.
Overall it was a successful visit to the location.
