Filming-day 2-'The Bad Street'

This is the second scene that we filmed, and was the 'bad street' in the video. This scene was outlining the extent that the female would go to for the love of the male character, and had to look as scary and isolated as possible to outline this theme.We chose the location of a road leading to the marina for this, as it was an isolated area, containing only bins and old houses. However, when arrived, the lighting was very dark and the character could barely be seen. We then saw a partially lit up area on the marina itself near some flats, so did a test there (shown below).




We thought this would be good, as there was a gate at the end of the road behind me, showing many old plants and rubbish behind it, resembling an isolated graveyard or generally scary place with the darkness of the sky adding to this. However, the issues we found with this location were that there were still a lot of bright lights in the background, which we noticed later on, meaning it still looked too bright and generally 'safe', taking away the vulnerability of the character, and making the audience disbelieve what is happening. We also realised that the camera, although hand held, was too shaky, cutting off some of the female's hair and face as it tracked whilst she walked, therefore not giving a smooth enough conventional look that still worked in a romantic video. We also realised that some of the lights on the ground below the female as she passed made bright lines on the camera, distracting to the viewer and unattractive in the shot.

We then did another shoot on a path approaching the end of marina. This was lit briefly, with street lights on either side as I walked up, and contained backlights of the rest of the marina in the background. This was dark and isolated, so was ideal for filming, as there were no people or obstacles in the way, and was a direct route to the end location where Jacob and I would meet.




However, when filming in this area, we found that the street lights at either side were not bright enough to pick up certain facial features showing me singing, cutting off the narrative given from the character to the audience. Instead of filming on another location, as we thought this one had the ideal space to use, we borrowed a small battery light that would fit onto the camera from our teacher John. When re-shooting this scene, the light picked up the face much better, and made expressions much clearer. We then kept this location and filmed our scene with the light there.