Location research

These are 3 potential locations I am thinking of using for the main setting of my film opening. All of these locations themselves are perfect for what I want to do, but there are pros and cons to all of them, which are listed below.

Location 1

Location 1 is good because, as you can see from this picture, it has no cover and so the lighting is varied across different parts of the location, which will not only allow for interesting/aesthetically pleasing shots, but it will also mean I can experiment with mood-reflections in lighting, etc. It's also fairly quiet so there won't be many disturbances whilst on set. It'll be very easy for the actor to get there, since it is in my town (and in the town my actor lives too) - this is a huge positive because it means if I don't get it filmed all in one day, or if I watch the footage back and it's not quite what I wanted, I can very easily go back and re-film it. The cover is not only good for varying light - if the weather isn't particularly good, it means there is cover for both the camera and the actor (if it's raining), and if it is very cold there's a building just behind it which serves hot drinks. This means we can stay out for a longer period of time as we won't have to go off location to eat etc. However, there are a few cons to this location too. It being small is a good thing, because it means not many people are there, but also it means that around the time the trains come the people that are there may get in shot by accident. Also, there aren't many trains passing through, and so it will require careful time planning and a lot of waiting to get the specific shots I want.

Location 2

Location 2 is good because it has a lot of platforms and has a really nice 'authentic' look to it. It also has plenty of cover in case of bad weather, and since it's partially indoors, the weather isn't something that will be particularly obvious in the final cut. However, I wouldn't use this location unless the others weren't available, as after going on a recce there I found that trains don't actually pass through it, they reach the end of the line here. This is a problem for one of the shots I want to use, so I will have to be careful with a number of things if I want to still capture that shot. Also, since it's central to the city, it'll probably be quite busy and so people will probably get into the background and ruin the isolated feel I want to create. This location is a bit more tricky for my actor and myself to get to, as it's around 25 minutes away from where we are both based. Therefore, if anything went wrong we would have to wait until a time when we both had a whole day free to go and film there again, as it's not somewhere we can just go to for an hour or so.
  

Location 3

Location 3 is very similar to location 2 in the way that trains don't pass all the way through, and so again that will require careful thought and editing to get a certain shot in. However, I know from being there in the past that it is often fairly empty, and it has the flat, grey, isolated look that I wanted. Therefore, this is my backup location as it isn't as good as location 1, but has a number of things over location 3. However, this location is the worst of the three proposed ones in terms of where it's situated. It takes around 50 minutes to get there, and so would require a lot of driving, weather planning (since it has no cover if it starts to rain), and maybe even two days of actually filming to get everything done in the way that I'd like.