Block 1, Episode 3, 6:30pm, Cardiff City Centre
This evening shoot was for Episode 3, filming Steph's office scenes.
Now, you would think that finding an office to film in would be quite easy. However, trying to find an office that we could film in proved to be one of the more tricky logistical issues we've had to deal with in the shoot so far. Luckily, my employers were happy for us to use my office space so a huge thanks to Catherine Collins and all at The Open University in Wales for this.
In all honesty, the office scenes are not the most dynamic scenes we'll ever film. They are designed to enhance the real world feel of the episode and the truth is real life can often be mundane. However, with some imaginative camera angles and some montage work, these scenes will look anything but mundane. Although, one of the longest shots to set up was to get a clear shot of the office clock!
We were working with Victoria and Jennifer Higgins, who plays Steph's workmate Amanda. Both Victoria and Jen were on form, bringing an extra dimension to what is quite functional dialogue. We even got our sound engineer Andy and our second camera operator Craig (who joined us on the Episode 6 shoot and has been invaluable ever since) to make cameos as Steph's workmates in wide shots.
We were filming scenes set on different days, so this meant that both Victoria and Jen needed multiple costume changes. We filmed the scenes in sequence (starting from Day 1 and going to Day 5) and, by the end of the shoot, we had covered everything we needed and even had a bit of time to record additional cutaways and wide shots, giving the editor more material to work with.
By 8.50pm, we were ready to wrap for the evening and declare a series wrap for Jen. A massive thank you to her.