Problems with Filming

During the filming process we encountered various problems. The first and most substantial problem was finding that we were not able to shoot ob the DLR as we had intended. In order to overcome this, we found another location and worked out ways in which we could use it to the same effect.

We also encountered problems with sound. We were attempting to film some dialogue on London Bridge but it was extremely windy and many people were walking and talking around us. This level of ambient noise made it very difficult to get any clear dialogue. We decided to crop the shot a little and then get a directional microphone as close to the actors as possible, just out of frame. At first, we thought this had been effective but when we came to editing we realised the sound was still not good enough so we dubbed over it.

We had further complications with the location when we found that the location for the final scene of our piece had different lighting to when we'd recced it and a security guard was there telling us he didn't think we could film there. Thus we quickly made the decision to film somewhere more open and urban but which still provided an alleyway of sorts to give the scene its dark tone. We actually preferred the compromise that we made as we believe it fitted in better with the tone of the film.

Ident

In making our ident we wanted to create something that looked professional but not too commercial, maintaining the film's art house, indie feel. We went into Final Cut Pro X's title menu and looked through the templates there to find an effect with some character. We found one called 'Fold' which features a small animation of a picture of your choice and some text unfolding and then folding back up. We believed that it's simple and effective and it allowed us to use a copyright-free picture of a bridge to fit in with our production company's name (Under the Bridge Productions). We then added a small music clip that I played on ukulele.

Our ident

Changes Made To Our Film

Initially, we had intended to film our film on the DLR or a train service, however we found this to be too impractical due to the large amounts of people present on such vehicles and the surprisingly rigorous security in place. As a result, following our recce, we made the decision to change our location from any form of public transport to the area around London Bridge. We did a quick second recce around this area and found some good substitute locations, such as the bridge for the first meeting and then a stairway leading down to the river for the journey to the second meeting, which would take place under the bridge. For the scene in which the girl is dragged into an alley by the protagonist, we decided to use a car park. However, when we came to actually filming the opening, we were no longer happy with this location as it didn't quite work in terms of continuity and lighting. We quickly found a location that worked better with the journey up a staircase preceding it and provided better lighting yet still looked isolated enough to provide tension and threat.