Research into location

The easiest way to show the research that we did into location is through photographs. The only places we knew we needed to film in were in a bedroom and in a street, where we would film this what we had to research.

This is the only possible place that the bedroom scene could actually be filmed. Not the only bedroom we have access to but the only one that already looks like Blackwells 'sex lair'. Vinyl player, vinyls, guitar, bass guitar, homely oddities etc.

The same with this photo, it just shows the excellent equipment already in the shot, all perfect the mise-en-scene.

This mantel piece is the basis of our piece actually. After we completed the preliminary, we all met up here and were discussing the next piece. Looking at the amount of rubbish; the empty bottles, ash trays, pointless stuff basically, I had the thought of a camera panning over and in this messy room to show the lifestyle of somewhere, well a segment anyway. This are was perfect for little snapshots of his life, a representation of a heavy smoking alcholic being created-hopefully!

I think we wanted to film in a common, day to day area that he could be walking to work in, but also one that looked believable still active and more importantly where me and Jack could get to. This road, closeby to the other areas we liked the look of, was a good straight stretch of path where we could have some good long shot, tracking and possibly focus pulls for a more professional and also slightly distorting look.

An alleyway would have been good to film in, the noir like feel they create when a dark part of the body hits a lighter part. But in general to the opening sequence we did not think this would really create much of a sense of location and also would look to common and like something you see to often in amateur films.

This is another area we liked the look of as it was quiet yet public and also had a good archway which lead around, behind the camera, into the next photo.

This is the opposite view from inside the archway, and around the corner too the left is the next photograph. It was a good area as we could have a lot of seperate cuts all of one small area, but which would make it look much larger in scale.

This was another street that had little activity in it, but which was accessible and had a good stretch for tracking, once again.

The final place he would end up at, our home site Sewell Park! This shot would be where he walked into work, a closer shot of a doorway or entrance would show him actually entering the building but this was where we would be introduced to the place of his prey. The sign of the school, left of the picture, would be edited after principal photography to say 'The Secret Life of Tommy Blackwell", the title shot for our film.