Location Research

Considering our film is set in the 1940’s, we need a location for our film, away from the modern way of life, like heavy duty Lorries, modern housing and clothing etc. Fortunately for us, a member of our group lives on a large sheep farm, with 200 acres of open farm land. There is no noisy road in the background, just sea and trees, which is exactly the location we need. Dover Castle in the background is also an added bonus! This is just one of our ideas.

Ideally we are looking to find a 18^th – 19^th century manor house, with a long path to the front door. This is the most ideal we have researched so far. It’s close, just outside of Canterbury, and a very cheap day out, costing just £3.50 to enter.

“The Higham Park estate can be traced back to 1320 when it was ceded to the 'De Hegham' family by Edward II. Since those early days it has been home to many important and colourful characters, including in the 1920's Count Louis Vorrow Zborowski who conceived and built the first aero-engine powered racing cars on the estate, later immortalised by Fleming's fantasy film 'Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. Higham Park has also been frequented by the rich and famous including Mozart, Jane Austen, General Charles de Gaulle and royalty.

The Fortunes of the estate declined following its use as a Hospital for a prolonged period commencing during the second World War and extending to 1981 when it was closed and estate fell into neglect and disrepair.” - http://www.gardens-to-go.org.uk/higham_park.htm

After a long period of research linked with location, after lots of travelling around, we decided upon a house in Sandwich in Guildcount Lane. We have immediate access to the house, as it belongs to Sophie’s Granny, who has kindly agreed to let us film there while she is away on holiday. It is a perfect location for our film, as everything inside the house is very dated, almost looking like 1940’s – 1950’s décor. The house is situated on a very quiet street, which makes is ideal for us to do front of house shots and establishing shots. One thing that we have had to work round, is the double yellow lines on the road outside the house. We made sure that when filming any shots at the front, that the camera was slightly high enough as to not get the lines in view. We wanted to give our film a very professional feel, where everything was perfect, and that no modern technology could get in the way. Our sandwich location is perfect, as everything was very old fashioned.

Although it was sad to move away from the rural idyll farm, we realized that there was a problem with that particular location. We had no house that fitted into the time of the film, as the farm house had modern door and window frames. The sandwich town house was alot more 1940's than that of Broadlees farm, so we decided that this would be more suitable.