Location/Recce - Doddington Place Gardens

During the Easter break, we decided to do a location recce to help us work out what we were going to film and to give us a feel for the environment and how it might look on camera. Initial first impressions were that the location was very visually impressive. Surrounded by fields and stunning views, we knew that it would look very attractive on camera which would make it appealing for the audience. The grounds were very spacious with some very natural, open looking stretches combined with some more sculpted sections with shaped hedges and paths. Once you are inside the gates, there is a large path which takes you into the main section. On the right, there is the privately owned Victorian mansion. This is not open to the public and so we will not be filming very much of this unless it is part of some wide establishing shots. In terms of what we want to film, we have to decided to incorporate lots of garden cutaways as they were so beautiful as well as including the ponds and rock pools as this will add plenty of good scenery to the documentary. In terms of the birds in the Hawking Centre, they were all kept in one location, so we plan to film them in their home as this will allow us to get really close to them and get some good shots without them moving around too much. One thing that was particularly handy with the bird enclosure was how it was laid out. The birds are all in one room with their own perches, however, they are not behind bars and so you can get really close to them for some very detailed close ups. I think that the location was a great choice because of the scenery which I think will give the documentary a real lift and make it visually exciting. The subject matter is also very interesting which should add to the appearance of it. In terms of accessibility, it is just outside of Sittingbourne which is very suitable to get to for filming and won't require too much travel on the day/s. I have attached some photos of the house and gardens that I took whilst visiting to give us plenty of ideas when deciding on our shotlist.