Props
We actually didn't use a large amount of props last year for AS which as a result lead to the film being barely basic. We also had a very low budget and relied on equipment that the school gave us. However, this year we had a lot more specialist equipment thankfully which vastly improved our film. We implemented more money into our production this year such as the green screen and the main DSLR camera we used which made the quality so much better than the school camera we used previously.
Filming Equipment
Digital SLR Camera
Seeing as we abandoned the school camera, we had to come up with an alternative solution. We looked on Amazon and found a Canon 1200D for a good price, it came next day and we began filming straight away. The quality difference really was astounding especially for the sideline shots of our car chase. There were a lot more features on the camera for this time round too, namely the zoom and focusing were a massive help. It was also useful for us to have an automatic white balance feature; it meant that we didn't have to carry around a white piece of card with us all filming days like we had to with the school camera.
Tripod
Last year we were given school equipment that didn't particularly provide us with much quality yet gave us a lot of difficulties. The tripod last time was part of it; this time round, luckily, the school were able to provide us with a bit of an upgrade on the old tripod. Fortunately the school managed to find out another one that hadn't been used much beforehand and allowed us to borrow it for filming days. This tripod was able to extend higher and the panning felt a lot more stable this time round.
Trolley
We found a trolley for this year's project which aided us in panning and tracking shots. It was a simple piece of wood connected to wheels and had brakes attached; Luke's step dad had made it a long time ago for a purpose he couldn't even remember and he was fine with allowing us to use it for filming. It was very heavy as well as being incredibly difficult to transport between locations and so we ended up using it a lot less than we first intended. Despite this, we used it for our last scene and tried to implement it in our foot chase as much as possible. It was a cool idea that we tried to incorporate into our film and, whilst it wasn't used as much as we wanted, it was still a useful addition to our equipment.
Green Screen
The main point of focus for our whole film came from the green screen. It was the biggest pain to use as well as being perhaps our most ambitious feature this year so we had to try and get it right. It was very important to use lighting with our green screen without there being glare or anything that might interfere. Despite the difficulties, it was a lot of fun to work with really. It only took about 10 minutes to set up each time and we had to use coat hangers to hang it up because the clamps ended up not actually coming with the rest of the stationary necessary for hanging up. We also had to use weights (bricks) to anchor down our green screen so it didn't move all over the place whilst we were in the car filming shots. As you can tell, it was far from a professional standard but, then, we are merely students so perhaps that's to be expected. We tried to make the most of what we had to work with and I'd say it went well considering we didn't have the full set of necessary equipment to use the green screen to it's full potential.
Props
Rucksack
The bag was obviously a massive part of the story because it is essentially what the story revolves around. We had to make sure we had a bag that was deep enough to store items of some kind (money in this case more than likely) as well as being easy to carry whilst running and plain enough to look like it could really be used to hide or smuggle something. My half-broken school bag was an option but then I remembered I had a new and identical bag at home (waiting for me in case my actual school bag broke properly). Naturally, this seemed to be our best option and, so, I suggested it and we went forward with it. As you can see, it's got no major logos on to ruin the image of the bag, it's plain enough to seem like you could hide something in it without attracting too much attention and its handles are perfect for easy carrying whilst running and throwing.
Poker Set, Table and Chairs
The Poker idea came to us fairly late on in the brainstorming session when we came to thinking of our plot but it quickly became quite an important part of our story. It's commonly a good technique films use to build tension and we decided we needed that to kick start our film off instead of erupting into action for the full 5 minutes. Not only this but we thought it'd be a good way to show that we were dealing with a foreign group of people without having to incorporate pointless and tedious exposition later on in the film. Fortunately David, our main actor, had a spare poker set lying around that we could borrow and it ended up being fairly pivotal to our opening. These cards did however have Poker Party written on them so we had to make sure that this image wasn't focused on too frequently.
Vehicles
Antagonists Car - Audi
For our film, we needed two vehicles, one for the antagonist and one for the protagonist. The car for the villain, though, needed to be a lot more powerful and sleek looking considering it was supposed to be belonging to a mobster-type guy. Luke's step dad had an Audi that was basically perfect for the role and his step dad was happy with driving it for our car chase scene so we made use of it for the time it was available. It really was powerful and fun to be inside whilst we filmed interior shots.
Protagonists Car - Astra
The other car we needed had to be of a lesser quality and wasn't necessarily required to be a fast or powerful car. Fortunately for us, there's an abundance of low quality "first cars" at a sixth form school! Among these was my Toyota Aygo and our friend's Mini but we decided that there was probably a limit to how bad the car could be and how novel it could look. In the end we went with one of our friend's cars (Vauxhall Astra). The point with this car was that it looked at least half decent, wasn't too slow and we could re-shoot interior footage with my mum's car if we needed to because she also had an Astra... spoiler alert: we ended up needing to do just that!
Interior Shots Astra
As we got further along with our filming schedule, we noticed it would be more and more difficult to get hold of the Astra being used in the film for other shoots. This was because it's owner (a friend named James) was usually very busy with either his own schoolwork or extra-curricular work and so we'd need to use a different Astra for the interior shots. The reason it had to be an Astra was so the continuity remained consistent with the logo on the steering wheel of interior shots. Luckily my mother has an Astra and was free after school every day so we could use my Grandad's garage and set up the green screen with my mum's Astra and film whenever we wanted.
