We decided that we would film in the Tonbridge/Tunbridge Wells area (the same as last time) because as well as these locations being quite local we thought that at night these two towns would look very effective lit up whilst driving through. On our last reccie we filmed during the day, however, we knew that if we were to go ahead with this section of the video we would want it filmed a night, so in order for this reccie to be a true reflection we made sure it was at night time that we filmed.
We made the decision that we were going to practice filming this part of our video first as we felt that the car sequence would be the most difficult to achieve high quality in, due to it being easy for it to look very amatuer. This links back to my post on problems that we needed to resolve; the main one being achieving an effective car sequence.
From this piece of research I learnt that the use of POV shots can look impressive aesthetically, so Casey and I were keen to carry out and practice this type of shot to see if we could achieve the same effect. As well as this it was also our aim to practice using other shots that were familiar to us, including:
- CU's,
- MS's,
- Over the shoulder shots...
With these sorts of shots in mind we had a basic idea of how we were going to carry out this reccie, however, other areas were vague and therefore the point of this reccie was mainly for the use of clarification. We were keen on having a car sequence in our video, however, we were unsure if it would fit our concept, therefore this reccie allowed us to experiment with this idea and to decipher whether it would fit or not. This reccie also gave us the opportunity to experiment with different/unusual shots, and to explore our skills creatively. Even though Josh was absent, for personal reasons, for this reccie, he had a lot of input on choosing what shots we were going to test out, as he was present in our first car sequence reccie.
We attempted:
- wide-angled shots,
- ECUs of specific components of the car (e.g dashboard, gear stick, sat nav, wing-mirrors...),
- MSs out of the back window,
- we also filmed a shot for a long duration of time so to be sped up in editing.
We faced a few difficulties whilst filming, the main one being the weather conditions; as well as it already being dark it was also raining during some parts and the sky was also over-cast. Although the rain restricted what we could film outside there was an advantage to the presence of rain because we felt that it added a stronger sense of atmosphere to our shots and fitted in nicely with our concept. Filming at night affected our lighting in a lot of shots, we found it nearly impossible to capture a clear enough shot of the passengers in the back seat, even with the aid of street lights. This is a major point we are going to have to consider when filming for our real video, or even on our next reccie. Necessary precautions are also needed to be taken if the weather conditions are not desirable, especially in respect with the rain, because in parts of the car sequence we do wish to film from the outside.
Looking at this reccie retrospectively I am very pleased with the outcome, as I feel we were allowed to fully experiment and explore the car sequence, to help decide how we were going to direct this particular scene when it came to the real filming. The possibility of this sequence looking amateur is still a concern of mine, but I felt that what we captured on this reccie really reflected the atmosphere of youths' having a 'good time' and although this type of atmosphere may be considered as amateur to some, I think it bodes well with the authentic feel we are hoping to capture in our video. This reccie has also made us take into account other possible locations we could use for this part of our video, in particular we thought of Hastings (I have posted previously photos of this location), as we felt that this town would look great at night time whilst driving through, particularly because of it being on the seaside. As well as this it poses other sub-locations which would work well for a youth based video, e.g an arcade, a pier, pubs, clubs, a promenade, and so on... Therefore it is now our aim to do another car sequence reccie but in Hastings.
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