Alice- Flat Recce

When writing the script for Alice, Brad had a party scene in mind that is made up of one long tracking who that encompasses the whole scene in one go. This scene was written with my flat in mind and as such it was no issue for me to do a recce, however, a recce needed doing all the same so I did that and this is my response to said recce.

The first aspect that Brad wanted was the long alleyway outside that she walks down as approaching the party. This is sparsely lit and with the shot being one take we cannot adjust the camera to compensate and thus we must fix this issue with the usage of lighting. The best way I can see to do this is to put a red head in my room and shine it out onto the path, that way the path will be lit up and wont look unnaturally lit up.

Then there is the courtyard type area, this will be littered with extras to make the party look full and vibrant, as the scene is almost made or broken on the feel of it and if it looks empty and not like an actual party then the scene falls flat and falls apart. The lighting of this area wont be an issue as there is a strong security light which will light the space fine and is a white light so it looks quite good as opposed to an orange one which would look awful. Another issue with this is that it is a large space so it may be difficult to look full but we have a fairly large amount of extras who have said they will come along so I am hopeful that this will not be a problem at all.

Then there is the kitchen and living room area, this has the opposite issue to the courtyard in the sense that it is a relatively small space and as such it will be an issue for it to not be overcrowded but have enough people that the scene makes sense in the context of the bad guys not noticing Alice straight away. With regards to lighting, we wont ever see the kitchen and as such we can use the plugs there and put up a light to light the living room and it wont be an issue to hide at all. There will also have to be some moving of furniture for this scene to maximise the space so that we can comfortably move everyone around and give the scene an organic party feeling. Although, this is partly achieved with the sound within the scene which is down to the sound designer.

The last section to think about is the corridor leading  to the rear exit of the flat. In this section Alice pulls a man to her to cover herself from her pursuers, after she does they walk past and the camera turns to see her leave. Lighting this scene shouldn't be too problematic as there are three rooms (including my own) which we can put lights in to shine out and light the corridor. The main issue here is that there isn't much room for the camera, actors and the sound op to turn around and move fluidly around each other. However, the key point is that there is room so with practise this is no problem, they will be able to move around each other no problem. This then concludes the recce for my flat, which will be used in the party scene of the film and it should be relatively easy to get permission for as I live there.