Setting and locations - Church

A key location I have always thought of including in a media project is a church at Laindon, Basildon, Essex. I had always thought it had an eerie, creepy feeling to it, yet it still looked a pleasant place to be. When I first found out about the A2 coursework of making a music video the first thing that struck me was to include this church because of its appearance. It is at the top of a very steep hill and graves at the front were starting to slide down as the earth eroded. This has been touched upon now and has been corrected but the appearance of the graves still has a sinister resemblance. I was informed by a teacher that a church had already been used for a music video in previous years so I will have to be careful in order to not replicate their work.

This is a view from Google maps. From this picture we can see how big the church and graveyard is on realistic terms. This is a great place to be creative with our shots and still have the freedom to choose from a variety of angles. The fact that it is based on top of a hill it will be very effective to use a lot of low angle shots.

This photo shows the path leading to the church door. It is perfect for our character to run through as it is lower than the ground its self. All sorts of connotations can be from this, for example, the characters inability to realise what is happening can be shown from the eerie surroundings.

Again this is a great place to frame a shot. The camera could be placed on the floor within the pebbles looking up at the guitarist who is playing in the door way. This can resemble how the character is trying to be connected with the church and questioning the fact there is a nun following, which will be happening in our music video.

This is the front of the church. Once again another great place to represent the characters state of mind and uncertainness. All of the shots in this scene will consist of the same colours, a vibrant green from the grass and the grey from the stone. It cannot not be changed but I will work with lighting in post production to produce the most effective piece of work.

The next series of photos show how the ground has eroded causing the graves to collapse and move. This is ideal for our music video as it creates a unique selling point. Using this location will help us make the video as professional as possible and escape using the common locations in A-level video productions, like housing estates and bedrooms. This specific part of the church will enable me to be as creative as I possibly can, it seems ideal to have close ups on this feature with the character or guitarist in the background, especially during the solo of the song. Panning around the hill will also be very appealing to the viewer and I will be able to establish the location that I have chosen. I will have to be careful with the sign because if this is included in the video it will ruin the shot and suspensions created by intense editing.

The following pictures were taken to show a variety of options when choosing the perfect shot to establish the mood of the song. To fit in with a rock music video we will need to use shots to fit in with the expectations of the genre. Creating a ‘haunted’ and ‘eerie’ mood we can also express the humour within the genre and style of the song when the nun has followed the character every where in the video.

Bradley Hart