Blog Post 12: My Location Reccie, Risk Assessment and Location Permissions

I had to plan a location reccie, risk assessment and get my location permissions to confirm the locations I was filming in for my advert.

Risk Assessment: This was important for the safety of the cast, crew and the general public:

Location Reccie: Deciding this was important because I wanted to film in a place my target audience would find interesting. It was important I visited the places before hand so I could see whether they were appropriate to film at:

Advert 1: Bush Hill Park Skatepark

When visiting this location, it made me realise that I have plenty of space to shoot since the skatepark is in the middle of the park. This will allow me to experiment with long and/or establishing shots. I can also film interesting hand held shots from the top of the bigger ramps and over the shoulder shots of skating when standing on the mid-ramps which would fit my cool montage.

Advert 2: Enfield Town station, Outside my house, On the train.

When visiting the station, I realised there wasn't much room from the Enfield Town stand (in the middle of the platform) to the train tracks. Since I was planning on filming shots in the middle of the platform, this will constrict me from filming a long and/or master shot and will have to stick to a close up or mid shot which is fine since I think this is the best shot for a conversation/dialogue anyway.

When looking outside my house, there is plenty of space on the pavement and in the road to shoot an establishing, master, long and mid shot. Since not many cars are parked on my road and not many drive through it, I can spend a lot of time filming and perfecting these shots. 

On the train, there is not a lot of space at all. A tripod can just about fit though the spaces between the chairs. This doesn't effect me too much because the majority of the shots on the train will be close ups for an intimate soap style dialogue, like Hollyoaks. The master shots can be taken sitting on the opposite seats to where my actors are positioned. 

Location Permissions: Since we are under 18, it's important our parents consent to us filming in these locations for our safety: 

This planning was beneficial to my project because it was a step in making my advert come together. It made me motivated to get out and film my advert and opened ideas I could use when filming such as a variety of shots after seeing the location in real life.