Thriller Planning - Locations

I took the responsibility of travelling around the area in which our sequence was going to be set, Thorpe Marriott and Taverham. We all live in the area making it practical to film there, with no great distance between the two most distant locations. I then reported back to the group in lesson with around 50 photos for us to discuss, ruling out many and selecting which ones we would use, for what and why. This post should be related to the Planning Edit to come to give some context to the sequence and action in the scene.

 Here are locations for the first section of our sequence, where the man will first be introduced and where he will see the girl at the end of the street. There are both shots of the street during the day and at night. At night, the scene looks very mysterious with the street lights, but it would be difficult to see anything in areas that aren't lit, so we may need to film at dusk and then edit the brightness in the editing process. It may be a good idea to film this section both at night and at dusk and see which one works best. The man will reach the end of the street and then at the roundabout will lose sight of the girl, look down the different roads and then turn around to see the Shade character standing in the road. This location is similar to Gotham City in the Batman films, a dark urban area with eerily lit to create a dark atmosphere.

Here are two shots of an alleyway that the Detective will reach after fleeing from the Shade. This is where he will have his 2nd encounter, 2nd flashback, and then turn back around and run back the way he came from. This is a good location due to it's narrow path, high fences and long duration to create a very threatening area.

 

 After this urban escape section, the Detective will flee across a small field, shown here. If the weather is overcast and it is dark it will create a very eerie atmosphere.  Shown below are two shots of a track that is at the bottom of this field, Marriott's Way. This would be where we see the Shade standing (most likely the image on the right will be best) menacingly, but eerily. The man will then flee through the middle of here (it's like a crossroads of paths in this area) into a forested area. We decided this would be a good area for a point of view shot to show the Detective's fear. It would also create a claustrophobic effect and help build suspense, given the pace of the sequence by this stage.
The forested locations could be considered similar to those featured in the Bourne films, or the escape scene in Sherlock Holmes. The location creates an isolated effect and disorientates the audience.


 These shots are from a different forested area in Taverham, but it would look no different to the audience if lighting remained the same, they are very similar. The image on the left here of the junction of a forest path and an alleyway was a location as a group we really liked as the Shade could be standing so as to block one of the paths and force the man down the twisting alleyways that run alongside this forest. However, I pointed out that this would not fit the story, the man wouldn't reach an urban area again and then end up in a field in the middle of nowhere. Therefore it would be difficult to integrate this location into a plot where the man finishes with his confrontation with multiple Shades in a field. This alleyway comes out on a road that has a stretch of woods on either side though and could provide an alternate finishing location. However these locations are also not particualry conventional of thrillers and not many scenes have taken place in a similar style of location - It may be wise to film some footage here and use it should we need it, but to use it as a reserve location.

Otherwise, the man will eventually exit the forest at one of the locations shown by this large, overview shot. The stretch of trees in the background is Marriott's Way, so the man could exit from there, onto an open field that is accesible by the public (on the far left of the image, there is a gap in the trees), or onto a pathway that runs alongside the trees. The "Green" area, earlier pictured where the man will run across the field, could also be used here, just a different area, where the man could fall out of the trees, stumble down a small hill, and be cornered in the field, or on the far side where there is another large open space with a track leading out from the forest. These are all possibilities for filming sections of the sequence in and something we must consider, but the majority of locations detailed here will be used for the scenes detailed and for the reasons specified.

We ruled out locations such as Alleyways near Ghost Hill/Cypress Close, Taverham as they were simply not needed, we wouldn't have enough time to include every single location. We also ruled out a stretch on Mack's Lane as it was too far away from other locations and wouldn't allow for continuity in our sequence, despite it being a very eerie location that would be conventional, for instance it is similar to the open area used towards the end of "The Others". The map below shows vaguely the five areas in which filming will take place for our sequence. It also allows to see other areas we might have missed and can then address later such as the field in the top right hand corner at Longdale or south east of the locator at Nightingale Drive at Taverham Park, that could fit an urban area to field, which would allow for the previous alley scene to be filmed. This is something I will bring up with the group as I have only just noticed it whilst producing this map.

Locations that are not featured in this map are the locations for the flashback. We will require a room for the man to wake up in and feature in a flashback, and a shot of the abandoned Mental Asylum in Thorpe St. Andrews, shown here. This is not our image and one of the members of the group will visit this area to get a shot of it before filming, along with an image of the room we will use. This location could be linked to that of existing thrillers, such as the asylum in "Shutter Island", the main inspiration for our piece.