R+P Post 15: Our planned filming location, set design and props

Our planned filming locations were...

1. Alex's house
2. Arnos Grove Train Station
3. Southgate Train Station
4. Oakwood Train Station
5. Arnos Grove Park
6. The Steward Studio- In the Latymer School

Although having this many locations was difficult it was essential that we kept the story going which involved changing locations. 

We chose Alex' room in order to film the hacking scenes as we wanted the hacker to be doing his work from his bedroom alone. Alex's room had access to a laptop as well as enough space to light the scene thus it proved perfect to shoot in. We decided our set design for Alex' room would be quite plain and bland. Having posters, toys and clothes around the room would make our character seem like an ordinary teenager. We did not want that, instead we went for a more professional sleek approach with just a table, laptop and wardrobe in the room.

 We chose the train stations as it screams the London setting and thus connotes to our audience really well that our sequence is based in London. Also we felt that having some of our sequence in our train station would add to the dark/tense vibes we were going for. Train stations also heavily indicated that our character was travelling somewhere which was essential to our plot. Arnos grove train station was also easily accessible to the whole group as well as in close proximity to both Alex' house as well as Arnos Grove Park. This made the whole shooting process easier especially in the early morning. Set design for the train station was not really an option as all train stations have a universal theme. This was good as it allowed our set to become instantly recognisable to the audience.

Arnos grove park was another location. It was easily accessible and only a few minutes walk away from our previous locations, Alex' house and Arnos Grove station. This park was also a nice setting to shoot in especially in the arches. The arches allowed us to have an aesthetic to our sequence that wasnt present anywhere else. Also since we were outside filming in London the arches provided shelter if it rained. This was a big deal as we were carrying around very expensive equipment. Set design for the park was fixed as we couldn't really change the park. However we chose to stay in the area where the arches where as they gave a really nice look with the camera. We were able to film a few "arty" shots with arches which was amazing.

Our last location was the Seward Studio located in our school. The back of the steward studio has a lot of sound equipment and screens which allowed us to use it as our "conspiracy organisation base" It allowed us to imitate a high tech vibe perfectly. Lighting was also good here as we could play around with the blinds and use whatever lighting we wanted be it artificial or natural. For set design We closed all the blinds and used artificial lighting to really create a dark atmosphere. 

Seward studio set

In terms of props we didn't really need anything other than the actors and outfits. The only two props we needed were two toy pistols and two phones. The phones were easy to obtain as we just used the actors own ones. This helped establish connections between the characters when needed. The pistols were given to use by the media department. We had to be especially careful when using these in order not to spark any confusion or hysteria with the public.