R&P Post 21: Location Planning

Hello and welcome to my first location planning post!

For our music video we have different scenes and within the whole concept of it being a video game means that we are going to have different 'levels' within our video. Below you can see a summary of these different levels:

1. The first level will show the couple robbing a local news-agents-type shop, most likely a local off-license. 
2. The second level will be of the couple breaking into a house.
3. The third level will show the couple walking through an underpass/subway where they are robbed by a gang. Here the boy tries to defend himself and the girl against the gang but they punch him and take their belongings, with the boy falling on the floor which, in the video game, causes him to lose a 'life'. 
4. The fourth level will show the couple delivering money to people belonging to the Mafia. However, it turns out that the couple have actually tricked the Mafia people and when they open the briefcase it actually just contains a note saying something along the lines of "Ha ha! Got ya!". The Mafia people chase after the couple but they manage to escape. 

For the first level we are planning on using The Wine Leaf Off License in Streatham Vale, south-west London, because Lesley in our group knows the person who owns this off license shop which gives us easy access to film there. Below is a photo of this shop:

This shop is really the ideal location for our first level and this is the location that we are most likely going to use. 

For the second level we are going to use Destinie's house because again it is a convenient option and makes the process of filming our music video smoother. However, we are only planning to use the inside of her house and we are going to pretend that it is a much bigger and fancier house by filming one that is larger and in an expensive, up-market area. We have been doing some research into this and one road we are thinking of using is West Drive Road in Tooting:

The house in the picture above is particularly appealing to us as it is a very big house and rather grand. This would be ideal for this 'level' of our music video as we want the outside of the house to look posh and attractive as this is what attracts the couple to break into it. 

For the third level, when the couple are walking through the underpass, we have researched a few possible locations for this scene. We have found one underpass in South Kensington in central London:

This underpass is very long and easy to travel to. However, it is usually very busy and many tourists use it to access the surrounding museums (the Natural History Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum and the Science Museum are all located here in South Kensington) so it might not be the most ideal place to film.

There is also an underpass located by Waterloo Station which would be quite convenient for us to use because it is also situated very nearby to the Southbank where we want to do some filming, meaning that we could shoot both scenes in one day. Here is what the Waterloo underpass looks like: 

As well as this, we have found one other possible location for shooting this scene:

For the fourth level we want to use an underground car park or garage, somewhere that is similar to our location of level 3, as we want somewhere that looks grungy and unnerving. One location we have looked into is the car park in Golden Lane Estate in central London:

This location looks especially suited to the type of place we want for this level of our music video as it is a wide and very open space but also looks quite dark and slightly eerie.

Another possible location for this scene is the car park in Tower Hamlets, East London:

This location also looks very appealing for this level as it is very eerie and unnerving, with its damp walls and floors and graffiti which makes it look like quite dangerous. However, it is in East London which is quite far away from where my group live as we are situated in South-West London so this car park in Tower Hamlets may be slightly difficult to travel to. Thus, the car park in Golden Lane Estate might be better in terms of practicality as it is located in central London which is easily accessible to us.

However, we have also thought of using a warehouse for this level of our music video. We thought a warehouse would make an interesting location for this part of our music video because they are relatively quiet spaces and can often be quite run-down, dingy and eerie. One potential warehouse we have found that we might be able to use is one in central London owned by the TV, film and video production company Locations Works:

As a group, we think that this location would also be a strong potential alongside the dingy-looking car parks that you can see above. We like this location of this warehouse because whilst it is very open and spacious, it seems rather eerie and mysterious as well which would be great for the fourth 'level' of our music video when the couple run away with the "Mafias'" money. We are now in the process of contacting the owners of this location to ask if we would be allowed to film here.

So, to conclude we have found some strong potential locations to film at for our music video and have also decided on some of these. For our first level we have decided that we are going to use The Wine Leaf  off-license but as for the other levels, we are going to discuss the different locations that we have found as a group and make a decision from then. Our favourite location so far for level 3 is the narrow alleyway as it looks like a conventional place where someone would encounter a mob of people to rob them, and for level four, although the car park in Tower Hamlets is especially grungy, the car park at Golden lane Estate is my group's and my own favourite at the moment.

Come back again soon for an update on our location choices!