Initial Thoughts
Once we decided on what the genre was for our film, the first thing we need to decide on is where we are going to film. Getting somewhere is going to be tricky, as we cannot go into an actual prison or mental hospital, and finding a realistic area will be difficult, however we have some ideas of where we can film, where it will look authentic, as well as not putting anyone at risk whilst filming.
Churchdown School Academy
Our first thought is to get some filming done here at school, at the moment we are in the middle of having building work done, this means that scaffolding is placed inside and out. We would use the scaffolding as prison bars, we could do this, by manipulating the camera angles, making the audience think we are in a prison, and not a school. However this does have problems, being the area to film is dangerous; despite us not being on the actual site, as well as this, we are unable to get a decent amount of shots, as the scaffolding only stretches across one small section of the school. Although we are considering putting shots of a warden's office and staff room for the guards. We could use both an office at school, as well as the sixth form canteen for these scenes should we consider to use the school to film.
Little Dean Jail
Around our area is this tourist attraction; a former jail turned museum. This would be idea to film, as it still has its original design, meaning it still looks like a prison from the outside. This would be good to gather shots to put in the final edit. However the problem with filming here is that we would only be able to get establishing shots from the outside, as the inside of the prison is now a tourist attraction, in being a museum. The museum isn't filled with artefacts to do with the prison, but rather other memorabilia that has little relevance to the history of the building.
HMP Gloucester
The building that we most want to film in however is the disused Prison that lives in our city. With it being closed down in 2013. This means that the building no longer houses criminals, and is open to the public, upon request, and we are waiting to hear back from them. This would be a really good place to film, as we will have actual cells, and an actual layout of a prison. This means that our Mental Hospital will look authentic, and it means that we won't have to settle and manipulate the camera angles to trick our audience. With our killer being a cannibal, it would make sense that he would be in high security hospital, and with HMP Gloucester being a former category B prison, it has most of the features that the hospital will have. The prison has a historical value too. We are basing our killer on Fred West, and with himself being reprimanded in HMP Gloucester, adds the believability that a high security prisoner could be kept there.
Photos taken during Risk Assessment