19. Final Agreements

Yesterday evening we had a Skype call where we discussed what our final idea would be, where soon after I typed up the SYNOPSIS and made a ROUGH DRAFT of what we planned. It took us just over an hour discussing various ideas and methods of how principal photography would go.

Today we have now decided on a filming location, after doing some LOCATION ANALYSIS over the weekday, and we felt Waterloo Station was our best bet as there are many secluded areas that would have few pedestrians walking by to not cause a disturbance to us or to them.

18. Risk Assesment

The main risk we could've faced was getting stopped by police due to the use of weapon props, fortunately this was not the case. and to make sure of this we ensured we had one of our friends at either end of the tunnel just letting passers by know what was going on and what to expect if someone was running around the corner towards them. There were a few instances where they wouldn't want to be on camera and so we waited and allowed them to pass.

17. Location Planning

From Friday the 17th to Sunday the 26th we took our free time to go out and check out where we planned to film. Initially we had an idea to film a shot within Waterloo Station however this required permits that would have to be requested two weeks in advance which was cutting time very short for us so we decided to alter our plans and look elsewhere. Just outside one of the station entrances we scouted a great location which was full of people to emphasise this busy environment of the city. From the steps the initial idea was for the protagonist to be confronted by the chasers but the area was too busy for that scene so we relocated to an underpass which was perfect as it would also amplify any sounds made.

16. Fonts

For the titles our font of choice was called "Tall Dark and Handsome", "Icebox Art" for the studio intro and "Blacklisted" for the production intro. We chose "Icebox Art" based on its icy looking assets which relates to the name of the production and studio name.

"Tall Dark and Handsome" has a very slender typeface and this provides some elegance to the text and despite not being very bold this is enough to draw the audiences attention without completely distracting them.

"Icebox Art"

"Tall Dark and Handsome"

"Blacklisted"

15. Sound

For the scenes where we would be filming out in the public we noticed there would be too much background noise and so to counter this I brought along a portable mic that would be placed near the sites of action. For example the shot where Suri runs into the passer by due to the echo of the tunnel noise from the street above was picked up by the DSLR's internal mic but having the portable mic hidden around the corner allowed us to pic up the sounds of the bag dropping and the sound of the impact.

To tackle the problem of unnecessary background noise we managed to capture some room tone. The reason for room tone is to put over the audio timeline and use as a substitute for any editing points in dialogue to keep the soundtrack flowing smoothly and also to create a feel for the size of the area we filmed in.

14. Equipment

During our preliminary task we found out that the use of a stabiliser would be very useful as a lot of our running tracking shots were shaky and using post stabilisation. To combat this problem I funded the purchase of a stabiliser (£30) which uses counter weights to reduce shake. We used this in scenes where we shot Suri walking down the steps into the tunnel and the ending sequence where he's running to find where the address is.

These are examples of a shot we were able to achieve using the stabiliser and without it going down the steps and the fast paced walking shots would've been very shaky.

13. Script

(After Suri has exited the train, he reaches the station entrance outside and looks at the London sky-line. He receives a phone call and answers with a hesitant voice.)

Suri: Hello?

(A man with a rough voice answers)

Man: What have you got in that bag ?
(Suri looks around and sees two thugs and runs from the station to the streets of London as the chase the scene begins.)

Thug 1: Go!

(He escapes them but has dropped his bag which the thugs discover)

Thug 1: (to Thug 2 with a smile) Get the bag, we can give it to him when we get there.

(He then gets a phone out of his pocket and calls someone who answers immediately)
Yes we've got the bag.

(Meanwhile Suri is hiding in a corner and picks up his phone to call his "friend" that he was talking to on the train before.)

Suri: I'm making my way there but I've lost the bag.

Friend:(Muffled voice via Suri's phone) Don't worry about it, get here as soon as possible.

12. Shooting Schedule 1

We plan to begin our fliming on the 4th March due to forecasted rainfall on the previous weekend of the 25th Feb. We've booked out a tripod and will be collecting it at the end of the week (Friday 3rd)