Main Task - Location

We needed a location with forestry, woodland area with lots of trees and the location had to be fairly big. We needed an area which also had a great deal of shrubbery rather than just open space. We looked over a few locations; the first location was Manzil way Park it had tall trees, however they are spaced wide apart, rather than giving the feeling of crowding. Although the park has a play area, again the problem was that in the background, the area back’s out onto a main road, where people would often walk past, it didn’t have a secluded feel.

The second location we looked at was South Park which is next door to our school; this was a good advantage for us. We loved the big open spaces, this also had tall trees, which were not too far apart, and enclosed areas along the side. As well as isolated shrubbery along the side, which are perfect for our Mise-en-scene.

The third location we looked at was a field behind the Headington Rowland pharmacy, we also liked this location but it didn’t have a proper park and not enough trees. However it did have a woodland effect and it was a big space. However the problem was one of our actors refused to come down to the area.

The last location we looked at was Angel and Greyhound Meadows; this was exactly what we were looking for. It had a park with a big open space and lots of tree, and the play area, was fenced up, in the middle of the grounds. Further it was completely isolated, and the area even before filming had a tense, ominous feeling, particularly when it was empty. But this time both of our actors refused to come as far as St Clements to film.

Out of these locations we decided to go for South Park, it was the second best in what we were looking for and plus it had a fallen tree that we decided to use in our film as a prop. It was convenient for everyone to meet up and to carry filming gear to. We were also thinking of doing a shot of the girl coming out of Brookes University showing her as happy like nothing can go wrong and then show her running through the park scared and panicky. Initially we thought by doing this as an opening, the audience will want to know what happened to her and why is she running but we decided to cut that out and just stick to the panic stricken scene in the park.

The trees in South Park are ultimately why we chose the area for filming. Our main scene is of the girl running through the trees scared. By doing this we wanted to give a threatening forest effect. The park had different areas with just patches of trees close together we picked the patch that was most effective for our scene. We used different areas in the park but we made sure that they followed through with one another.

For the park scene we did intend to use small children playing so as to create a sense of security for the viewer, but we decided to change that and lead the opening with an abandoned and haunting feel.