Location Research

Location- Running on the Cracks

As a group we had to chose the most appropriate location for our production to communicate our protagonist (Leo) is running away.

Initially we chose Maidenhead as our location because it was local and easy to shoot for our group but on reflection we considered that Maidenhead would not illustrate the isolation and internal struggles Leo would have in the narrative. Rather it would create an "amateur-ish" feel to the audience, therefore bringing the quality of our film down. We decided to have London as our setting as it is an iconic setting that would easily portray Leo's melancholy frame of mind whilst she was lost in the busy crowd of the streets. In London we chose to shoot on a bridge overlooking a lake, in order to incorporate a tracking shot of Leo walking in search of somewhere to live. As film makers, we wanted to covey a loss of innocence to the audience as Leo enters the real world, and I felt the ambience/atmosphere of London was perfect to depict this. Whilst searching for the exact location, I kept in mind that during editing we would eradicate the warmth of the atmosphere by adding blue filters to enhance the "cold" feel of London, (pathetic fallacy- English students would know) representing the location as almost depressing.

Images of London location, as you can see the original set for our film is too bright that's why we knew we would alter the colours :
 

 

 

Conventionally, films of mystery such as ours include open areas and crowds of people to demonstrate characters isolation so London was appropriate and a location that the audience would expect to see to communicate the genre.

Contrasting to London, I wanted to convey meaning to our audience about Leo's childhood with her parents and siblings. Thus we wanted the setting of our flashback to develop on this theme of warmth and happiness. When discussing appropriate location, a typical home came to mind because it connotes an intimate/personal ambience which was desired. One member in our group was willing to use a family member's house and we knew with decorations that the living room could be made very inviting/warm contrasting to the London location and communicating to the audience the fond memories of her childhood.