Block 1, Episode 6, 8am, Terrance's Flat - Cardiff Bay, Cardiff
If you were ever planning on creating a web series, there are several pieces of advice I can now give you. One of these beautiful pieces of wisdom is do not try film two episodes in two days. We tried it. We did it. I’m still not sure if this was a brilliant or crazy idea.
Friday night (19th June) saw the start of the biggest weekend in the Whovians filming schedule to date: the second rehearsal for episode one (the first rehearsal had been Wednesday). We gathered our episode one cast together to run a few tests for dialogue and camera techniques before heading home for a good night's sleep in preparation for the busy weekend ahead.
6.45am on Saturday morning (20th June) came around rather quickly, getting up to go and collect various members of the cast to go to film Episode 6 down in Terrance’s flat in Cardiff Bay. Blearily we sat down and were swiftly fed croissants and coffee before starting the packed day ahead.
The day passed though very quickly and we learned a few things along the way, such as that Rob (playing Bradley) was wearing his best dating jogging bottoms and that cold tea in orange juice might make the correct cocktail colour required but it certainly didn’t taste good.
There was set up after set up for both cameras and lighting, the flat had 13 people in it, all varying their roles of cast or crew. It was an extremely busy, varied and hot day.
The morning was focused on scenes taking place in the living room (which features the previously-mentioned cocktails). Breaking at 12.30pm for an hour to get food and fresh air was a good idea before pushing on into the evening to get the rest of the episode and focusing on scenes in the kitchen.
The last scene filmed was outside the flat, in the hallway. However, after the first take, our sound engineer Andy asked whether any available cast and crew could come out into the hallway with blankets, towels and duvets to try and dampen down the echo. It's a good job none of Terrance's neighbours came out into the hallway at this point!
After 12 hours, many camera battery changes and some cat wrangling later, we were done. Wrapped. For the entire episode.
It might have been the most exhausting day for the shoot but we have had some hilarious bloopers and brilliant comic moments, including the cast singing the Doctor Who theme loudly and badly….
Make no mistake, it was an emotionally and mentally taxing day but quite frankly everyone worked very hard and was an absolute joy to work with. At 8.30pm everyone left to go home and collapse before Sunday's filming…8am in Cardiff city centre because there is no slaking in this production!