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Fives Courts Location Recce

  Location Recce Part 4.5 – Alleyn’s 2: Electric Boogaloo After attempting to gather extras in Crystal Palace about 40 times over and becoming increasingly infuriated at repeated failings, I sought a potential remedy for this conundrum. Lo and behold, the Fives Courts at Alleyn’s have a similar enough brickwork pattern to what I filmed at Crystal Palace. My reasoning is that it'll be about 400 times easier to run up to people at lunch and say "Hey, I need extras for this thing do you have 20 minutes spare" than dragging them for a couple hours to Crystal Palace. Only downside is I have to be cautious of framing as there's an entire field of vibrant green grass just out of shot, something obviously not present in the concrete high street of the initial location I'm aiming to emulate.
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Music Plan

Those who know me know I'm probably the least musical person in the universe so sound editing in this film is going to be one hell of a challenge. For the sake of keeping the audience positioned alongside Marco and Polo throughout, I'm planning on keeping the soundtrack parallel at all times. Something upbeat and funky for the most part. That said, I have a cool idea for the shopping sequence. For shots of Marco and Polo searching, I may accompany them with some sort of heavy metal (one of my friends loves that stuff so that's where that inspiration stemmed from), and for shots of Adria some light jazz could work nicely. Anything that gives off a 'sweet and innocent' vibe. That'll hopefully lull the audience into thinking Adria is a sweet and innocent individual, which she most certainly isn't, thus servicing the plot twist at the end. Plus the contrast could create humour if done right. And - if at all possible - a nod to Inception may be warranted. I reall
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Graphic Plan

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  Graphic Plan For the main title of the film, I’m looking for something rather playful and vibrant, I’m thinking along the lines of the title card for The Suicide Squad (2021, dir. James Gunn). Figure 1 Friz Quadrata Font Test     Marco Polo (Amasis MT Pro Black) Marco Polo (Bodoni MT Black) Marco Polo (Copperplate Gothic Bold) Marco Polo (Eras Bold ITC) Marco Polo (HP Simplified Jpan [with Bold]) After these experiments I would like to conclude that Eras Bold ITC is the most promising option – and also one of the few options that comes inbuilt to my editing software (Pinnacle Studio 24) so that means less work font-finding online. Win win.
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Storyboard

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This is where film studies and art collide - which is great for me because I literally cannot draw to save my life . Regardless - I took some preliminary photos of my actors (I casted the project too!) to base these off of because I do not trust myself to draw completely freehand.  The cast list, by the way, is as follows:  1. Marco played by Max Walters  2. Polo played by Zephyr Charles-Moss  3. Adria played by Hattie Millard  I'm pretty proud of the Adria name, too. Adrian translates as "the bringer of darkness" and, well, that's exactly what Adria is to Marco and Polo. It's not something I think I can make light of in the film so may as well do it here.  I like the look of these shots arguably too much so I'm aiming to recreate these 5 in my film. Almost everything else will have an element of 'creative license' I reckon. Like I said with the shot list, it all depends on what opportunities present themselves to me on location. It's good not to b
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Shot List

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Much more complicated than the last post with the Screenplay; and also far, far more time consuming to make. As I said with that one, this isn't set in stone, rather it's provided me with a rough look that I'm going for in each sequence. Given my location recces, I think I've got some ideas of where I can weaponise the environment to create interesting shots, but it all depends on what I feel when I'm there and in the shooting process itself.
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Alleyn's Location Recce

  Location Recce Part 4 – Alleyn’s & Townley Road For the opening sequence of the film that establishes the character of Marco, I wanted to use a school setting. Luckily for me, I basically live in one at this point. Alleyn’s was a pretty obvious choice for the location here, and since I go there 5 days every week (sometimes more), it’s quite easy for me to figure out where I aim to shoot. The few shots I want in a classroom can be shot in the English corridor (I believe the exact room number is 211) as it gets good light and is the perfect, rather stereotypical, classroom. For the part where Marco runs out at about 400 miles per hour (give or take 20), I can just use the exterior of the main building and the route to the Lodge. Finally, for the last shot of the sequence, I’ll use the bus stop at the top of Hillsboro Road. Here, the camera will track Marco from the side as he walks into the bus stop, allowing me to transition seamlessly between the Dulwich setting to the Crystal
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Sainsbury's Location Recce

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  Location Recce Part 3 – Sainsbury’s Now this is when things get interesting/extremely difficult. For the search sequence in the supermarket, I obviously need a solid location to shoot that in. Currently, this is looking like it will be the Sainsbury’s in Crystal Palace. Firstly, it’s near to the back streets from Recce Part 2, and secondly, it’s usually quite quiet. For blatantly clear reasons I’ll pick the timing of the shoot carefully, likely being early morning on a Sunday (based on research it seems this is the most sparsely populated time for shoppers). The biggest thing, really, is the permission to do this. That’ll need to be obtained a week or two before the shoot to be on the safe side. What could possibly go wrong?
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