Chronologically, this is the third out of the three subscenes in the sequence, but we filmed it second, as we realised that it was the most complicated and most likely to go wrong, so there was a possibility of refilming.
In this scene, William has entered the backroom poker game hosted by Marcus. On entry, he is ushered to his seat by Jones the dealer, and from there continues to play out the game, slowly losing his money until his desperate bid for control on the last hand, which he loses.
Finding a location was a reckonable task, as we needed somewhere which was practical for the cast (Including two teachers, three students and one adult), but also somewhere that looked the part, or that we could convert. Another issue was that we needed space around the table, so that we could easily move equipment about to get the shots that we needed. We decided an in-school location would be best, to film on a school night in the interests of the teachers. Eventually we decided on A10, our media room. We chose A10 as when the tables were moved, it was very spacious. It also has a low level of natural light, perfect for our night scene, and is also an unusual layout, enhancing the impression that this game really is hosted in a random location.
We did recces early on to plan out what issues we would need to take into account, and covered four key points, covered below.
Issue 1: The Table
Sorting out the layout of the table was a big decision, as there were several things to take into account, including the position of players, movement of camera, camera angles, the position of the dealer, and lighting. Eventually we decided on having three next to eachother, with the dealer on the wide wide, two extras opposite, with Marcus and William on the thinner side, opposite eachother. We did this as we required them to be opposite in the interest of camera angles, to enhance the tension. This also provided a good angle for the dealer to smoothly deal out hands to all the players, also essential to the effect we were after onscreen.
Issue 2: Natural light
Natural lighting was an issue to be taken into consideration, as the other two scenes are filmed at night in true film noir fashion. We had to film straight after school and it was still light, so we needed to sort out what we were going to do to counter this. Part of this issue was taken into account in choosing the room, as there isn't much natural light anyway, and the lighting that there is is filtered in through windows in the ceiling, so they would not be in shot at any point. As we were filming in black and white to enhance the film noir style, it would be hard to tell the difference on screen between natural and artificial light, and so we decided that once edited, the lighting would simply appear to be artificial lighting on the ceiling.
Issue 3: Stylistic issues
Another thing we had to take into account were certain displays and items around the classroom which could detract from the 1940's noir style. These included classroom displays (as highlighted) fire extinguishers, various items on desks, and classroom features (projector, board etc). As we wanted our sequence to remain stylistic, we decided to take down some displays, and cover up others with sheets of sugar paper, the colour of which was irrelevant due to the black and white colourscheme. We also moved items into siderooms such as fire extinguishers, mugs, bottles, as well as everything we had brought with us. In terms of projectors and boards, we couldn't cover them up or take them down, so instead we had to try our best to avoid them in our camera shots.
Issue 4: Artificial light
Lighting was something we really wanted to concentrate on in our sequence. This is because it is a film noir sequence, and film noir is renowned for it's huge focus on low-key lighting, using it to highlight the right characters and items in the right way. We planned the player-positioning first, so we could build the lighting around them for optimum stylistic effect. We had two lights to use- A pointable bedside lamp, plus an anglepoise light. We used the bedside lamp behind Marcus focusing on William; we wanted William to be highlighted throughout the scene, to enhance the idea that he is a vulnerable character in a dangerous setting. We used the anglepoise behind William, pointing directly at the table from an elevated position, with some bouncing off to slightly illuminate Marcus. This enhanced the eerie and evil feel we were looking to achieve through lighting.
As displayed above, we proceeded to write up a rough plan of camera angles, based on the lighting, space, and positioning of characters. The original write up had too many camera shots, perhaps effective for a 15 minute introduction, but in the interests of time we had to whittle this down to a 2-3 minute scene. We did so effectively, and kept the main and strong camera shots. We have shown the progression of time through fading, non-script related shots such as sipping wine, throwing out chips etc. We also plan to have music over the top of this, to pass time within the story and skip to the final hand as quickly as possible.
Also displayed above is the deck of cards we used, carefully picked to fit within the setting, and also quite a new deck so that the dealer could perform various shuffles and flourishes, which were involved in the camera shots.
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