Locations to film

When finding the set for our film we started by looking for what was the best in terms of mise-on-scene. So the first place that came to mind was an abandoned set of buildings in Annerly. This was an appropriate location as it was destroyed and burnt, I knew the owner and we were also allowed to mess up the floor with blood. The rooms were very wide and had a large space to film in and they were also covered in graffiti and dust. However, as it was an airsoft field we would be limited to a very strict filming schedule, only being able to film on Saturdays and eye protection would have to be worn. despite how nice it would have looked, it was just too inconvenient to film there and there would be too many safety precautions we would have to take as the roof on the building was very unstable.

The next location I looked at was a photography studio in Crystal Palace, this suited our film perfectly and was the right size for us to be able to film in. The lighting was also incredibly good, however there were some major issues, we weren't able to get blood on the floor and it would cost us £12 an hour.

Next I went to a friends farm in Otford, this was a similar case to the Annerly site, where we were able to do everything we wanted and the set looked amazing but it would also push us for time. As Otford was quite far away we would need to leave immediately, the lighting in the building was poor so we needed to arrive as soon as possible. We would also risk damage to some of our equipment as it was extremely muddy. It was disappointing not being able to film there as the building we were going to film in was incredibly isolated and was attached to a world war one bunker. 

I found that as our film played around with the focus on shots it wasn't 100% necessary to have a large filming location. So I started to moving the furniture around in my double length garage. I was able to clear half of the room and put up white sheets to block off that side. The red floor was a problem as it wouldn't show blood very well, so I put down some white plastic on the floor instead. The room suited our colour scheme well as it was mainly black and white once we had finished modifying it. One problem we did encounter was managing the light as, it was too dark and there was only one source of light. This was very close to us when compared to the other filming locations as it was only a few roads away from Phil and I lived there.