Directions Unit :- pre production reflection

During pre-production I have had trouble getting hold of the hall. Even though it was booked, I was told by the manager that they had booked the hall for someone else. So now I had to find another place to film the party scene. This meant re-arranging the actors and extras and I was not ok with having them on hold with an unknown date, time and location. I had 2 weeks to arrange somewhere to film which was affordable and avaliable in the weekend since I had booked the camera out for the weekend.

I researched Holiday Inn in Bexley, Marriott in Bexleyheath, Hall Place in Bexley, Sidcup Place in Sidcup and Danson House in Bexleyheath. I found Hall Place, Sidcup place and Danson House on a website called filmfixer. This was a site where you could arrange with an agent a location you want to film and process the payment through them. The agent will contact the manager of that chosen location and fix the time, place and date. Once payment has gone through you just attend and someone will be waiting for you on the day. Pretty straight forward.

I did speak to Marriott but they had a few restrictions about bringing in food and drink, even for props. Also the price of renting the space was out if my budget. I spoken to Holiday inn and the receptionist was very helpful. The space was affordable and all I was waiting for was the confirmation of the manager. After chasing them up a few times because time was not on my side, I had an email saying that the manager would not allow filming to take place.

At the same time I was talking to filmfixer about Sidcup Place, Hall Place and Danson house. The prices were charged per hour. I knew I could afford a couple of hours, so I decided it's more important to shoot the outside of the building and could shoot the interior elsewhere. 

So now that I have arranged a location for the exterior scene, I was desperate to find a interior for the party. My last resort was to ask my Sifu (Kung Fu Master) if I could borrow his school and I dress it up. The walls are white but I thought I could dress the interior and bounce lighting off the ceiling to get soft lighting onto the actors. So this would be a great place to shoot. Sifu allowed me to use his school for free, so that saved me some money for the location. Now, I can finally tell the extras the location, date and time of the shoot.

In the hall there was a tiny problem, there were chinese words on the wall where I wanted to shoot. So I had decided to go and buy a frame and some curtains to hang over to cover the walls. Problem solved.