Filming completed: success is a struggle

Having spent probably more time than we would have liked filming our two minute opening sequence, as of Tuesday 29th March we have finally compiled all of our desired clips comfortably before the end of filming deadline. However this did not come without any setbacks, as we soon realised filming would be a lot more difficult than first thought.

One of the most difficult decisions for our group when we were deciding on filming locations for our opening sequence was where to shoot our first scene. The difficulty was that we needed a house to shoot in that was fairly plain and simple to fit in with our character's persona. Our initial idea was to film at our director's (Yemi Moses) house as it's a short bus ride from Loreto College, so very accessible, and we would not have to depend on anyone else outside of our media group. However, after some deliberation and research we decided on another location, a small modern flat on Ormsgill Street in Hulme. This location was perfect as it reflected our character's persona perfectly with it's basic design and plain, simple features. After we had finished shooting the scene we thought we had obtained our desired footage. However, poor natural lighting in this house ruined some of our key shots and we soon realised that this house was not suitable after all. So, after some discussion we returned to our original idea to set the first scene at Yemi's house. This turned out to be very successful and we are currently in the process of editing the shots taken at this location.

During the filming process we had a number of minor problems. For example we narrowly avoided a continuity problem when our lead actor Jordan pointed out that we'd already filmed the closing scene of him getting on a train with a small rucksack and were now about to film the opening scene of him packing a much larger rucksack.

Filming locations: Post production

Our opening sequence is about a lost character in search of rejuvenation, deciding that the time has come to move on. For this we needed to find locations around Manchester that would fit into this idea. One of the main group decisions was that we wanted the scene to finish with our character walking down a train track away from the camera which would reinforce the idea of solitude. Our first plan was to visit the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester town centre as we knew that they had a disused train track (pictured left) on their premises. Unfortunately, due to health and safety we were not allowed on the track on our first visit and after calling them days later, we then discovered that our finances would not allow us to cover their extortionate hourly rate of £250. After this set back we then stumbled upon Deansgate railway station (pictured right) and thought of an alternate idea; our character getting on a train rather than walking down the track. Our experience was a much happier one at Deansgate station as we were allowed to film with no trouble and at no expense.



We began filming our first sequence at a friends house in Hulme, Manchester. We found that the mise en scene in this location suited our idea as it is modern, plain, white and quite empty supporting the theme of 'moving on'. This location was easily accessible allowing us to have the maximum amount of time to film our project. However, when we reviewed the footage we had obtained here we realised the natural lighting in this house had ruined some of our key shots. And after much deliberation, we decided to move the location of the first scene to our director's (Yemi Moses') house (pictured above left). We completed filming here on Tuesday 29th March after a very successful shooting session.


For our third and final location we needed to find an area that suited the idea for our character's flashback. For this, an area of grassland where dog walking would be permitted was our target location. We found an area that fitted these conditions which was close to college and the actor's house in Hulme. The final setting for the flashback was a disused field (pictured right) between Ormsgill street and Otterburn Close. This site was ideal as it was large enough and fairly deserted which allowed us complete freedom for filming. We also needed to make sure that we were far enough away from any busy roads as one member of our cast was only four years old. Despite early problems concerning working with a young actor and an animal, after a decent period of filming we acquired our desired shots.

First filming session

Today we have thought of a production company name for the film opening - 'Beanhole production company'
We have also come up with a name for the film opening -'Blue Line'

Today is the first day of filming and we will be filming our flashback scene.

Production of Preliminary

Today we re-shot the preliminary task, re-taking all of our shots including the eye-line match, shot reverse shot and all other shots in our shot list (posted previously). These new shots are the shots we will use in the final preliminary editing process. We will begin the editing process next week when we have access to the editing suite.