Locations scouting (Courtney)

The location for the opening scene is very important. It sets the atmosphere and it helps the audience to know where the film is going to be set. If the location is right the film will look better whereas if we don't choose the right location and we end up filming in someones garden the overall film isn't going to look very interesting.

We began with looking at the locations of a few pillboxes, as we are making a war mockumentary as well as taking the mic out of a certain aspect of history, we wanted the location to look right. Pillboxes are concrete dug-in guard posts, they normally have loopholes which allow weapons are allowed to be fired through.

The first Pillbox location we looked at was in Great Waltham, it was surrounded by some fields and it created a nice atmosphere for the film opening. However it was right next to a busy road and that would create a lot of noise when we were filming.

The second Pillbox location we looked at was in Broomfield. The field that it was in was connected to a busy road, but it wasn't that close and it was quieter than the first location. The field also contained more grass than the first location which would mean that the second location wasn't as muddy as the first.

The next location that we looked at was Pleshey mount. It used to be home to Pleshey castle and it is the remains of a Mote and Bailey castle, it is a large grassy area where we could film a lot of the film opening. It would also have the right atmosphere because of its history. Within the area there are very steep walls and that would provide and enclosed space for us to shoot the film without being interrupted.

The last locations we looked at where just normal fields. These fields were located in and around Pleshey, because Pleshey is located in the countryside it provided us with a lot of fields for us to potentially film in. However some of these fields are very muddy, and we may have trouble filming there because of that factor. But the do provide a pretty background for the film.