Location Scouting 3

For the final part of my location scouting I still needed to find a suitable setting for the car park and the two roads (the roadside for the monologue and the road where the father and son depart). 

Car Park

The car park was the easiest to decide on simply because I have access to many in my local area. Supermarkets, football clubs and schools all have car parks of a relatively big size, but I had to choose the one which would be the most empty, so that I could film undisturbed and not risk ruining the continuity of my film if other cars came and went in-between takes. My school car park was the obvious choice because out of school hours there would be no one using it. However my school also has a sports building that is open to clubs and members, so I opted to use one of the school's smaller car parks that is usually quieter just because it is further away. The shots below demonstrate how sparse it normally is on a weekend. 

I was very happy with this car park because some of the trees in the background could be filmed in a way that makes the narrative continuous as it leads into the Big Mead sequence in the following scene. Therefore I thought that in order to create a consistently seamless narrative an empty car park would contribute to the isolation of the characters as well as provide a suitable transition from quiet urbanisation to the rural pathway. 

Luccombe

The road where the Father and Son climb into their car and drive off is probably the most important part of my story, because it is where the Father and Dylan lock eyes for the first and only time. Therefore it needed to be quite spacious but also quite poetic so that nothing else was imposing on the simplicity of the moment. This was a difficult place to find, because it also has to look as if it could follow on from the previous scenes taking place in the Mead, which means the rural appearance needs to be continued. Unfortunately the roads surrounding the Big Mead are main roads and wouldn't be suitable for me to film there, so this meant that I had to branch out. Luccombe is essentially a coastal area with one road that leads into the more rural parts of the clifftops. It was at the top of this road where I thought would be the most aesthetic, because not only is it natural, but it overlooks the coast in an expansive and majestic way. Therefore it would contrast the crowded trees and forests of the Big Mead but still be a believable transition of location, as though the characters are leaving it behind and coming back to reality. 

Apart from hikers this road is almost never used and even when it is, the length of the road means that it is possible to spot civilians from a long way off. The trees and tall bushes make it a suitable location change from the forest of the Big Mead to the open country road of Luccombe. 

Roadside

The roadside was in my opinion the most problematic for me to find, because it needed to capture the emotional trauma of the event that has caused this whole narrative to unfold. It is also a place that both Dylan and the father visit, showing a greater parallel between the two and so the pressure was to find a place that was brutally realistic but poetically meaningful. Near Sandown Golf Club, not far off from the car park I am going to use, is a back road that acts as a shortcut between two towns. It is a road that opens up onto cycle paths and a water plant is also situated there, so I feel that is captures both nature and industrialisation in a morose way. 

The blandness of the location is something that allured me, because it feels like a depressing and forgotten place. Even though it isn't the perfect setting (for me I would've liked somewhere a little more memorable) I believe that it grounds the narrative in a way that makes Dylan's brother's death seem more meaningful due to the irony that the setting is itself meaningless, placing so much significance on it simply because of the tragedy that occurred there.  Unlike the brother, the road is decaying and forgotten whilst the memory of the brother is haunting and forever imprinted on that location.